Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:
Everyone is corrupt, but you, right Rob?
I am the lead person saying that we should clean up the corruption, Pink.
There are thousands of our fellow community members who have expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted.
Numerous academics have told me that they would like to feel free to publish honest research.
Numerous practitioners have told me that they would like to feel free to give honest investing advice.
Even the Wall Street Con Men have evidenced a desire to do honest work.
Bogle taught me what I needed to know to see that the Old School SWR studies were in error by including honest material in his book.
Bernstein warned people years ago that anyone who was giving thought to using one of the Old School SWR studies to plan a retirement would be well advised to “FuhGedDaBouDit!”
Larry Swedroe tried posting honestly at the Bogleheads Forum before I even came along and went back to posting dishonestly only after Mel Lindauer had him banned.
Scott Burns’ first thought when I wrote him about the errors in the Old School SWR studies was to file an honest report to his readers. The first words of his response e-mail to me were: “You’re right.” He then asked for my telephone number so that he could do an interview in preparation for writing an honest article on the errors in the Old School studies.
Wade Pfau obviously was engaging in honest work for 16 months and loving every minute of it.
Brett Arends at the Wall Street Journal was obviously being honest when he wrote that the Wall Street Con Men “are only telling half the story” and that there is zero reason to believe that long-term timing doesn’t work and that people who have fallen for the trickery of the Buy-and-Holders have lost large amounts of their life savings as a result.
There are plenty of honest people around and I am confident that most of the people who will be sitting on your jury will be honest people who have lost large amounts of their retirement savings as a result of your 12 years of internet trickery and abuse and deception.
I am the leader of those seeking to open the internet to honest posting and to bury the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage 30 feet in the ground, where it can do no further harm to humans and other living things. But there obviously are thousands and thousands of experts in this field who are looking forward to the day when you Goons are sent off to prison and all the rest of us bring this economic crisis to an end and bring on the greatest period of growth in U.S. history.
I think it would be fair to say that even you Goons would play it very, very differently if there were a way to go back to the morning of May 13, 2002, and have a do-over.
We cannot have a do-over.
You can come clean prior to the next crash and I will be happy to do what I can to get your prison sentence reduced a bit.
Or you can take your chances with seeing what happens if you don’t come clean until after the crash.
I’ll be rooting for the best possible outcome for you in either event, my old Goon friend.
Rob
I think we differ on what “honesty” means.
For purposes of these discussions, I define it as “correcting the errors in the retirement study posted at your web site when you become aware of them.”
I can’t say that I possess a whole big bunch of openness to consideration of the validity of other definitions of the word as it is used in these discussions, Pink.
That said, I certainly wish you all good things.
Rob
For the purposes of these discussions, honesty is when you can back up your statements with facts and data. As to your definition, Wade already addressed you to tell you how you misunderstand the SWR issue and how you were given answer answer to your question on the first day.
The 12-year cover-up is a temporary answer, Pink.
The announcement of your prison sentence is the final answer.
It’s the final answer that counts.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
There is no temporary/permanent issue. It is merely your obsessions that are driven from hurt feelings that people kicked you off their boards because of your behavior. Either find a way to deal with your obsessions or seek help. Your 12 year rantings have failed to resolve YOUR issues.
Take a look at your board and your personal results. It is constant complaining about people you call goons and how you feel wronged. meanwhile, most people treat you like a foolish novelty while they continuing to succeed with their own financial strategies, while you have struggled. The vast majority of people reading the boards have spent time to study the issues. They are not stupid. They have seen what they need to see. They have and can make their own decisions. They choose not to let someone make unsupported statements by someone that has an agenda and pushes it regardless of the impact on a community.
In short, get over your hurt feelings, Rob. You are important in your mind only.
They are not stupid. They have seen what they need to see.
I have never met a stupid Buy-and-Holder, Pink. An argument can be made that they are too smart. They have so much confidence in their mental abilities that they have concluded that all investors are always 100 percent rational. It’s just not so. There is 33 years of peer-reviewed research SHOWING that it is not so. Stock investors ignore the emotional side of the stock investing game at their own peril.
