Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Rob, does anyone read this blog besides the goons who like to poke fun at you? I’ve never seen a comment by anyone else.
Comments by non-Goons are rare, Anonymous. There have been some here and there. But we often go a long time before seeing a fresh one.
That’s evidence of the core problem, no?
LOTS of people engage me in discussion when I post at a large board or blog. So many that you Goons complain that to let me post at a large board or blog is to create a “Rob Bennett Show.” When I posted at Bogleheads, my posts where the star attraction nearly every day for months on end. There were times when there were four or five separate ongoing threads relating to the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept.
You would think that some of the people who are so interested in the concept would follow me to my own site and ask their questions there, would you not? But they don’t. Huh? How come?
Humans are social creatures, Anonymous. That’s the thing that the Buy-and-Holders missed. It’s a very, very, very big deal. People do not like to engage in taboo conversations. Posting at a board owned by a fellow that has been banned from 15 different sites is engaging in taboo conversation. People don’t feel comfortable with it.
People’s minds tell them that there must be something wrong with the message of a fellow who has been banned at 15 different sites. Perhaps it is not clear what is wrong , perhaps people cannot put their finger on the problem. But there is something within them that tells them that they don’t want to be involved with the taboo. And being banned at 15 different boards is a signal of taboo behavior. Saying that the Old School SWR studies get the numbers wildly wrong is taboo. Saying that Buy-and-Hold caused the economic crisis is taboo. Saying that Jack Bogle is at risk of going to prison for financial fraud is taboo.
The fear of the taboo is the driver of all this. At the heart of our economic system is a belief that humans are rational actors. It’s not Jack Bogle who came up with that one. It’s freakin’ Adam Smith! That one has been around a long time. And that one is the one that was disproved by freakin’ Robert Shiller, Nobel Prize Winner.
Shiller changed everything. And it’s a very, very, very good thing that he did so. Our children and their children will live far richer lives than we lived because of the blessings that will be bestowed on us as a result of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) findings. It’s good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff. It never ends (as least not as far as today’s eye can see). So lucky us!
But when we achieve that big an advance, there are a lot of people who get their feathers ruffled. All of the people who believed in Jack Bogle get their feathers ruffled. Heck, all the people who believed in Adam Smith get their feathers ruffled a bit! When you improve everything, you change everything. When you change everything, you ruffle a lot of feathers.
We have taboos against doing that sort of thing. Big Shots don’t like having their feathers ruffled. So they fight and they fight and they fight and they fight.
To no purpose. We HAVE to ruffle their feathers because our economy is bigger today than it was the last three times that Buy-and-Hold caused an economic crisis and so this economic crisis is likely going to be a lot worse than any of those before it is over unless we work up the courage to ruffle a few feathers. And one of those three put us in a Great Depression! So the cost of avoiding feather ruffling is getting pretty darn high.
Still, the humans are social creatures and the humans don’t like violating taboos and telling the truth about what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works is the biggest taboo of all. So I am doomed, right?
I don’t think so, Anonymous.
I think we are as a society going to work up the courage to violate that taboo following the next price crash. Then I don’t just get average traffic here. I get off-the-wall insane traffic, traffic big enough to make me one of the richest men in the United States. Why? Because I have no competition! Everyone else is playing it the other way. Everyone else is saying “Why fight the taboo?” I violated the taboo 12 years ago and have been fighting it harder and harder every day since. On the day the taboo comes crashing down, I have a 12-year (or bigger) edge on everyone else.
I want the traffic. I want it bad. But I am not intimidated by anything you do to limit my traffic or to point out to me how small my traffic is. I am writing for the post-taboo days. They are not here yet, but they are getting close. I’d say that we are one price crash away. That’s the path I chose on the morning of May 13, 2002, and that’s the path I intend to stay on for at least another 12 billion years. Just so you know.
I get precious little non-Goon traffic here. I don’t dispute what you are saying.
I am going to continue posting honestly re SWRs and scores of other critically important investment-related topics all the same. I am never even going to flinch.
I think it’s the right thing to do. And I think it will make me very rich and very famous to take this path.
