Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
I suspect you are implying that the bogleheads thread is missing your input. Is that correct?
No, that’s not correct.
The thread is missing the honest input of THOUSANDS of good and smart people who should be contributing to that board community in an honest way but who today do not feel safe doing so.
Let’s take one hugely important example — my good friend Jack Bogle.
Jack obviously knows that Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller has published research showing that there is precisely zero chance that Buy-and-Hold could ever work for a single long-term investor, right? WHY THE HECK ISN’T HE TELLING PEOPLE THAT AT THAT BOARD IN PLAIN AND SIMPLE AND CLEAR AND DIRECT LANGUAGE?
Has my good friend Jack gone fuckin’ insane?
Has he?
That’s a fair question, isn’t it?
Jack should have come out in 1981 and gave a speech saying that there was new research that cast doubts on the Buy-and-Hold strategy as it had been developed in its first-draft form by Bogle and the other Buy-and-Hold Pioneers. Had he done that, there would be no problem today. Had he done that, we would all be Valuation-Informed Indexers today.
Jack didn’t do that. He is one of the flawed humans. He messed up.
Okay.
So what do the rest of us do about that?
We could cover up for Jack, right? That might work for a few years, right?
But there’s a downside, isn’t there?
If we engage in a cover-up, we are engaging in financial fraud, a felony under the laws of the United States. We land in prison somewhere down the line. Perhaps the cover-up idea is not our best thought! Just perhaps!
Are there any other options?
There are.
The other option is to come clean.
That’s what I proposed on the morning of May 13, 2002.
Would there have been prison sentences had we opened the entire internet to honest posting on the morning of May 13, 2002?
I don’t think so. It is possible that there were some terrible things that happened before that date that I don’t know about and that I am wrong about this. But, going by what I know, there would not have been prison sentences if we all had come clean on the morning of May 13, 2002.
How about today?
I don’t see any way to avoid prison sentences today. But I am not God. Perhaps I am wrong. It has been known to happen.
Does it even matter?
We are all obviously better off if we come clean today than we will be if we come clean tomorrow. So let’s make it happen today, you know? Why the f not?
I don’t know how much confidence Bogle has in Buy-and-Hold.
My confidence is zero. I don’t believe that his confidence is zero. If it were zero and he continued promoting it, he would be The Frank Underwood of Personal Finance, a monster. I do not think of my dear friend Jack as a monster. So I do not view it as even remotely possible that his confidence is zero.
How about 100 percent? Could Jack’s confidence level in Buy-and-Hold be 100 percent?
No, that’s not possible. If it were 100 percent, he would be happy to hear people express contrary views and he obviously is not even a tiny bit happy to hear people express contrary views. So we can rule out 100 percent.
It’s not 0 percent and it’s not 100 percent. It’s something between those two.
Could it be 50 percent?
Perhaps.
I don’t know.
I cannot see into Jack’s mind.
My guess is that Jack’s confidence is something in the neighborhood of 70 percent. Enough to permit him to rationalize that it is okay to continue to promote the concept.
BUT NOT GREAT ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY HIM NOT TELLING EVERY PERSON WHO COMES TO THAT BOARD ABOUT HIS DOUBTS!
My good friend Jack has to tell us about his doubts. He MUST do this. Or he will go to prison too. And that is just too, too, too sad.
Do you see, Anonymous?
We don’t just need Rob Bennett contributing honestly to the Bogleheads Forum. We need Jack Bogle contributing honestly to the Bogleheads Forum.
And Bill Bernstein.
And Wade Pfau.
And Larry Swedroe.
And Scott Burns.
And J.D. Roth.
And Mike Piper.
And Carl Richards.
And Michael Kitces.
And Bill Schultheis.
And on and on and on and on and on.
We need EVERYONE contributing their honest thoughts to every investing board and blog on the internet.
Do you see?
Rob
Anonymous says
My guess is that Rob Bennett’s confidence in VII is about 2% because he spends all of his time making posts about the same things over and over again. Someone that is confident in their position does not feel the need to do this.
Rob says
My confidence is high, Anonymous. I have devoted 13 years of my life to developing and promoting the VII concept. I obviously wouldn’t do that if my confidence were not high.
The thing that you are saying that I post on frequently is the massive case of financial fraud. I post about that all the time because that is the only thing holding things up.