Ignoring the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research doesn’t make you stupid. It makes you EMOTIONAL. It makes you human. It makes you flawed.
In some cases it makes you guilty of financial fraud. In some cases it makes you a felon. In some cases it puts you on a path to earning a long prison sentence for yourself.
I obviously wish it were not so.
But my job is to report what I see take place before me on my computer screen. And that is what I have seen for 12 years.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors, Pink.
Rob
There is no temporary/permanent issue.
I think it would be fair to say that we are going to find out together who is right re this one sometime over the next few years.
Is that not so, Pink?
Rob
It is merely your obsessions
I am obsessed with defending the right of every community member to post his honest views.
I am obsessed with learning what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works.
I am obsessed with bringing the economic crisis to an end and telling millions of middle-class investors what they need to know for us to enter the greatest period of economic growth in our history.
I am obsessed with defending my country, a country that has given me many blessings, when it is under attack.
No apologies.
Rob
that are driven from hurt feelings that people kicked you off their boards because of your behavior.
I am the first person who worked up the courage to “cross” Mel Lindauer and John Greaney (and my good friend Jack Bogle?) by posting honestly on the SWR topic.
I am a bad, bad man, Pink.
Everybody knows it too.
That’s the thing.
Rob
It is constant complaining about people you call goons
It is the goonishness that resides within us all that is responsible for 70 percent of the risk of stock investing, according to the peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with Wade Pfau.
I am supposed to not talk about the element of the investing project that is responsible for 70 percent of the risk?
Huh?
Rob
The vast majority of people reading the boards have spent time to study the issues.
Study them where, Pink?
Wade Pfau has a freakin’ Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton. For the 16 months in which we worked together he was asking me ABC -type questions about stock investing over and over and over again. He didn’t know the basics!
Why?
Because the freakin’ textbooks they use in the Ph.D. program at Princeton HAVE NOT BEEN CORRECTED to reflect the “revolutionary” (his word) findings of Nobel Prize Winner Robert Shiller.
All the study in the world won’t help you when the thing you are studying is textbooks that are 33 years out of date, Pink.
And Wade was on his way to getting those textbooks corrected. The 16 months in which he worked with me were the happiest 16 months of his life. He saw that he was on the way to winning a Nobel Prize of his own.
That’s why you and Lindauer and Greaney and Bogle threatened to destroy his career if he continued doing honest work.
I’m telling.
That’s how it changes.
That’s how we get those textbooks corrected.
That’s how we bring this economic crisis to an end.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob
They have seen what they need to see. They have and can make their own decisions.
But they can’t bear the thought of permitting the thousands of community members who have expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted to see what THEY need to see.
And they can’t bear the thought of permitting those thousands of community members to make THEIR own decisions.
I wonder why.
Rob
by someone that has an agenda and pushes it regardless of the impact on a community.
The Wall Street Con Men have been covering up what the peer-reviewed research in this field says for 33 years now.
My agenda is to expose their corruption.
I believe that the impact on all of our communities will be 100 percent positive.
I’m not asking your permission. I am telling you what I am going to do.
Hang in there, old friend.
Rob
You are important in your mind only.
That explains the death threats.
And the demands for unjustified board bannings.
And the tens of thousands of acts of defamation.
And the threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.
Makes sense!
Rob
I challenge you to show us the death threats. All of them, or as many as you can reproduce.
Also, with regards to the board bannings, most people who are familiar with the story agree that the board bannings were justified.
Could you also show us some examples of the acts of defamation against you?
Finally, please show us what makes you think that Wade Pfau was threatened to be fired from his job.
Thanks in advance!
Every article I add to the site relates to the issues you are asking about here, Sensible. Read the articles!
I pointed out the errors in John Greaney’s retirement study on the morning of May 13, 2002. The Buy-and-Holders had two paths open to them at that time. They could correct the errors and we could all begin learning about Valuation-Informed Indexing, which is Buy-and-Hold with the errors corrected. Or they could engage in a cover-up, putting the country in an economic criss and putting themselves in prison cells.