So the intimidation tactics don’t work on me. They hurt. I am not saying different re that. I am saying that they do not achieve their aim, getting me to stop violating the taboo. I think this taboo has caused huge human misery for millions of middle-class people and I want to see it torn down and I am proud of the efforts that I have put forward to tear it down and humbled that I was chosen by God or Evolution or the Fates or Whatever to be the one to bury it 30 feet in the ground, where it can do no further harm to humans and other living things.
I intend to lead a Celebration of the Death of the Buy-and-Hold Taboo when this is over. I intend to do a jig and sing a song and laugh.
And it won’t be one of those empty, cynical laughs that you Goons are famous for either. It will be a laugh of joy. You Goons will be joining me in the laugh. My good friend Jack Bogle will be joining me in the laugh. We all will be laughing together.
Because there are no sides. We all want to know how to invest effectively. There is not one true exception, no matter how fearful many of us are re violating big taboos.
I hope that helps a bit, old friend.
Rob
Anonymous says
If you really had that many VII conversations and associated interest and if VII performed as you claim,why wouldn’t people just gravitate here. Afterall people will move towards what works (makes money) and is supported by facts.
You put out large volumes of information on the board and people had plenty of time to consider your thoughts. It is not like you never had the chance to state your opinions. To the opposite, you out out more volume than anyone else I have ever seen.
grandpop says
The fact is that Bogleheads was created SPECIFICALLY to provide a “Hocus-free” environment. Only one poster was banned from participating. You. Heck, even your rascally side-kick JWR was allowed to participate. But not Rob Bennett.
Rob says
people will move towards what works (makes money) and is supported by facts.
Absolutely.
That’s why the Buy-and-Hold Mafia has gone to such extremes to block people from hearing my message. My stuff is all research-based. The Buy-and-Hold Mafia knows that millions of middle-class investors want to hear what the research says. If I am permitted to post honestly at one large board, Buy-and-Hold falls. You know it, I know it, Bogle knows it, Shiller knows it, everyone knows it.
The difference between you and me is that I want Buy-and-Hold to fall. I want people to be freed to learn about the first true research-based strategy. You hate that idea. We are working at cross purposes.
you out out more volume than anyone else I have ever seen.
That’s probably so if you look at things on an individual-poster-by-individual-poster basis.
But there has never been a situation where posts supporting Buy-and-Hold did not outnumber posts supporting Valuation-Informed Indexing by at least a factor of 10 to 1.
Why do the Buy-and-Holders not feel that they can hold up their argument if even one guy is permitted to post honestly even when he is outnumberd in the posts department by a factor of 10 to 1?
That reality tells a tale, Anonymous.
The fact is that Bogleheads was created SPECIFICALLY to provide a “Hocus-free” environment.
Again, this reality tells a tale.
I never once violated one of the posted rules. In fact, I was the #1 advocate of reasoned enforcement of the posted rules.
Yet not one Buy-and-Holder felt that Buy-and-Hold could survive if I was permitted to post honestly?
Huh?
That ain’t science, Grandpop. It’s not a close call.
If Buy-and-Hold were a legitimate strategy backed by peer-reviewed research, you would be able to handle discussions with people who were familiar with the research that has been done in this area, both the pre-1981 research and the post-1981 research.
You can’t. It’s a con. It’s financial fraud.
How do we deal with that as a society? We all need to work together to get you Goons sent off to prison. News of your prison sentences will go viral. From that point forward, it will be good stuff on top of good stuff on top of good stuff for all of us.
There is a reason why as a society we adopted laws against financial fraud. We should be proud of the wisdom we showed in enacting those laws. We should be doing all that we can to see that they are enforced. In the future, I hope that we will enforce them SOONER so that the number going to prison will be smaller and so that the lengths of the prison sentences of those who go are shorter. I see that way of proceeding as a win/win/win/win/win. My feeble human brain is not even able to imagine any possible downside.
Has your far superior Goon brain been able to come up with anything?
