Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:
If by “hiding under the bedcovers,” you mean that I no longer spin my wheels on the internet, you are correct. I’ve found other pursuits that I enjoy more.
I’ll explain what I meant, Wab.
Please understand that I do not mean to direct these comments particularly at you. You did what lots of people did. I am expressing something that I feel very deeply when I use those words. And it sounds like I am taking a dig at you. But that is not really my intent. My intent is to express amazement at a phenomenon that I have seen play out with many different people at many different times.
It is a horrible, horrible thing to get a number wrong in a retirement study or in a retirement calculator.
If I learned that I had done such a thing, I would be greatly embarrassed. I would IMMEDIATELY fix the error. I would apologize to the people whose lives I had destroyed. I would thank the person who brought the error to my attention for saving me further embarrassment.
That is obviously not the way in which either Greaney or Sholar reacted.
I was stunned and amazed at how they reacted.
I was also stunned and amazed at how YOU (and many others, to be sure) reacted.
I think of Greaney as a friend. I think of Sholar as a friend. I think of you as a friend. I think of those many others as friends.
I have learned things from you all. I have had laughs with you. I have had good times with you all. I have been through lots of experiences with you all. That to me equates to thinking of you as friends.
I do not like to see my friends go to prison. The thought is horrifying to me.
Greaney and Sholar (and those who have posted in “defense” of them) have been engaged in a massive act of financial fraud for many years now. They know that their study and calculator get the numbers wildly wrong. They know that people have used the study and calculator to plan retirements. And they have both engaged in a massive cover-up to keep people from finding out about the errors. That’s an act of financial fraud that makes anything that Bernie Madoff did look tiny and insignificant in comparison.
So I think it is fair to say that a good number of my friends from the old days will be going to prison following the next crash.
I HATE that. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it.
So I naturally spoke up against the cover up. And I naturally asked all my friends to ALSO speak up and to get John’s and Bill’s lives back on track.
I was scared too. I knew precisely how ruthlessly vicious the Greaney Goons were from my dealings with them at Motley Fool. I know that Bill was scared. And I presume that that’s your story too.
I do not understand how you could continue posting at a board that had become a corrupt enterprise.If you didn’t feel safe speaking out, I feel that you should have moved on then.
The phrase was intended to be a reference to your lack of courage. I think that’s a big part of this story. People are scared to death of Mel Linduaer and John Greaney and for perfectly good reasons. But I don’t get it why they don’t see that Lindauer and Greaney lose all their power to intimidate us once we agree to join together in protecting ourselves from them.
If I had agreed to post dishonestly, I could not have lived with myself. That’s me. There’s no requirement that you be me. But I cannot understand how you can do what you did instead. I am simply making that point, getting that out on the table, getting that out in the open.
Your comment that you moved on suggests that things got even worse after the ban. I cannot say that I am surprised. When the good guys reveal that they don’t care about a board, the bad guys take over and it dies. How could it go any other way?
It’s good talking to you again after being out of touch for a number of years. I do think of you as a friend, Wab. I naturally wish you all the best of luck with whatever investing strategies you elect to pursue.
Sometime in 2014 I plan to start a discussion board at this site. I am looking for 10 people who will commit to putting up one post every day during the launching stage of the board. If you are interested in being part of that, please let me know. I would love to have you with us.
Take care, man.
Rob
X Files says
I do not like to see my friends go to prison. The thought is horrifying to me.
Most people do not obsess over things that horrify them. Especially things that have not happened and almost certainly never will happen. Goodness, what a tragic way to go through life.
That’s assuming of course that you aren’t simply saying “horrifying” when you mean “extremely appealing”. Either way it’s tragic, just for different reasons.
Rob says
I find it horrifying, X.