I voted on the morning of May 13, 2002, for correcting the Greaney study.
I vote the same way today.
I will vote the same way 12 years from today.
We either tell the truth about what the 140 years of historical return data tells us about how stock investing works or we lie about it.
I prefer telling the truth. Sue me, you know?
I wish you all good things, old friend.
Rob
Rob,
You are a legend in your own mind.
The obsession I spoke of comes our loud and clear by your barrage of posts. While most bloggers spend time posting about subjects people are interested in, you spend your timing whining and complaining about people that kicked you off the boards due to behavior.
I have been reading your blog for the past 9 months or so and thus far I have seen nothing to substantiate the claims I just asked you to substantiate.
The obsession I spoke of comes our loud and clear by your barrage of posts. While most bloggers spend time posting about subjects people are interested in, you spend your timing whining and complaining about people that kicked you off the boards due to behavior.
There are thousands of community members who expressed a desire to learn about what the peer-reviewed research says, Pink.
The Buy-and-Holders obviously don’t want that to happen.
So we have seen death threats, demands for unjustified board bannings, tens of thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.
We have laws against financial fraud. So we can easily get these people sent to prison. Then the rest of us get to enjoy the benefits of living at the best time in history to be a stock investor.
But lots of people don’t want to see their families threatened or their careers destroyed. So they hold back.
Will they continue to hold back following the next price crash?
I say “no.” You are hoping that the answer is “yes.”
We will find out together sometime over the course of the next few years.
Is that not a fair summation of where things stand?
Rob
I have been reading your blog for the past 9 months or so and thus far I have seen nothing to substantiate the claims I just asked you to substantiate.
You’re a Goon, Senssible.
You lie in virtually every comment you put forward.
Are you telling a joke?
Rob
Rob,
What sensible means is that we just have your accusations and no direct proof. Where are the specific death threats? Where are the specific job threats? In this country, people are considered innocent until proven guilty.
You are going to get a trial, Pink.
That’s how the system works. It’s understood.
Under the law you are considered innocent until proven guilty.
But I cannot say that I personally believe that you are innocent without aiding the 12-year cover-up. If I do that, I am guilty of a felony myself and I will be going to prison as well. No thanks.
The only thing to do is to tell people about the cover-up and to urge them to take action.
I do that every day. I have sent tens of thousands of e-mails re the Wade Pfau matter.
Is there something that I could do that I have not done?
I am clean.
We’ll see what happens following the next price crash.
Fair enough?
Rob
Yet again, you have no proof and only accusations and threats of your own. At the same time, you confirm that you are still stalking Wade Pfau.
I’m certainly doing everything in my power to get the story of the Silencing of Wade Pfau heard by every investor alive on Planet Earth today.
I’ve told you that I love my country. What would you expect?
I believe that we will see the story of the Silencing of Wade Pfau on the front page of the New York Times sometime shortly following the next price crash.
Within six months from then, we should be able to bring the economic crisis to an end and to begin the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history.
I can live with that, Pink.
You will be living in a prison cell at the time. But I believe that there is some small part of you that would like to see this great country survive our current troubles. So I believe that there is some small part of you that can live with it too. I sure hope so.
In any event, please know that I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.
Rob
I’m not joking, Rob. I’m a pretty regular reader of this blog and I have not seen you substantiate any of the claims that I asked you to substantiate above.
I do have one more thing for you to substantiate. You called me a frequent liar. Please post your evidence, Rob.
My best wishes to you, Sensible.
Rob
Absolutely no content, just the same old handful of tired delusions, obsessive-compulsively regurgitated day after day after day. Koko the gorilla has more depth.
Are you willing to serve my prison term for me if I agree to engage in financial fraud as a means of getting you Goons off my back, X?
If not, why should I do it?
And, even if you said you were willing to do so, I wouldn’t believe you.
So I still wouldn’t be willing to walk that dark path.
Do you think that you might be able to find somebody else?
Rob