Rob
Anonymous says
Rob,
When I was born my grandmother bought me some shares of Disney. I accidentally held onto these shares for a long time even though one insignificant technical metric told me I should sell. Don’t worry I dumped the stock once I realized a coincidence in past stock market data indicated that stocks were overvalued.
My question to you is when the great buy and hold apocalypse occurs will I be sent to prison for buying and holding this stock for much too long? Keep in mind I had not yet seen the light, the indescribable healing power of a single gimmicky technical metric had not yet been revealed to me. Perhaps I will go to some sort of purgatory similar to those unfortunate souls who never heard the word of christ. Those of us who bought and held prior to hearing the word of Bennett or those unfortunate souls who still haven’t been blessed with the word of our financial savior, purger of Bogle, the one and true financial king, Rob Bennett (blessed be his name). Is there any hope for our immortal financial souls?
Anonymous says
Buy, hold and balance works and is supported by the research. VII has no track record.
End of story.
Anonymous says
Rob,
Your messages are not blocked. They are still out there. Your response does not make sense.
You are blocked at certain sites from additional comments, which ar just repeats. What new information do you have that you believe people have not already heard from you?
Rob says
those unfortunate souls who still haven’t been blessed with the word of our financial savior, purger of Bogle, the one and true financial king, Rob Bennett (blessed be his name).
Jack Bogle started out as a little boy, just as I did and just as you did. He doesn’t know everything. He makes himself look bad when he pretends that he does.
I can say that I am grateful for the many important things that I learned from Bogle. Can he say the same about me? Can he say the same about Shiller?
If not, why not?
Does he really think that, once he spoke to the subject, humankind could never again advance in its knowledge of how stock investing works?
If he thinks that, that is very sad to hear.
Bogle is a giant. I don’t say different.
But a true giant should be confident enough to expose himself to learning experiences.
If Jack lost that ability somewhere along the way, then he has lost what once made him a giant. That’s too sad.
Rob
Rob says
End of story.
For you, that may well be the end of the story, Anonymous. You get to decide re you. That part is fine.
It becomes financial fraud when you block millions of others from learning about something that they very much want to learn about and very much need to learn about.
We all get to decide for ourselves what is the end of the story and what is not.
You are the one who acts like a king, not me. I call you “friend” in nearly every comment I post. How often do you call me “friend”?
Can someone disagree with you re investing topics and still be your friend?
If not, why not?
Rob
Rob says
What new information do you have that you believe people have not already heard from you?
That’s a super great question, Anonymous.
It’s not information that people need. Everything that I say is rooted in information supplied by Shiller back in 1981. People can hear the phrase “valuations matter” 10,000 times and not have it have any influence on how they invest.
What people need is discussion. People need to talk these things through.
And people need exploration. Most people do not today appreciate the many far-reaching implications of the finding that valuations matter. One of the reasons why I posted so frequently is that the finding that valuations matter affects every strategic question that comes up in stock investing. I want to show people that this advance in our knowledge changes everything we once thought we knew about how stock investing works. It is not a single information bit that I am supplying. It is an entirely new way of thinking about the stock investing project. People can only come to appreciate how important this is if Valuation-Informed Indexers show them how it applies in hundreds of different circumstances.
And people need multiple sources of confirmation of the insights. I am not going to be the only one posting about Valuation-Informed Indexing in days to come. We need to have THOUSANDS of posters doing this. People are just not going to believe what one person says and for good reason. We need to hear Bogle comment on VII. And Bernstein. And Burns. And on and on and on and on.
Those people are not going to offer only positive comments. That’s good. People will not learn from hearing only positive comments. People need to hear positive comments from posters who believe that positive comments are warranted. And people need to hear negative comments from posters who believe that negative comments are warranted. That’s how learning experiences work. We need a National Learning Experience re the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field and re how the findings of the post-1981 research relate to the findings of the pre-1981 research (which also contains many powerful insights, to be sure).
Do you see?
There was a fellow named “Earnabuck” at the Bogleheads Forum when I posted there. He didn’t agree with most of my investing ideas. But he was a big defender of mine because he believed strongly that all posters should be permitted to post their sincere views. He said one time that he was present for the Motley Fool discussions and that at the time he agreed with Greaney but that over time he had come to agree with me that the valuation level that applies at the time the retirement begins must be taken into consideration in the calculation of the safe withdrawal rate.