U.S. stocks have for 140 years earned an average long-term return of 6.5 percent real. That’s great. Valuation-Informed Indexers and Buy-and-Holders are in agreement that that’s great.
You know what? That number is in jeopardy. We get that return because our economic system works. Capitalism is harsh in certain ways. Everybody knows this. But the great redeeming feature of our economic system is that it produces. We see lots of advances that benefit all of us. We have to work hard. We see people at the top making a lot more than most of us. But there is a payoff in the form of an incredible amount of progress over time.
All of that is at risk as a result of the Ban on Honest Posting. You can’t have progress if you cannot talk about new ideas. New ideas are what make that average return 6.5 percent real instead of 0.0 percent real. And the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads are 100 percent opposed to the development and promotion of this powerful new idea. This is not Capitalism. This is Crony Capitalism. That’s a very, very, very different thing. The “Crony” part takes away all the good that capitalism once did for us. Under Crony Capitalism, we all go down. Including the Crony Capitalists, paradoxically enough.
The Ban on Honest Posting is the only issue that matters today, Anonymous.
I wrote to 30,000 academic researchers to tell them about The Silencing of Wade Pfau. I heard back from enough of them to know that a LOT of academic researchers would like to be doing honest work today but do not feel safe about doing so. There was a lot of money and time put into the training of those thousands of researchers. All of that money and time is wasted for so long as none of them feel comfortable doing honest work. The appeal of research is not that there are tables and graphics and numbers in it. The appeal is that it leads you gradually over time closer and closer to Truth. The research being done in this field today is not leading us to Truth. It is all a big pile of Lies. Researchers need to feel safe to do honest work for their work product to offer any benefits for those of us who make use of it.
There is HUGE leverage in opening the internet to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. I have taken a stab at answering hundreds of questions that need to be answered. I have done my best to answer them honestly accurately. But who the f am I? I never went to investing school. I never managed any big funds. My claim to expertise in this field is that I figured out how to get a post to show up on an internet discussion board. Which is not much. There are THOUSANDS of people who we need to be hearing from.
I believe that lots of those people will come to conclusions similar to my own once they work up the courage to take on the Wall Street Con Men and you Goons. But not all of them will. Some of them will find flaws in my work or will offer caveats that need to be considered. Some will come up with entirely new ideas. And that will of course be wonderful. That if of course how it should be and how it must be.
Some will continue to make the case for Buy-and-Hold. That is how it should be as well. There are millions who believe in Buy-and-Hold today. Those people have both a right and responsibility to make the best case they are able to advance. We need to hear from them. But we need to hear from them ONLY if they are willing to do honest work. Once a researcher or investing analyst becomes too afraid of what the Wall Street Con Men or you Goons will do to him if he shares his honest beliefs with us, his work becomes worthless to us. Anyone who lacks the courage to stand up to the Buy-and-Hold Mafia needs to find a new line of work. Such people do not have what it takes to earn a living in this field.
Overcoming the Buy-and-Hold Mafia is what matters today. It is our first priority. And our second. And our third. And our fourth. And our fifth.
There is a mountain of exciting stuff that will come FOLLOWING the announcement of your prison sentence, Anonymous. But the announcement of your prison sentence is the wonderful, magic moment that makes all the rest of the good stuff possible. We will be talking about the advances we have achieved over the past 34 years for many decades to come. But we will not even begin to talk about them in an effective way until your prison sentence and the prison sentences of the Wall Street Con Men and the other Goons are all announced.
Do you see?
Things have to be done in a certain order.
We enacted the laws against financial fraud for a good reason. Our society cannot stand without enforcement of those laws. Those laws are not self-enforcing. We need to have 10 or so people work up the courage to stand up to you Goons. Then it is over. Then the millions of middle-class investors get what they have been asking for since the morning of May 13, 2002. Then we turn it all around. Then we get over the Big Black Mountain and step into a future in which the risk of stock investing has been reduced by 70 percent and in which we all earn returns higher enough to permit us to retire five to ten years sooner.
How horrible a future we have waiting for us down the road!!!
How will be ever overcome the pain!!!
The words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong” being verbalized by some of the most wealthy and powerful and well-connected people in our society!!! How will we ever recover!!!!
