Set forth below is the text of a comment that one of the Goons recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
The difference is that Todd states his opinions and they are just that. The rest of us have opinions as well. With you, there is a strong agenda and you want to be the center of attention, have everyone agree with you and then to be considered some kind of financial expert to the level of someone like Bill, Jack, etc. the fact remains that you have been proven wrong time and again and this has resulted in your display of ongoing bad behavior. This behavior has been mentioned time and again, yet you persist. As such, there has been no choice but to deal with you in order to restore some level of community versus have each site filled with “hocomania”.
People have tried to reason with you, but that has never worked. You are looking for the whole world to change, when perhaps you should consider what you are doing wrong.
All of that is true, Rob. You need to deal with it.
There are actions that need to follow the expression of some “opinions,” Anonymous.
On the morning of May 13, 2002, I expressed the “opinion” that the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies got the numbers that millions of people were using to plan their retirements wildly wrong. I put the word “opinion” within quotation marks because there really was no opinion about it. Either the studies contain adjustments for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins or they do not. I checked numerous times before putting up the post. Thousands of others have checked in the 12 years since. Not one person has ever identified a valuation adjustment in those studies.
That’s because there isn’t one. To say that it is merely my opinion that the Old School retirement studies contain no valuations adjustment is the equivalent of saying that it is merely my opinion that the moon is not made of green cheese. I have never actually visited the moon to check for myself. And it might even be said that there was a time when reasonable people could believe that the moon was made of green cheese. But the days when reasonable people could believe that are long gone, as are the days when reasonable people could believe that there is a valuations adjustment in the Old School retirement. Too many people have checked on this matter for honest people to maintain that it is a matter of mere opinion as to whether there is a valuations adjustment in those studies or not.
This matter is settled. There is no valuations adjustment in those studies. Those studies get the numbers that millions of people use to plan their retirements wildly wrong. Those studies have caused millions of people to suffer one of the worst life setbacks imaginable. Those studies should have been corrected within 24 hours of the time the error in them became public knowledge and anyone who puts forth efforts to extend the 12-year cover-up is thereby participating in the greatest act of financial fraud (a felony — prison time) in the history of the United States.
Now —
There are some things that I say (things that I say as a result of the exploration of the realities that I engaged in as a result of my witnessing of the efforts of the Buy-and-Hold Mafia to cover up the errors in the Old School retirement studies for 12 years) that CAN fairly be said to be matters of opinion. A very, very, very important one is my claim that it was the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold investing strategies for many years after the peer-reviewed research in this field showed that there is precisely zero chance that such strategies could ever work for even a single long-term investor that served as the primary cause of the economic crisis.
The case for that is rock solid. Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller said in a book published in March 2000 that there would be an economic crisis by the end of the first decade of the new Century unless the errors in the Buy-and-Hold Model were corrected, and, sure enough, we saw that economic crisis begin in September 2008. Years before the economic crisis began John Walter Russell calculated the dollar value by which stocks were overpriced in 2000. The number is — $12 trillion. Shiller showed in 1981 that every dollar of overvaluation is a dollar of spending power removed from the economy in the days following the beginning of the secular bear market that inevitably followed every secular bull market. It is obviously impossible that economy could see the loss of $12 trillion of buying power and not collapse. So we know the cause true cause of the economic crisis.
But the case for the claim that it was the promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies that caused the economic crisis is not quite so clear as the case that there is no valuations adjustment in the Old School retirement studies. I think it would be fair to say that there is at least a tiny bit of opinion present in that one.
But the fact that there is a tiny bit of opinion (as well as a mountain of rock-solid evidence) backing my claim that it was the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies that caused the economic crisis does not justify the tactics that have been employed by the Buy-and-Hold Mafia to block public debate of this matter. The fact that there is a tiny bit of opinion present in this claim does not justify death threats and demands for unjustified board bannings and tens of thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.
This is a question that much be debated by the entire nation. We need to know what caused the economic crisis. We need to know what caused ALL FOUR of the economic crises that we have suffered since 1870 (the record is crystal clear in showing that it was the promotion of Buy-and-Hold investing strategies that caused all four economic crises — the big difference this time is that this is the first time that the Wall Street Con Men have caused an economic crisis in which there was 33 years of peer-reviewed research showing that that is what they were in the process of doing at the time they advocated Buy-and-Hold “strategies”).
We all have a right to know why millions of middle-class people have lost their jobs. We all have a right to know why millions of middle-class people are in the process of suffering failed retirements. We all have a right to know why tens of thousands of entrepreneurs saw their businesses (and their Life Projects) fail. We all have a right to know why there are millions of people today losing confidence in the ability of our political system to address critically important matters put before it (both the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the Tea Party Movement arose in the wake of the massive loss of middle-class wealth brought on by the Buy-and-Hold Mafia’s Campaign of Terror against our board and blog communities).
I don’t put words forward just for the sake of putting words forward, Anonymous. I put words forward for a purpose, to enrich the lives of the people reading those words. Todd Tresidder and I do NOT do the same thing. Todd Tresidder and I are doing VERY , VERY, VERY different things. There is no dispute about that whatsoever. And I AM dealing with it by calling Todd out on his b.s. and by pointing out to him that he is participating in this massive act of financial fraud by failing to call out the Buy-and-Hold Mafia on its b.s. as I do.
Todd knows that the Old School retirement studies get the numbers wildly wrong every bit as much as I do. He has told me so on numerous occasions. Todd wants to make a buck more than he wants to cone to the aid of his country when it is under attack. In ordinary circumstances, there is nothing even a tiny bit wrong with wanting to make a buck. These are not ordinary circumstances. If Todd cannot see himself to going beyond just expressing an opinion and taking some ACTION to protect his country from this attack, that’s on him.
I love the guy. I always will. But I also love the millions of middle-class investors who are seeing their lives destroyed by this massive act of financial fraud. I will always be true to Todd. I will always tell people about the massive amounts of intimidation that were employed by the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads to keep people like Todd from telling the truth about these matters and I am fine with it if the people of the United States see fit not to send him to prison for his participation in this massive act of financial fraud as a result. But I am going to see to it that those millions come to understand why we all are suffering from this economic crisis and why their retirements are failing and why so many boards and blogs have been burned to the ground or ethically compromised. It is for the people of the United States to determine the length of Todd Tresidder’s prison sentence following the next price crash, my job is just to tell the tale fully and fairly so that they can make an informed call.