That was an amazing statement.
The guy was obviously not biased against me. So when he agreed with Greaney, he was not being a Goon. And the guy was obviously smart. So why couldn’t he appreciate the simple point that I made on the morning of May 13, 2002, within one or two hours of the time I made it?
He couldn’t. That’s clear beyond any reasonable doubt.
The point is a painfully simple one. The price you pay matters when buying stocks just as it does when you buy anything other than stocks. Could anything be more obvious? But this guy really did not get it for a long, long time. It took him YEARS.
We do not lack for information, Anonymous. That is not our problem. Humans are not information processing machines. That’s not how they operate.
We need to talk about this stuff. Openly. Honestly. Bluntly.
We need to be friendly to those on “the other side.” We need to be respectful.
But we MUST all say what we truly believe. That’s how humans learn.
I could talk about this aspect of the question for a long, long time. So I am going to stop there unless you ask further questions.
But the question you are asking here could open all sorts of doors if you would ponder the matter a bit.
You Goons are not bad people. I do not say that.
The Wall Street Con Men are not bad people. I do not say that.
We all want the same things. We are all on the same side.
If you could LISTEN to what the other side is saying without so much defensiveness, you could learn some amazing things. In time you would come around.
Or not. I believe that you would come around. Perhaps I am wrong. If you did not come around, you would still gain from the experience. By letting the other side have its say and seeing that you were not persuaded, you would be confirmed in your current beliefs. You would over time become more confident in what you believe. Which is a big plus when you are following a strategy that you must stick with for it to work.
People don’t shift to a new model because they are exposed to some “information” about it. Conversion is a more gradual process. People need to be permitted to talk things out. With LOTS of different proponents of the new idea. They need to be able to challenge those people, to ask lots of hard questions. They need to ponder things over time. They need to be able to watch to see the extent to which friends of theirs are convinced over time. They need to try out different possibilities.
We have had the information we need for 33 years. Now we need to take it to the next step and start enjoying the big-time learning experiences that follow from it.
Rob
grandpop says
“You Goons are not bad people. I do not say that.”
Not bad. Just felons.
Anonymous says
“It’s not information that people need. ”
Okay, then. You said your peace. Time for you to move on. Nothing more is needed.
Rob says
Not bad. Just felons.
Yes, that is my sincere take re this matter.
The 12-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies is the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States. You Goons have put millions of people on track to suffering failed retirements. That’s serious stuff. That translates into prison time, perhaps a lot of prison time.
But I think of you as friends. I believe that there is good in you. There are exceptional circumstances that apply here and I intend to make people aware of those exceptional circumstances. I don’t agree to do that as part of a negotiation. I don’t ask anything in return for that. I intend to do that because I see it as the fair and right thing to do.
That’s where I come down. I need to tell the truth re these matters. I am not telling the truth if I do not acknowledge that you have committed felonies that have hurt millions of people. But I believe that the uncovering of this massive act of financial fraud could tear our country apart if we are not careful to tell the story in the most charitable way possible. So I want people to know about the pressures you faced and the pains you felt that played a role in influencing the choices you made.
You Goons are not entirely bad but you are felons who will be going to prison for your felonies sometime after the next price crash. That’s my sincere take re these matters, Grandpop.
If you want my help, you’ve got it.
If you don’t want my help, I accept that as the unfortunate reality that applies here.
Rob
Rob says
Nothing more is needed.
There are millions of people unemployed today because of the Buy-and-Hold Crisis, Anonymous. There are millions on their way to suffering failed retirements. There are hundreds who will be going to prison following the next price crash and the number grows all the time.
More is needed.
You are on the wrong side of The History Train.
I could drop dead tonight (don’t get any funny ideas, John Greaney!) and The History Train will just continue chugging forward. There’s not a thing that you can do about it. You can tell yourself otherwise if that’s your thing. But as a friend I feel a need to tell you that it is my sincere belief that there is not a thing that you can do about it.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob