Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:
If the intelligent people don’t agree with you, then that means you will only have stupid people agreeing with you.
The intelligent people DO agree with me, Deleted.
I didn’t discover the errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies by myself, Deleted. I suspected on my own that there was something missing in those studies. But I wasn’t able to put my finger on what it was until I read Jack Bogle’s book. Bogle said in his book that Reversion to the Mean is an “Iron Law” of stock investing. If Reversion to the Mean is an Iron Law, there is obviously zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate could be the same number at all valuation levels. Hence, my May 13, 2002, post asking whether we had gotten this whole SWR thing wrong.
It’s not just Jack Bogle.
Bill Bernstein knows that Buy-and-Hold is a big pile of smelly garbage too.
So does Scott Burns.
So does Larry Swedroe.
So does Michael Kitces.
So does Wade Pfau.
So does Warren Buffett.
So does Robert Shiller.
So do lots and lots and lots of others.
There is no lack of intellectual knowledge in this field.
Our problem is a lack of courage.
There’s tons of money to be made pushing Get Rich Quick garbage. And Buy-and-Hold is the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick scheme ever concocted by the human mind.
What we have to decide is — Is making a smelly buck in the short-term the only thing that matters?
Or does personal integrity have some value too? Does learning new things about the subject matter have some value? Does being straight with your readers and clients have some value? Does recovering from the economic crisis have some value? Does entering the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history have some value? Does keeping your friends out of prison have some value?
I have zero problem with the goal of making a buck, Deleted. I expect to bring 500 million of the little green guys into my life on the day my settlement offer is accepted.
But I don’t buy the idea that making a quick, smelly buck is the ONLY thing that matters.
Honesty matters. Yes, even in the investing field. Yes, I really do believe that.
And, yes, I really do believe that the Wall Street Con Men will all feel 50 times better about themselves once they feel free to share their true beliefs about how stock investing works.
Get Rich Quick is the past. The first true research-supported strategy is the future.
I am sure.
Take care, man.
Rob the Sure
Anonymous says
The only smelly garbage around here is what you put on your website. You spend very little time offering up anything of value and substance. Instead, you spend all your time bashing other people because of your butt hurt. Get over it and move on.
Rob says
Yeah, Yeah.
My best and warmest wishes to you, Anonymous.
Rob
laugh says
I don’t agree with this iron law. It has been true in the past under certain conditions and in certain markets but this does not make a law.
Rob says
Thanks for sharing your thought re this one, Laugh.
Rob
Trebor Martin says
Rob
Are you actually ever going to post new content? Or is the plan to post previously posted comments on other posts until you run out of comments?
And what about that new book? I recall you taking a sabbatical of sorts from the blog a while back to work on it because it contained critical information. Any news? Or are you content to continue to slander Wade and blame your failures and shortcomings on others?
Rob says
I post links to new column entries for my Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Week site on a weekly basis, Trebor. That’s new content. I intend to return to writing more Guest Blog Entries at other blogs after I get caught up with a number of Special Projects now on my plate. That will be more new content.
The premise of your question is that the texts of my comments here and at Goon Central re the 11-year Campaign of Terror against our board and blog communities (led by Mel Linduaer and John Greaney — and Jack Bogle?) are not “new content.” I couldn’t possibly disagree more. We are at the 99-yard line. We have five unique calculators. We have the endorsements of thousands of our fellow community members, including hundreds of big names. We have over 200 podcasts. We have over 100 long articles. We have hundreds of thousands of discussion board posts. We have the research that I co-authored with Wade Pfau showing millions of middle-class investors how to reduce the risks of stock investing just by tuning out the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage pushed so relentlessly by the Wall Street Con Men and their internet Goon squads. We have all we need to bring the economic crisis to a quick end and to bring us all to the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history.
All but one thing!
We haven’t yet seen the announcement of your prison sentence!
Until you Goons are safely put away in cages, people like Jack Bogle and Larry Swedroe and Wade Pfau and Bill Bernstein and Scott Burns and lots and lots of others will remain AFRAID to share with us their very sincere doubts about whether a Buy-and-Hold strategy can ever work for a single long-term investor. WE NEED TO HEAR THOSE PEOPLE SHARE WITH US THEIR SINCERE DOUBTS, Trebor. That’s the missing piece of the puzzle. People don’t want to hear that some fellow whose only claim to expertise in this field is that he figured out how to get stuff posted to the internet has doubts. They want to hear that Old Saint Jack has doubts! Nothing could be more clear.
So that’s where we need to focus our energies. And that’s the topic that I examine in most of the comments from this blog and from Goon Central that I post as blog entries here. So there’s plenty of important content in those blog entries.
In any event, I have blog entries of that sort lined up until early March. I now have a huge pile of responses to my e-mail campaign re the threats made to Wade Pfau that I need to catch up on. So I will turn to those when I am caught up with the comments re how we inspire action re your prison sentence.
It’s a little hard for me to imagine ever getting caught up with that stuff. If I ever DO get caught up, there are two types of blog entries that I have been thinking of doing for a long time that I will probably turn to. I have hundreds of e-mails that readers have sent me asking questions about Valuation-Informed Indexing and my responses to those questions. I think it might be helpful to people to post those as blog entries. I also would like to do a long series of posts reporting on the results of runs of the various calculators.
I don’t expect to get to the reader questions or the calculator runs anytime real soon. But my guess is that we will eventually get to them, if not prior to the beginning of your prison sentence then perhaps a little after it begins. So long as those posts are helpful to people when then come out, I will be happy.