I will do my job. You have my pledge re that one, Anonymous.
And then I will let it go.
If the people of the United States decide that Todd should have a long prison sentence, I will be sad. Because I love the guy and I think he has a huge amount to offer us all. But I won’t say that that judgment is a wrong one. This is the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States. The Buy-and-Hold Mafia has caused a huge amount of unnecessary human suffering. We have laws against financial fraud to protect us from this sort of thing. People have within them a need to see justice done and it would not be unreasonable for people to demand long prison sentences in a case of this nature. I will bow to the will of the people of the United States re this matter, even if I do not entirely agree with it.
My personal view is that, yes, we do need justice. But we also need mercy. My view is that we need to demonstrate our understanding of that in both the civil and criminal trials. Todd obviously has a debt to pay to the millions of people whose lives he helped to destroy. But Todd also showed a great deal of courage when he put up that long article at his site pointing out the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies in painful detail. That doesn’t seem like such a big deal today when there is a universal acknowledgment that the Old School SWR studies got all the numbers wildly wrong. But Todd was saying that the Old School SWR studies got all the numbers wildly wrong when it was not yet cool to say that the Old School SWR studies got all the numbers wildly wrong.
I am not doing what Todd Tresidder is doing, Anonymous. Going to prison following the next price crash is not on my bucket list. So I would be grateful if you would help spread the word all over the internet that Rob Bennett is following a path very, very, very different from the path that Todd Tresidder is following. Todd is out to make a buck. I am out to save my country from the effects of the greatest act of financial fraud in its history.
No apologies.
None whatsoever.
I am PROUD of the 12 years of work that I have put into the project of saving my country from the crimes of the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads.
That’s my way of “dealing with it.”
I’ll let you in on a little secret. There is no one on this planet who will be happier to be free to post honestly following Bogle’s “I Was Wrong” speech than my good friend Todd Tresidder. I KNOW this is true. It’s not just my opinion.
Please take good care, Anonymous.
Rob
Hocomania running wild. You should be ashamed of yourself.
If you don’t like it that I am not willing to commit a felony and put myself at risk of landing in a prison cell, you are free to wait until the next price crash comes and see what happens, Anonymous.
I will not go there. Not in 12 years. Not in 12 billion years.
My job is to get your prison sentence reduced a bit, not to add me to the list of those going to prison.
I naturally wish you all good things regardless of what investing strategies you elect to pursue.
Rob
To a Buy-and-Hold Goon, the word “hocomania” signifies “posting honestly re the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.”
Yucko.
Not this boy.
Please try to find someone else.
Rob
I have a funny feeling that posting honestly re the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field will be all the rage following the next price crash.
But I love my country. So I naturally believe that it will come through for us all.
In other words, I am biased.
No apologies.
Rob
To a Buy-and-Hold Goon, the word “hocomania” signifies “posting honestly re the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.”
Nope. Hocomania signifies many things, but not that. Below is my humble attempt at a definition. Perhaps you will kindly let this comment stand so that your other readers (the plural being optimistic) can enhance this list.
a) Post walls of text full of grandiose claims, while consistently dodging direct questions.
b) Responds to any criticism with puerile passive-aggressive threats of prison sentences.
c) Wails about board bannings while deleting the vast majority of comments posted to his own site.
d) Completely ineffective but brags about his wonderful future of fame and fortune, while taking no action towards that end, or even explaining any remotely plausible path to that end.
We’ve lost 33 years of progress.
We know what works today. We have the peer-reviewed research confirming what our common sense tells us.
Get Rich Quick is a loser. It has been a loser for 140 years running.
We have laws protecting us against those engaged in financial fraud. For good reason.
We are the luckiest generation of investors ever to walk Planet Earth. And yet today we are all enduring an economic crisis. Huh?
I think it would be fair to say that Jack Bogle himself wishes that he could turn back the clock to 1981 and walk to the front of a large room and say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong” and thereby get everything on the right track.
I cannot turn back the clock for my good friend Jack. But I can tell him that, the sooner he says those words, the sooner we all stop moving backwards and start moving forwards.
I love the guy and I want what’s best for him and I think it would be fair to say that staying within the confines of the laws of the United States is what is best for him.
I wish you well, X.
Find someone else for help with the financial fraud garbage. I am not the right fellow for that particular job.
It’s not a close call.
Rob
“This matter is settled. There is no valuations adjustment in those studies. ”
Absolutely — to both statements. It is so difficult to find anything either tangible or truthful in your painfully long screeds, so it’s worth pointing out such tiny nuggets, whenever they can be found.
Rob, for the thousandth time, let me try to gently nudge you towards sanity, and perhaps even a fruitful future:
Once, long ago, steam engines ruled the earth for train locomotion. While that was underway, there came along diesel/electric power. Let us pretend you alone had the franchise for diesel electric at that moment in history. You alone thought it up, you designed it, you built a working prototype, you perhaps even patented it. Perhaps you felt, with the strength of a religious zealot, that your way — the diesel/electric way — was surely the way of the future, dooming steam to become the relic we now know it to be.
Question: would a workable way to promote it, to foster the transition, to encourage adoption be more likely to be:
a) An attack on steam as unscientific, ungodly, an evil con job, a 100% unworkable method that could never transport a single passenger or package to anywhere (though people used it every day for decades with apparently wonderful and expected results), a method promoted by nasty bigoted horrible people bent on destruction, who were harassing and threatening you, a smelly approach that needed to be buried 100 feet underground… etc, etc, etc,
OR
b) To outline the workings of diesel/electric with specificity, clarity, and brevity. To then to illustrate it’s function by using it yourself in demonstration. To develop and then promote early adopters who had similar results to your own. To focus solely and exclusively on YOUR approach, on IT’S benefits, via POSITIVE-minded and directed activities?
To be even briefer still: Why not put down your anger, your pain, and your raging ego, and instead simply try to focus on learning truth and then (if you feel the need) promoting that truth; instead of dedicating all of your energies into attacking others, and what THEY may or may not chose to do with their own freedoms and ideas?
Briefer still: If your ideas had merit, they would be adopted of their own accord.
Backatcha, Anonymous.
If Buy-and-Hold has merit, defend it in civil and reasoned interactions with Valuation-Informed Indexers.
I don’t believe that Buy-and-Hold was developed by people with evil intent. I think it was developed by smart and good people with wonderful intent.
The death threats get in the way of positive interactions.
So do the demands for unjustified board bannings.
So do the tens of thousands of acts of defamation.
So do the threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.
We all want the same thing — a smart and safe and simple way to invest in stocks. Put all the abusive stuff away and we all get it.
I am the one speaking out against that stuff. I have been since the morning of May 13, 2002.
You don’t want to give that stuff up because you don’t want to go to prison. I get that loud and clear. What am I supposed to do about it? I can’t change the laws of the United States. I can’t change the Post Archives. I have offered to do everything I can do short of criminal acts of financial fraud to help you out. I have no running room until you come clean re the financial fraud stuff.
Briefer still: If your ideas had merit, they would be adopted of their own accord.
If your ideas had merit, you never would have advanced a single death threat or a single demand for unjustified board bannings or a single act of defamation or a single threat to get a single academic researcher fired from a single job.
My ideas would have taken over the world a long, long time ago if it were not for the money and power backing your ideas. Money and power have prevailed in the short term. But the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research is going to prevail in the long term. And, when that happens, those who have engaged in criminal acts that were covered up because they were engaged in on behalf of people holding great money and power will be going off to serve prison sentences.
Or at least that’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters.
I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investing strategies you elect to pursue, Anonymous.
Rob
“There are actions that need to follow the expression of some “opinions,” Anonymous.”
No, there is nothing that says actions are needed. You have an opinion, to which many (including Wade Pfau) have explained why you are wrong.
If you applied your reasoning to your own site, you would be obligated to change most everything you have posted. Instead, we are all free to have our own opinions.
a) An attack on steam as unscientific, ungodly, an evil con job, a 100% unworkable method that could never transport a single passenger or package to anywhere (though people used it every day for decades with apparently wonderful and expected results), a method promoted by nasty bigoted horrible people bent on destruction, who were harassing and threatening you, a smelly approach that needed to be buried 100 feet underground… etc, etc, etc,
There’s another aspect of this that jumped out at me upon reading your words, Anonymous.
Electric engines were indeed a huge advance over steam engines, just as Valuation-Informed Indexing is a huge advance over Buy-and-Hold. But there is a particular problem that comes up in making the case for VII that often causes a lot of friction and that did not exist when those promoting electric engines were making their case.
The thing that makes VII so wonderful is that it calls for the exercise of price discipline (long-term timing). Buy-and-Holders say that price discipline (long-term timing) is a bad thing. So Buy-and-Holders actually DISCOURAGE the thing that the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field shows to be the key to long-term success.
You put a lot of nasty words in my mouth in your comment. I do not hate Buy-and-Holders. I LOVE Buy-and-Holders. I do not say that Buy-and-Holders are bad people. I say that they are good people. I do not say that Buy-and-Holders are dumb. I say they are smart. I do not say that Buy-and-Holder are evil. I say they made a mistake.
There is a big difference between what you say I say about Buy-and-Holders and what I say I say about Buy-and-Holders.
I do say that a good number of Buy-and-Holders have committed financial fraud in their efforts to defend Buy-and-Hold. That’s obviously a very, very, very bad thing.
But I obviously say that because I care about my Buy-and-Hold friends and because I want to persuade them to STOP committing financial fraud.
There would be no Valuation-Informed Indexing but for the foundation built for it in earlier years by the Buy-and-Hold Pioneers. I obviously am very proud of the work I have done over the past 12 years developing the VII concept. Well, guess what? There would be no VII but for the work done by the Buy-and-Holders before I came along.
The Buy-and-Holders did a lot of the heavy lifting. I try to give them credit for that every chance I get. I will be giving the Buy-and-Holders credit for all their wonderful contributions until the day I die. I took my friend Jack Bogle’s work and took it to places that he never imagined it could go. Jack didn’t do it all on his own and I didn’t do it all on my own. Jack and I created the first true research-based strategy TOGETHER. I only wish he would accept credit for his wonderful accomplishment!
There is no way to make the case for VII without pointing out the danger of Buy-and-Hold AS IT IS CURRENTLY BEING PROMOTED. The peer-reviwed research in this field shows that nearly all the risk of stock investing comes from the failure of investors to practice price discipline (that is, the failure of investors to practice long-term TIMING).
Practicing long-term timing is 80 percent of the game! It is the key to everything!
And Buy-and-Holders say NOT to practice any form of timing!
That’s the entire problem right there. When we work that one out, we have worked it all out.
I love Buy-and-Hold when it sticks to first principles. The first principle of Buy-and-Hold was to use the peer-reviewed research as a guide to how to invest. The last 33 years of peer-reviewed research says that investors must, must, must, must, must ALWAYS practice long-term timing (while of course never, never, never, never, never practicing long-term timing).
This is going to end when Jack acknowledges his mistake and the speech in which he does so is written up on the front page of the New York Times. Starting on that day, everyone working in this field will be exploring every angle of how to practice long-term timing. The first chapter in every textbook will explain why long-term timing (price discipline) is the key to everything.
Everything else stays the same. When the Buy-and-Holders acknowledge the mistake that was uncovered by the peer-reviewed research 33 years ago, Buy-and-Hold works. Then there is no cause for friction, right?
ALL of the friction results from Bogle’s failure to acknowledge the mistake when it was uncovered 33 years ago. We all should be working to get him to make that all-important speech.
There’s no way to say what works in stock investing without talking about what the Buy-and-Holders got wrong. Price discipline is 80 percent of the game. And the Buy-and-Holders advocate that investors exercise zero price discipline (they advocate staying at the same stock allocation even when prices change — this is called RE-balancing).
We are on the same side.
You are just 33 years behind the Valuation-Informed Indexers because Jack hasn’t yet given his “I Was Wrong” speech. Once he gives that speech, it’s good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff for all of us. Even those of us in prison will be better off to be living in a country with a strong economic system rather than one in a state of collapse.
I LOVE Buy-and-Hold. That’s why I want to fix it. That’s why I want it to work. That’s why want to be sure to do everything I can to get the prison sentences of my Buy-and-Hold friends shortened a bit.
I hope that all makes good sense to you, my old friend.
Rob
“Buy-and-Holders say that price discipline (long-term timing) is a bad thing.”
No you buffoon Buy-and-Holders believe it is impossible to accurately time the market. Your distinction of long term timing is arbitrary. With VII you think you can look at the market and definitively say that it is overvalued. There is no such thing as long term or short term timing you either think the market is overvalued right now or not. Just because you think it will take longer for your prediction to come true doesn’t make the practice any different. Buy and Holders know this is impossible. You prove this every day by pushing back and back your market crash prediction.
Instead, we are all free to have our own opinions.
The advancing of a death threat or a threat to destroy someone’s career is not the expression of an opinion, Anonymous. It is an act of intimidation.
When an act of intimidation is used to cover up an error in a retirement study, it is an act of financial fraud. A felony. Prison time.
Bernie Madoff created fake transaction statements. Those were not “opinions.” They were the means by which he committed financial fraud. He is in prison today.
Wade Pfau was not telling us what he really believes about safe withdrawal rates after you threatned to send defamatory e-mails to his employer and Jack Bogle signaled that he was fine with that. Wade was telling us what he really believes about safe withdrawal rates in the days BEFORE he was threatened.
Wade believes that the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies should be corrected.
Everyone does.
Lots of us keep it zipped because we are afraid of what the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads will do to us if we post honestly re these matters.
The Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads continue to threaten us because they have already engaged in so many acts of financial fraud that they believe that they will go to prison if millions of middle-class investors learn than Buy-and-Hold was discredited 33 years ago.
The first acts of financial fraud obviously took place long before I came on the scene.
I had nothing to do with it.
I put up my post of May 13, 2002, thinking that the field of investing advice was reasonably clean. I had no way of knowing about the countless layers of corruption that came to take over this field during the Buy-and-Hold years.
Neither do most of the millions of middle-class investors of today know.
But I believe that word will get out following the next price crash, which may put us in the Second Great Depression.
We will see.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Buy and Holders know this is impossible.
This is the entire problem, Anonymous.
You “know” something that simply is not so.
If you didn’t “know” this with such great certainty, you could discuss why you think it is so and others could discuss why they do not thing it is so and eventually we could come to a resolution of the matter. We certainly could be friends while the discussion was ongoing.
But you “know” with great certainty. So you cannot be friends with anyone who believes differently.
You “know” with such certainty that you are willing to advance death threats and demands for unjustified board bannings and tens of thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs in support of what you “know.”
That’s why the American people enacted laws against financial fraud. We need such laws to protect us against people who get things wrong from time to time (as we all do) and are then not able to acknowledge their mistakes.
I wish you well. I will do whatever I can to get your prison sentence reduced a bit. But I will never join you in your acts of financial fraud.
I believe strongly that Valuation-Informed Indexing is the future of investing analysis. But I don’t “know” this is so with enough certainty to justify putting my name behind death threats or demands for unjustified board bannings or tens of thousands of acts of defamation or threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.
I hope I never do.
And I hope that you and all my other Buy-and-Hold friends get it turned around someday.
I hope that someday you come to believe that you “know” less than you believe you do today so that you will be open to learning more.
Acknowledging that you do not know everything there is to know about a subject is the first step to achieving a great learning experience.
No learning was ever achieved by anyone who believed that he already “knew” all there was to “know” about a subject.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
Buy-and-Holders believe it is impossible to accurately time the market.
There is now 33 years of peer-reviewed research showing them to be wrong.
Long-Term timing has been working since the day the market opened for business.
Academic Researcher Wade Pfau spent a great deal of time trying to find a single peer-reviewed study indicating that there might be even a tiny bit of doubt re this matter. He found nothing.
He was so amazed by this finding that he went to the Bogleheads Forum to see if anyone there had ever identified a single peer-reviewed study supporting the key Buy-and-Hold claim.
Jack Bogle was not aware of a single study supporting Buy-and-Hold.
Bill Bernstein was not aware of a single study supporting Buy-and-Hold.
Larry Swedroe was not aware of a single study supporting Buy-and-Hold.
Rick Ferri was not aware of a single study supporting Buy-and-Hold.
I wonder why.
Rob
Your distinction of long term timing is arbitrary.
I do not know what the word “arbitrary” is intended to signify here.
The peer-reviewed research in this field shows that short-term timing never works and that long-term timing always works and is always required for all investors hoping to have a realistic chance of achieving long-term investing success.
It is no more “arbitrary” to report that long-term timing always works according to the peer-reviewed research than it is to report that short-term timing never works according to the peer-reviewed research.
Rob
With VII you think you can look at the market and definitively say that it is overvalued.
This is correct.
Cars can be overpriced and bananas can be overpriced and sweaters can be overpriced and stocks can be overpriced.
Anyone who says that stocks are the only thing that can be purchased with money that can never be offered at a price that is too high for them to provide a good value proposition is talking nonsense.
The Buy-and-Holders who speak that nonsense believe it. But it is nonsense all the same.
That’s why they get so angry when the findings of the last 33 years of peer-reviwed research in this field is pointed out to them.
They very, very much WANT to believe in Buy-and-Hold because they have staked their retirements on it. But they are not able to come up with any effective arguments to counter the findings of the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. So they lash out in anger.
Emotion is the enemy of the long-term stock investor. Buy-and-Hold has made investors more emotional than they have ever been before. Every comment put to this site by you Goons shows that.
Valuation-Informed Indexing makes investors LESS emotional. That’s because it makes sense. Investors are able to feel confident about strategies that make sense. You never see Valuation-Informed Indexers lashing out. They don’t need to lash out because they have 33 years of peer-reviewed research on their side.
The Buy-and-Holders were right the first time — investors SHOULD use the peer-reviewed research as a guide re how to invest. We shouldn’t be trying to encourage investors to become as emotional as possible, we should be encouraging them to rein in their emotions. Only research-based strategies can do that.
Rob
There is no such thing as long term or short term timing
Excuse me?
Rob
you either think the market is overvalued right now or not.
This is so.
Except it’s not a question of what one “thinks.” It’s a question of what the P/E10 level is.
The P/E10 level tells you whether stocks are overpriced or not. You don’t have to think about it any more than you need to think about whether the sticker price of a car is too high or not. The fair-market-value is what the fair-market-value is and the price being asked is what the price being asked is.
There is thinking that comes into play in determining what to do. There are circumstances in which paying a bit more for a car than it is really worth makes sense. And the same is of course so re stocks. But there is no thinking involved in the act of looking at the price tag.
Rob
Just because you think it will take longer for your prediction to come true doesn’t make the practice any different.
Huh?
Short-term timing never works and long-term timing always works.
And you are saying that there is no difference between the two.
Huh?
Rob
You prove this every day by pushing back and back your market crash prediction.
Short-term timing never works, Anonymous. That means that precise predictions never work.
I pointed this out when I said that I thought that the next crash would come by the end of 2015.
I point out the same thing when I say now that I believe that the next crash will come by the end of 2016.
I don’t know for sure when the next crash will come. Neither does anyone else. That’s a key principle of Valuation-Informed Indexing. The fact that I had to change m prediction just shows that that key principle is an important one.
You asked for something that could not be done. But I don’t think it was an entirely unreasonable request. So I made my best effort.
Still, I told you at the time that it is not possible to make precise predictions. If you didn’t listen to that part of what I told you, that’s on you.
I told you the full reality and you listened to only half of what I said. There’s a word we use to describe people who do that sort of thing — EMOTIONAL.
ALL Buy-and-Holders are intensely emotional. Perhaps you’ve noticed.
I do not think this is a good thing.
I think it is a very, very, very bad thing.
I advocate investing strategies that make investing LESS emotional than it has been in the past, not more so.
I will let you in on a little secret. That was the aim of the Buy-and-Holders too in the early days.
Rob
Buy and Holders know this is impossible.
This is the entire problem.
I say this again because it is the most concise way of saying what needs to be said.
If you said “Buy-and-Holders think this is impossible” we could be friends and have a great learning experience together.
Your certainty that you know it all makes that impossible.
You are in good company. Bogle thinks he “knows” it all too. And he is wrong.
I don’t “know” with absolute certainty that he is wrong re the substantive questions. But I believe this with a high degree of confidence.
I know that he is wrong re the procedural questions. Death threats have no place in investing discussions. Demands for unjustified board bannings have no place in investing discussions. Tens of thousands of acts of defamation have no place in investing discussions. Threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs have no place in investing discussions.
That’s all that I will say that I know with certainty.
But that much I know.
I love my country. I will defend her when she is under this kind of attack.
I know that too.
I know that I would like to be able to shorten your prison sentence.
I know that never in 12 billion years will I commit the sorts of acts that would cause me to join you.
Those are the sorts of things that I know with absolute certainty.
The VII stuff I believe. With a high level of confidence. But that’s as far as it has ever gone or will ever go.
Rob
though people used it every day for decades with apparently wonderful and expected results
Have the four economic crises that were caused by the promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies (three of them taking place before we had peer-reviewed research available to us showing what works and one taking place years after the publication of that peer-reviewed research) been “wonderful” for the millions of people who lost their jobs or their businesses as a result?
My parents lived through the First Great Depression and told me stories about it. My mother had to quit school after eighth grade so that she could make money and put food on her family’s table.
I say “no.”
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, Anonymous.
Rob
I will see to it that every middle-class worker alive in the United States today learns about this massive act of financial fraud.
That’s my pledge to my Buy-and-Hold friends and to my Valuation-Informed Indexing friends and to all those who love the country that I love.
Hang in there, Anonymous. It gets better. A LOT better.
Rob
“This matter is settled. There is no valuations adjustment in those studies. ”
Absolutely — to both statements.
This is progress.
Let’s focus on the positive.
It shouldn’t take 12 years to get something like this nailed down.
But still — at least we are all on the same page for one day re one item.
Rob
there is nothing that says actions are needed.
Then why bother doing research in the first place?
If it can never change anything, why bother?
Shiller won a Nobel prize because he scribbled some words on paper that never changed a single human action? That makes sense?
If the man’s findings won him a Nobel prize, we should be examining those ideas and sharing them with everyone we know and extending them to exciting new places when we are able to do so.
My take.
Rob
No you buffoon
Science.
To outline the workings of diesel/electric with specificity, clarity, and brevity.
Price matters.
When buying anything other than stocks and when buying stocks too.
Anything that says otherwise is a con.
We didn’t always know that. Humankind did not enter the world with perfect knowledge of all subjects. But we know it today. Common sense tells us that it must be so. And 33 years of peer-reviewed research (based on 140 years of historical return data) confirms that what common sense tells us is so is indeed so.
The laws of the United States should be respected in the investing advice field.
I hope that helps a bit, Anonymous.
Hang in there, man.
Rob
We are the luckiest generation of investors ever to walk Planet Earth.
I almost allowed myself to get caught up in the craziness for a minute there and to forget this fundamental and all-important point.
Wow. That’s very cool stuff.
I need to send some e-mails today. I need to tell some more people about our good fortune and thereby change the world for the good.
I LOVE this country!
Rob
There is no study that says VII is superior to buy, hold and rebalance.
There’s the one that I co-authored with Wade Pfau. That peer-reviewed study shows that Valuation-Informed Indexing has been FAR superior to Buy-and-Hold for 140 years now. There is no comparison.
The community at the Bogleheads Forum agreed with me when Wade presented it there. That’s why you Goons threatened to send defamatory e-mails to his employer in an effort to get him fired from his job. And that’s why my good friend Jack Bogle kept it zipped while all this played out.
It will all come out following the next price crash, Anonymous. And you will be sent to prison for a long time. I will put in a few words on your behalf about the extenuating circumstances. But I somehow doubt that those words are going to have much effect at that time.
You don’t have to take my word for it, right? We all have front-row seats to watch it play out. Is that not so?
I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, Anonymous.
Rob
“My parents lived through the First Great Depression and told me stories about it. I say ‘no.’ ”
Remember, the analogy was steam power vs diesel. So what you seem to be saying is that in the 1800’s, you would have avoided using trains of the day, knowing they would someday be supplanted. And that today, you refuse to get into a car or truck or bus, since we know someday they will become obsolete or superseded as a mode of transport.
In your life, you use NOTHING that is not optimized to the n’th degree, because anything else represents ‘failure’ and ‘cannot work for one person ever no matter what’ and is ‘ugly stuff that needs to be buried underground to avoid people and other forms of life’ and ‘people need to go to prison for ever having created single edge razor blades instead of electric razors’ etc, etc,etc.
Rob, at least live by your own ‘logic’ and edicts if you are going to try to force them on others. I think the unabomer manifesto is exactly what you are looking for as a model, if I understand your argument correctly.
Poster: ‘This matter is settled. There is no valuations adjustment in those studies.’ Absolutely — to both statements.
Rob: ” This is progress. Let’s focus on the positive.
Well, then I should certainly not mention that how others read the initial [true] statement and what you ASSUME it actually means are two very different things.
HINT: If the authors did not even pretend to assess the impact of ‘valuation’ changes [as Rob defines these!], then there can certainly be no error under that category! QED
In your life, you use NOTHING that is not optimized to the n’th degree, because anything else represents ‘failure’
I addressed this aspect of the question in depth in a comment posted up above.
About 90 percent of the population today believes either in Buy-and-Hold or in a version of Strategy C (the “I can’t figure it out” strategy) that is tilted heavily in favor of Buy-and-Hold. The other 10 percent follows either Valuation-Informed Indexing or a version of Strategy C tilted in favor of VII.
I don’t want anyone switching to VII on my say-so. I don’t want the responsibility. I could be wrong.
I want EVERYONE to know the case against Buy-and-Hold and the case for VII. All investors need to be informed about what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research says and what strategic implications follow from that research.
If there were a way to advance VII without criticizing Buy-and-Hold, I would go with that. But that is not possible. The two models are OPPOSITES. To believe in one is to reject the other. If the market is efficient (the core belief of Buy-and-Holders), VII is nonsense. If valuations affect long-term returns (the core belief of VII), BH is nonsense. It is logically impossible that both Fama and Shiller are right. One is right and one is wrong (although both made huge contributions, to be sure).
In will always praise the Buy-and-Hold Pioneers to the sky for their many genuine contributions. But I am not doing my job of explaining the implications of the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research if I don’t point out that Buy-and-Hold as currently promoted is the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick scheme ever concocted by the human mind. Buy-and-Hold caused the economic crisis. Every citizen of this nation needs to know what caused the economic crisis.
People don’t need to optimize things to the n’th degree. I don’t believe that at all. I believe that Value Investing is the optimal investing strategy. 90 percent of investors either don’t have the skill or inclination to execute it effectively. So I think it is better for the 90 percent to follow indexing strategies, NOT to optimize.
But the difference between BH and VII is not small, it is huge. If you go by the research, the safe withdrawal rate at the top of the bubble was 1.6 percent. If you go by the Buy-and-Holdesr, it was 4 percent. For a retiree with a $1 million portfolio, that’s the difference between living on $16,000 per year and living on $40,000 per year. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a very, very, very significant error. That’s an error that must be fixed before it causes more human misery.
People have a right to invest as they please. But people also have a right to hear both sides. I asked at the Motley Fool board whether honest posting on the peer-reviewed research should be permitted and the answer was unanimous outside of the Greaney Goons. This is why we have rules at every board and blog stating that the tactics employed by those posting in “defense” of Mel Lindauer and John Greaney and Jack Bogle will not be tolerated. This is why we have laws making financial fraud a felony.
I can be friends with Buy-and-Holders. I believe that they made huge contributions. I believe that they follow Buy-and-Hold themselves. I believe that the majority of members of every board and blog wants to hear what they have to say and has every right to do so. I believe that the Buy-and-Holders are good and smart and hard-working people.
I believe that part of what makes the Buy-and-Holders so hot is that it was their intent to do good and their belief that they have been doing good for many years now. It’s my intent to do good and it’s my belief that I have been doing good for many years now. So we have that in common. I am a sort of “diehard” in my way. For the same reason that a good number of my Buy-and-Hold friends are “diehards.”
But I cannot post dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements. For obvious reasons.
The sane way to handle this is to permit those on both sides to post honestly while showing at least a reasonable amount of affection and respect for those on “the other side.” Sign me up for that wherever the opportunity is offered! But please don’t insult us both by ever again suggesting that I might be willing to engage in acts of financial fraud to win the favor of the most abusive posters on the face of Planet Internet.
The problem that the Buy-and-Holders have is that the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research takes us to such different places than did the research done before 1981. That’s a quirk of history. I did not create this delicate situation. Shiller’s findings were “revolutionary,” just as it says in the subtitle of his book. He changed our understanding of every strategic question in a fundamental way.
The reason why the implications of his findings have not been explored in great depth in hundreds of different places is not that investing does not matter. It is that investing matters so much. The experts in this field feel funny telling their clients and readers that: “There is one school of thought that says that an 75 percent stock allocation is always best but there is another school of thought that says that a 25 percent stock allocation is best when stocks are priced as they are today.”
That does sound funny. But it happens to be true. To stay out of prison, we need to tell the truth when talking about what the peer-reviewed research in this field says, whether it sounds funny or not.
We will work out the funniness in time. Once we open the internet to honest posting, one of two things will happen. Either VII will overtake BH as the dominant model or the challenge to BH presented by VII will be discredited in open and balanced and fair and honest discussions. Our system of government demands one of those two outcomes. That’s why as a people we have adopted laws making financial fraud a felony.
If the peer-reviewed research of the past 33 years stands up to scrutiny, we will all know that it was the promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies that caused every one of the four economic crises that we have suffered since 1870. That’s not “working.” Every citizen of this nation, investors and non-investors alike, needs protection from the effects of economic crises. There is now 33 years of peer-reviewed research showing that it is the claims of investing “experts” that stocks are the only thing that can be purchased with money that are worth buying at any price imaginable that have caused every economic crises that we have suffered. That’s a public policy matter, not an investing matter. Everyone needs to know that and everyone needs to act in response to learning that.
Buy-and-Hold did not “work” prior to 1981. The difference from the pre-1981 period and the post-1981 period is that we did not prior to 1981 possess peer-reviewed research showing WHY the promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies always causes an economic crisis. Now we do. Promoting Buy-and-Hold was not financial fraud prior to 1981. Now it is.
There is a caveat to that statement. There are millions today who have not been able to mentally process the implications of the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research. Cognitive dissonance is a real thing and there is a mountain of evidence showing that it applies in a big way re this matter. So the vast majority of those who promoted Buy-and-Hold strategies today are acting out of ignorance rather than malice. Only in a hyper-technical sense are those people guilty of financial fraud. I put the odds that those people will be prosecuted for the crime at close to zero.
It’s a different matter for those who have advanced death threats or demands for unjustified board bannings or tens of thousands of acts of defamation or threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. We cannot permit an exception from the laws against financial fraud to apply in those cases without causing our entire legal system to collapse. Bernie Madoff said in an interview to New York magazine that he was trying to do good. Madoff created fake transaction reports. Madoff was properly found guilty of financial fraud regardless of whatever subjective feelings he convinced himself he held re wanting to do good. The same applies to those who have posted in “defense” of Mel Linduaer or John Greaney or my good friend Jack Bogle over the course of the past 12 years. A society needs to protect itself from the actions of such individuals if it is to survive.
That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.
My best and warmest wishes to you, Anonymous.
Rob
HINT: If the authors did not even pretend to assess the impact of ‘valuation’ changes [as Rob defines these!], then there can certainly be no error under that category! QED
If the CEO of a tobacco company spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting a study saying that smoking four packs of cigarettes per day extends one’s life by many years (because all death caused by cancer were ignored for no reason other than to make a buck) and then failed to correct the study after the errors were brought to his attention and after laws were passed making the promotion of such obviously dangerous studies a felony, the CEO of that company would go to prison.
Properly so.
It is the same with the people who have failed to correct the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies for 12 years after they became public knowledge and who instead resorted to the use of death threats and demands for unjustified board bannings and tens of thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs as the means of keeping the errors in the studies covered up.
But we’ll see how this all plays out in the real world soon enough. No?
Rob
Rob,
Is a banana underpriced if every single banana on earth is selling for 25 cents. Is a banana overpriced if every single banana on earth is selling for $2. We know a banana is overpriced by comparing prices not by somehow instinctively knowing how much a banana costs. We take the market price of bananas as fact only if an arbitrage situation exists (a banana being cheaper at one store than another) would we say a banana is overpriced or underpriced. So you are correct, buying stocks is exactly the same only if an arbitrage opportunity existed would it be fair to say we know stocks are overpriced or underpriced. No such opportunity exists for stocks as everyone sells for basically the exact same market price.
The VII equivalent for buying bananas would be like checking the ratio of price/labor hours to produce a banana in 1890 and if it was higher today you would say all bananas on earth were overpriced and you expect that ratio to fall back 1890 levels sometime. Maybe tomorrow maybe 10 years from now. It is “long term” timing so we just won’t buy bananas for 20 years or maybe longer basically until we see that 1890 ratio of price to labor hours. I hope you can see how idiotic this is.
You are making a reasonable point here and it is an issue that trips a lot of people up.
The magic of all markets is that you have a seller seeking a high price and a buyer seeking a low price and the tension between the two produces the right price.
The basic principle applies in the stock market just as it does in all other markets. But there is one element of the stock market that is different and makes things difficult for people to understand until it is pointed out to them and they have a chance to ask questions and ponder what they have heard and all that sort of thing.
The unique element of the stock market is that it is the only market in which the sellers and the buyers are the same people. We all own stocks and we all also are in the process of buying stocks. We want the stocks we own to be high-priced because that makes our portfolios look bigger and eases our concerns about being able to retire someday. But we SHOULD want prices to be low so that we can buy more stocks with the limited amount of money available to us. We are torn between our desire for high prices and our desire for low prices. More frequently than not, we root for high prices, which hurts us.
So the stock market is dysfunctional. Prices go up and up and up for no good reason. Eventually we push prices so high that we scare ourselves with our insanity, and prices go down and down and down until they are going down for no good reason, causing an economic collapse. Then we start that stupid process all over again.
Shiller told us what we need to know to bring the stupidity to an end.
Annual gains of 6.5 percent real are justified by the economic realities. Those gains are real. We need to be satisfied with the real gains on our stock investments and learn to disdain the Get Rich Quick garbage (any gains in excess of 6.5 percent real). By disdaining the Get Rich Quick garbage, we bring an end to economic crises and to 70 percent of the risk of stock investing.
Investor education is the key.
We need to have thousands of books written explaining the implications of the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research. We need to have hundreds of calculators developed. We need to free every academic researcher to do honest research. We need to have investment advisors giving speeches where they explain the realities as revealed by the peer-reviewed research in this field. We need to call out the Buy-and-Holders when they get the numbers wrong in retirement studies. We need to do all sorts of good stuff.
Once we do that, we will never see a bull market again. Stock prices are self-regulating so long as investors are permitted to learn when it is in their best interests to buy stocks and when it is not. People who know their best interests are happy to pursue them. People who are kept ignorant of what is in their best interests obviously cannot pursue their best interests.
When we eliminate the insanity of bull markets, we also eliminate the insanity of bear markets. When we eliminate the insanity of bear markets, we eliminate the insanity of economic crises. Permitting honest posting on the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research is good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff.
The only problem is that it makes the Buy-and-Holders look bad for people to learn the truth about how stock investing works.
That’s not my doing. It is not my intent to make the Buy-and-Holders look bad. It is because they made a mistake and have not corrected it for 33 years that they look bad. The Buy-and-Holders look bad because they have not corrected their mistake, not because I have told the truth about what the peer-reviewed research says.
Once the Buy-and-Holders acknowledge their mistake, the economic crisis comes to an end and they get credit for all the wonderful insights that they developed and that stood the test of time.
The longer the Buy-and-Holders make use of financial fraud tactics to cover up their mistake, the longer their prison sentences.
I am the best friend that any of the Buy-and-Holders ever had.
They don’t see it that way today.
But that’s the way it really is.
Stocks would always sell at the right price just as bananas do if the stock market were permitted to function in the way that the banana market is permitted to function. People who buy bananas are permitted to act in their best interests. That’s why the banana market does its job of setting prices so well. The stock market will do the same once we open the internet to honest posting on the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.
Before 1981, the stock market was not capable of functioning properly because humankind was ignorant of how the stock market worked. The Buy-and-Hold Pioneers discovered lots of important stuff in the 1960s and 1970s, but we were missing one important piece of the puzzle until Shiller published his revolutionary research in 1981.
Now we know what we need to know to live far richer (in every sense of the word) lives than we ever before imagined possible.
Now we know what we need to know for the stock market to function as effectively as all other markets. The only thing holding us back are the criminal acts of the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads.
Once prison sentences are announced, it is all over.
My guess is that we will see prison sentences announced sometime not too long after the next price crash, which I expect to see by the end of 2016.
I wish you all the best that this life has to offer, Anonymous.