I had lots of good times with John Greaney. He put up a notice for newcomers to the Retire Early board saying that the first thing they should do is to read all of my posts because they were the best stuff he had ever seen on the subject of early retirement. That was an exceedingly kind thing to do. That meant a lot to me. There was a poster who attacked me when I published my Secrets of Retiring Early report. John came to my defense. On the day that I discovered John’s site, I copied every article on it and put the copies in a binder so that I could refer to those articles again and again and learn from them. When my wife picked me up at work that day, I spent the entire ride back going on and on about this exciting site that I had discovered. When I first began work on my Passion Saving book, I wrote an e-mail to John asking him to co-author it with me (he sent an e-mail back saying that it wouldn’t work out because every person who knew him well considered him a cosmic “asshole” — that’s John’s word).
Are you saying that I shouldn’t care about how this individual has destroyed his life? I never even imagined that such a thing were possible back at the time when I first began posting on the internet. It’s horrifying. The word fits.
And of course we are not just talking about John. It is horrifying what has happened to Jack Bogle, who is a hero of mine. It is horrifying what has happened to Bill Bernstein and Scott Burns and Larry Swedroe and Wade Pfau. It is horrifying what has happened to J.D. Roth and Carl Richards and Mike Piper and on and on and on. It’s horrifying what has happened to you. Absolutely 100 percent horrifying.
And it is of course absolutely 100 percent horrifying what has happened to the millions of middle-class investors whose lives have been destroyed because we have spent 12 years of our life energies debating whether honest posting should be permitted rather than making use of honest posting to learn things that would make our lives richer in about 100 different ways.
The most horrifying aspect of all of this is the opportunities we have pissed away. We are the luckiest generation of investors ever to walk Planet Earth. We are the first generation of investors who knows what it takes to reduce the risks of stock investing by 70 percent while increasing returns DRAMATICALLY. And we instead tolerate 12 years of insanely abusive behavior that puts us in the Second Great Depression while causing the people engaging in the abusive behavior to spend the last few decades of their lives in prison cells. If that ain’t absolutely 100 percent horrifying, what the heck would you say fits the bill?
You know how horrifying this is? It’s up there with the mounds of dead bodies you see in the Ken Burns’ documentary on the Civil War. We are talking about so vast an amount of human suffering BROUGHT ON FOR NO SANE REASON WHATSOEVER that the human mind can barely contemplate that such a thing might ever happen much less that it has in fact been playing out before all of our eyes for 12 years now WHILE MOST OF US KEPT IT ZIPPED AND THEREBY INSURED THAT THE HUMAN SUFFERING WOULD GROW AND GROW AND GROW AND GROW.
Horrifying it is. Please spread the word all over the internet that is my sincere take re this one. I stand by the word “horrifying” 100 percent.
As for the idea that I find any of this ugliness even a tiny bit “appealing,” why the f have I spent 12 years of my life trying to bring an end to it if I find any of it even a tiny bit appealing? Who is the one who put forward a post on November 23, 2002 urging Greaney’s removal from our community? Were you one of the 25 community members who endorsed that post? If not, why the f not? Motley Fool wanted to see that the entire community supported his removal. You could have helped us all bring it to an end nearly 12 years ago. Did you do your part? Or did you lack what it takes even to push the freakin’ recommendation button (something Greaney would not even know about because recommendations are anonymous)?
Is your personal cowardice “horrifying” enough, X.? Ya think? Do you think you are going to feel good about yourself for the rest of your day because you couldn’t work up the courage to push a recommendation button when the fates conspired to make that the minimum responsibility you owed to your fellow community members, who had given so freely to you of their knowledge and experience and love?
I don’t “obsess” over it, X.
My job is to solve the problem. I do not have a magic wand that can take us back to the morning of May 13, 2002. If I did, I would wave that sucker in the air like crazy. Yes, I get it that you Goons would play it differently the second time if that opportunity presented itself. We don’t have that opportunity. It’s fantasy thinking to contemplate it. We live in a world where time moves only forwards and never backwards. Responsible people accept reality and cope with it. To accept reality and cope with it is not to “obsess.”
The most compelling thing that I could possibly do on the substance side is to co-author research that shows millions of middle-class people how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent and to have that research published in a peer-reviewd journal. I have already done that. Years ago. And, yes, surely enough, the response of a good number of long-confirmed Buy-and-Holders was to tell me that this research was causing them to open their minds to new ideas, this research was what they needed to give Valuation-Informed Indexing a fair hearing for the first times in their lives.