I think it would be fair to say that they will be helpful to a lot more people after your prison sentence is announced and Jack gives his “I Was Wrong” speech than they would be if I were to put them out while the Campaign of Terror is in progress. So I have naturally elected to hold them off until I get caught up on the stuff that relates more directly to your prison sentence.
Make sense?
Rob
Rob says
My book on the realities of stock investing (“Investing for Humans: How to Get What Works on Paper to Work in Real Life”) is obviously going to get a lot more marketing support after we have opened every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and other critically important investment-related topics than it would get during a time-period when all of the Big Shots in this field were afraid to post honestly about their sincere beliefs on stock investing. For one thing, I will have a $500 million settlement from the Wall Street Con Men to help publicize it. For another, I will be appearing at many events with the Big Shots in this field as part of the effort to rebuild the economy we destroyed with the reckless and relentless and ruthless promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies. Those events will give me a great opportunity to have lots of industry Big Shots offer powerful, public endorsements of my work. That’s how you sell millions of books, my Goon friend.
I’ve wrote a first draft of the book a number of years back. I believe that it will take me from six months to a year to have a polished version that meets my standards in hand.
I don’t recall too much about the sabbatical you refer to. I took a sabbatical from posting at Motley Fool to write my book on money management strategies (“Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work”). It may be that I took a sabbatical to write the first draft of the investing book as well, there have been so many things going on during the 11-year Campaign of Terror that I just don’t have clear recall of that detail. In any event, it certainly seems a better strategy to me to publish the book after the Ban on Honest Posting has been brought to a total and complete stop. It’s pretty darn hard to persuade people to buy a book that you cannot talk about! And the entire book is about the goonishness that we all carry within us that is the source of pretty much all stock investing risk. When as a society we give ourselves permission to cope with our inner goonishness (which is what draws us to Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick strategies), we as a society make a huge leap forward. The book explains what we need to do to make the jump and outlines what investing strategies will be like on the other side of The Big Black Mountain.
I have of course never once in my lifetime slandered my good friend Wade Pfau and I of course never in 11 billion years would consider doing such a thing. I was honored to work with my good friend Wade for 16 months on the most important peer-reviewed research that has been published in this field in the past three decades. I will continue to urge that he be given a Nobel prize for the role he played producing that amazing research. I of course expect to be working with Wade again and I of course expect to see our partnership extend for many decades into the future. I of course will continue to do everything that I possibly can to persuade enough people to take effective action against you Goons so that the rest of us (including Wade) can post our honest beliefs about investing on the internet without fear of what you Goons will threaten if we “cross” you by making reference to the 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research showing that valuations affect long-term returns.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, Trebor.
Rob
Rob says
and blame your failures and shortcomings on others?
I certainly blame the economic crisis (largely, not entirely) on the internet Goons who have put forward posts in “defense” of Mel Lindauer and John Greaney, Trebor.
I have my name on the most important piece of peer-reviewed academic research published in this field in the past three decades. That research shows millions of middle-class investors how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent. I think it would be fair to say that we are the luckiest generation of investors ever to walk Planet Earth. I think it would be fair to say that, had Motley Fool removed John Greaney from the Motley Fool board back in June 2002, as I advised in an e-mail that remains in my files in a safe deposit box to this day, that there would not be one expert in this field recommending Buy-and-Hold strategies today and we would all be achieving financial independence many, many years sooner than we ever imagined possible during the Buy-and-Hold Era.
I certainly believe that, the sooner your prison sentence is announced, the less damage you will have done to millions of investors and to public confidence in our economic system. Thus, the sooner your prison sentence is announced, the shorter it is likely to be.
I work to bring about a quick announcement of your prison sentence from the time I wake up in the morning until the time I go to bed at night, without taking too many breaks for other activities. Is there anything else that I could do?
I think it would be fair to say that it is YOU who needs to begin taking actions to help out old Trebor. Rob Bennett is on the case and has been on the case for a long, long time now.
In any event, I certainly wish you all good things regardless of what investing strategies you elect to pursue.
Rob
laugh says
Long story short, Rob has created a situation in which he cannot move forward or backward and will remain in this bizarre circular pattern of behavior until he croaks.
Rob says
Backatcha, my old friend.
I naturally wish you all the best things that this life has to offer a person.
Rob
Trebor Martin says
Rob
You should consider yourself fortunate that you are insignificant otherwise the people the you have spent so much time and effort defaming would be suing you.
Rob says
There’s an obvious risk if the Wall Street Con Men file a lawsuit against me, Trebor.
A lawsuit brings attention to the 11-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies.
A good number of the Wall Street Con Men go to prison if that cover-up is widely exposed.
So it’s a big-time loser for them.
I will of course be letting lots of bloggers and journalists and policymakers and academic researchers know about the failure of the Wall Street Con Men to bring lawsuits against me after my years of posting honestly on the ongoing cover-up. Lots of people are scared of the Wall Street Con Men today. But as the opportunities to make huge amounts of money by posting honestly re the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research become more and more enticing to more and more people, and as the unwillingness of the Wall Street Con Men to bring lawsuits against the fellow who discovered the errors in the Old School SWR studies becomes more and more known, those fears will dissipate. Then the floodgates will burst open and we will shortly thereafter see honest posting on scores of critically important investment-related topics at hundreds of different discussion boards and blogs.
In short — Bring it on!
Or don’t.
But please understand that you will be called out on your failure to bring it on if you don’t.
My best and warmest wishes to you, Trebor.
Rob