Rob
“Before 1981, the stock market was not capable of functioning properly because humankind was ignorant of how the stock market worked. ”
Seriously, Rob, do you ever stop and read the stuff you write?
If so, aren’t you embarrassed for yourself?
Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize for his “revolutionary” (his word) findings.
Something very, very big happened in 1981.
Bogle did not make a single change in his strategy recommendations as a result.
It is not the Valuation-Informed Indexers who should be embarrassed. It is the Buy-and-Holders.
We need to move on.
Millions of people are unemployed today because of Bogle’s unwillingness to acknowledge his mistake. Millions of people are in the process of suffering failed retirements today because of Bogle’s unwillingness to acknowledge his mistake.
Something very, very important happened in 1981 and we all need to recognize it and move on.
Once we do, none of us will have further need of death threats and demands for unjustified board bannings and tens of thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.
People who behave in the manner in which we have seen the Buy-and-Holders behave for the past 12 years do not possess confidence in their strategies. The Buy-and-Holders are hurting. Big time. Those of us who love them should be doing what we can to help them out of the trap in which they have placed themselves.
Progress is a good thing. Learning is a good thing. Reducing investing risk by 70 percent is a good thing.
That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.
Getting the numbers right matters.
I am sure.
Rob
“We need to move on.”
Rob, you are the one that needs to move on. You have had your say. People have responded. They choose not to agree with you.
End of story.
Deal with it.
I have had my say. That much is so.
People have responded. That much is so.
SOME have not agreed with me. That much is so.
MANY (not a majority by a long shot, but many) have said that my stuff is the best stuff they have ever read on investing, that no one has ever reported what the research really says as honestly and as clearly and as effectively as I have.
Are minorities permitted to speak at our boards and blogs?
That’s the question on the table.
If minorities are no longer permitted to speak, we will never see another advance in our understanding of how stock investing works. All promising new ideas start out as minority ideas.
Bogle was once a minority in his advocacy of indexing. He was hated by people in positions of power. Fidelity took out a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal calling Bogle and indexing “Un-American.”
Our country’s laws protect people who hold minority views. So Bogle was permitted to have his say despite the hate felt toward him by these powerful people who at the time held the majority viewpoint. So the indexing revolution happened. We are all a richer (in every sense of the word) people as a result.
Valuation-Informed Indexing is the next step in our journey forward. It is superior to Buy-and-Hold in every possible way. FAR superior. The shoe is now on the other foot. Bogle is now the one suppressing exploration of the exciting new idea. He is wrong to do so. His contributions were huge. But his contributions were not the last word. Shiller’s contributions were ALSO huge. Combine Bogle’s contributions with Shiller’s contributions and you have the first true research-based investing strategy that works in the real world. One that permits us to diminish the risk of stock investing by 70 percent. According to the peer-reviewed research in this field.
Buy-and-Hold is the past. Valuation-Informed Indexing is the future.
That’s the way it is, Anonymous. It’s not Rob Bennett who says that. It is the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field that says that.
The people of the United States are moving forward. We are not asking your permission to do so. We are telling you how it is going to be.
We adopted laws making financial fraud a felony for a good reason. We adopted those laws to protect us from people like you.
Those laws are not self-enforcing. We have not as a society worked up the courage to stand up to the powerful people who caused the economic crisis and to demand the enforcement of those laws.
But we will.
Following the next price crash, millions of us will be wondering why the promises of the Buy-and-Holders did not pan out. We will want to know the truth about how we were tricked out of our retirement money. This site tells the story in great depth. Those of us who have posted in “defense” of Mel Linduaer and John Greaney and my good friend Jack Bogle will be sent off to prison. The rest of us will learn what we need to know about how stock investing works in the real world and will get about the business of rebuilding our broken economy.
I love my country.
That’s the bottom line here.
That can never change. Not in 12 years. Not in 12 billion years.
If you think you can defeat this great country and its perfectly reasonable laws against financial fraud, have at it. I do not believe that you can do this thing. So I am not going along. I am telling.
We have not reached the end of the story. You are wrong about this.
The story ends with us overcoming the Buy-and-Hold Crisis and living far better lives than we imagined possible back in the days when most of us lacked the courage to post honestly about the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies.
You know that I am right about this. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be posting here. If you weren’t worried about going to prison following the next crash, you would be long gone by now.
It will all play out following the next price crash. We’re all going to be famous!
We have both taken our bets. Neither of us has any intention of switching sides. So we are both going to have to wait to see how things play out following the crash.
I ain’t going to prison, my old friend. I wish that you weren’t. I wish that there was something that I could do to help you. But I ain’t committing any felonies in any event. I ain’t going to prison and I ain’t even considering the possibility of moving onto the path that would lead me there.
I naturally wish you the best of luck with whatever investing strategies you elect to pursue, my old friend.
Rob
The world is not going to end on the day following the next price crash.
Millions of people are going to want to know how their financial futures were destroyed.
We are going to have to get about the business of rebuilding our broken economy and restoring confidence in our political system.
My take.
Rob
Can you quantify and identify the ‘many’ people who have said your ‘stuff’ is the best they have ever read?
I have a slider at the top of every page of the site that sets forth over 200 comments of that nature, Laugh. That’s of course only a small sample. But it is far more than enough to give people the basic idea. Those interested in reading more comments of this nature can go on to read the rest of the materials at the site.
Threats of physical violence and threats of career destruction are the only things keeping Buy-and-Hold alive today. That’s been so for at least 13 years and probably for a lot longer than that. Buy-and-Hold died intellectually in 1981. When we all give ourselves permission to talk about the implications of what we learned in 1981, we all will be living far richer (in every sense of the word) lives.
That includes you Goons.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
I saw this today at Quora:
http://www.quora.com/Where-does-the-money-go-in-a-recession
The 5.3k people who upvoted that post are the kinds of people who will be serving on your jury, Laugh.
Those people have a hard time accepting how corrupt the investing advice field has become in the Buy-and-Hold Era because they have never seen this much corruption in any other field of endeavor.
Following the next crash, it will click for them.
We will rebuild. We will rebuild this corrupt industry. And we will rebuild our broken economy.
You will be in prison. So you will not be able to stop us.
You have the power and money and contacts of the Wall Street Con Men behind you. I have the people of the United States and the laws they have adopted and 34 years of peer-reviewed research behind me.
I wouldn’t trade places with you for $500 million (just to pull a number out of the air).
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.
Rob