The response of you Goons was to threaten to destroy the career of my co-author in the event that he continued publishing honest research or continued posting honestly on the internet about the honest research already published under his name. So I think it is fair to say that further explanations of the substantive realities is not going to swing this thing. You go to prison if millions of middle-class investors learn the realities and that’s all you care about at this point. For you, it’s in for a dime with felonies, in for a dollar with felonies. You will commit any felony you have to commit to ensure that millions of your fellow citizens never learn what they need to learn if we are to as a society bring this economic crisis to an end.
I have a PATRIOTIC DUTY to overcome The Buy-and-Hold Mafia. All of us who are aware of what has been done to us as a nation of people over the past 12 years have that patriotic duty.
How do we get people who know they are going to prison if the truth comes out to understand that they must permit the truth to come out all the same?
We extend the hand of kindness to them. We let them know that we will do anything in our power to help them get those prisons sentences shortened to whatever extent it is possible to get them shortened given the circumstances that apply today.
What other options are open to me, X? If you have a better idea, let’s hear it. If not, please stuff your foul-smelling “obsess” garbage where it belongs, in that big, fat bottom of yours where you keep all your “defenses” of the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies.
Not this boy. Find someone else. It’s not my particular cup of tea. I can’t go for that. No can do.
I post honestly or I post not. Non-negotiable.
That policy works just fine in every field of human endeavor other than stock investing. There is going to come a day in the not-too-distant future when it is going to work just fine in the field of stock investing as well. I intend to see to it, long Goon prison sentences or no long Goon prison sentences.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors in any event.
Rob, the Determined and Loving and Honest and Optimistic One
The Pink Unicorn says
There you go again Rob being all emotional. There is no need to worry. No one is going to jail. Those mentioned will all go on being successful and I am sure you will maintain your status quo.
Rob says
I have emotions, Pink.
I don’t apologize for it.
I care about the millions of middle-class people who are suffering because of this economic crisis.
And I care about the Wall Street Con Men, from whom I have learned many, many wonderful things.
And I care about you Goons, who were all friends of mine in the days before I “crossed” Greaney by posting honestly on the SWR topic.
And I care about all the wonderful insights we have developed together over the past 12 years and about getting word about them out to all the millions of people who very, very, very much need to know how stock investing works in the real world.
Please take good care.
Rob
X Files says
“Why the f ..? Personal cowardice? Big fat bottom?”
If you had a point in that tirade it was drowned out by your rage. Your abuse wounds me not. Here’s a quote I’m fond of: Never make the mistake of arguing with someone for whom you have no respect.
In that light, later, dude.
The Pink Unicorn says
Well now I am sure you feel better knowing that all these people will not be going to jail. I have even more good news. They also won’t have to pay out any of those legal settlements. They will all be able to keep there well deserved profits by following a long term successful buy and hold strategy versus I’ll gotten gains Fromm some kind of short term get rich quick scheme.
This must be a banner week for you in that you have gotten this good news as well as the Shiller news that he is holding stock in this market.
Rob says
Are all of us Normals to pretend that we believe that all of you Goons do not carry around Big Fat Bottoms, X?
I mean, come on.
Not this boy.
No can do.
Rob
Rob says
My best wishes to you, Pink.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
Rob,
What determines a person to be what you describe as a “normal”?
Rob says
We have had thousands of our fellow community members express a desire that honest posting be permitted at all of our boards and blogs, Pink.
Those people are Normals.
Most of them follow Buy-and-Hold strategies. Most of them are interested in hearing about Valuation-Informed Indexing. But most of them are skeptical. It’s something new. It hasn’t been endorsed by the majority of experts. So they hold back. That’s Normal.
The Normals do not put forward death threats. They do not demand unjustified board bannings. They do not advance tens of thousands of acts of defamation. They do not threaten to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.
They are okay with learning that other people have views on investing other than their own. It might surprise them. It doesn’t upset them to the point where they engage in felonies to block these other people from being heard. They figure that things will work themselves out over time if everybody just keeps his or her emotions under some sort of reasonable control.
Rob