You Goons put safely away in prison cells where you belong? The horror! The horror! The madness and the horror!
It’s a process, Anonymous.
It is how our system works.
The Civil Rights Revolutions was not won in a day. And the Financial Freedom Revolution will not be won in a day.
But it will be won. Count it.
Because we don’t as a society have any other choice but to win this won. If we lose this one, we all go down together.
And I know from my interactions with tens of thousands of middle-class investors over the past 13 years that there are millions of people who love their country too much to let that happen once they see the human misery that will follow from the next Buy-and-Hold Price Crash.
The people of the United States are winning this one. You Goons are losing this one.
I hope that makes good sense to you. I hope you are beginning to understand that it will continue to go the way it has been going since the morning of May 13, 2002, because it MUST continue to go the way it has been going since the morning of May 13, 2002. You are standing on the tracks of the History Train telling “Stop!” and the History Train is in the process of running you over in slow motion. I wouldn’t want to be you for all the money in the world, Anonymous.
That said, I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors regardless of what investing strategy you elect to pursue.
Hang in there, old friend.
Rob
OCD says
“The thing that you are saying that I post on frequently is the massive case of financial fraud.”
Not frequently. Every day. Not just the same topic, but practically the same wording.
Rob says
The Ban on Honest Posting is a statement made by “the other side,” is it not?
The Buy-and-Holders make that same statement every day.
The Buy-and-Holders have been making the same statement every day for a lot longer than I have. I began writing about this stuff on the morning of May 13, 2002. The Buy-and-Holders put the cover-up in place in 1981.
We live in a dynamic society. One of the great things about being an American is that we do not have to say or do the same things over and over again. We have the freedom to learn new things and to ADVANCE in our understanding of things and thereby to become richer, happier, freer people.
The problem in the investing field is that things have gone haywire. We stopped advancing in 1981, when Shiller provided us the missing piece to the puzzle that we all had for a long time been hoping to find and, instead of moving forward, we freaked and elected to remain stuck in the Dark Ages of our understanding of how stock investing works.
Is there any reason to believe that we will remain stuck forever, OCD?
I sure don’t think so. The millions of middle-class investors who would like to see the internet opened up to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics have common sense on their side. They also have 34 years of peer-reviewed research on their side. They also have 140 years of historical return data on their side. They also have the published rules of every blog and discussion board on the internet on their side. They also have the laws of the United States on their side. They also have the desire of 30,000 academic researchers to be freed to do honest work on their side. They also have the desire of the millions of people who have lost their jobs in the Buy-and-Hold Crisis on their side. They also have the millions of people who are in the process of suffering failed retirements because of the confidence they placed in the Old School SWR studies on their side.
We all know how this is going to turn out following the next price crash.
Fair enough?
So should all of us who love our country not be trying to write articles today explaining how we got to this strange place where the Get Rich Quickers have complete freedom to push their smelly garbage at any site they choose while those of us advocating the first true research-based strategy have to deal with threats to kill our loves ones and demands for unjustified board bannings and tens of thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs? It sure seems so to me.
The purpose of these articles is to help the nation heal after we learn together that we have no choice but to open the internet up to honest posting.
You don’t want to go to prison. Fair enough. I am going to use these articles to try to get your prison sentence reduced a bit. That’s not the only purpose they serve. But it is an important purpose. I cannot wait until after the next crash to write such articles. The articles will have no credibility if they are not written until after the crash. Everyone will know then how things turned out. I need to write these article today so that people will understand what was going on when they try to figure all this stuff out following the crash.
Do you see?
We didn’t enact the laws against financial fraud as some sort of vain exercise. Those laws were adopted for a reason. They are there to protect us from the sort of situation that we are in today. We know that we need protection from the sorts of tactics employed by you Goons. We have it! Now we just have to enforce those laws and everything is groovy for every single person involved in this matter.
Do you see?
It’s a process. We are working up the courage we need to bring the Buy-and-Hold Era to a close and to usher in the Valuation-Informed Indexing Era. It’s good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff, with no possibility of any downside. The key step is getting your prison sentence announced and then seeing that announcement go viral. Once word of your prison sentence goes viral, there will not be one site on the internet favoring the Ban on Honest Posting. I am 100 percent sure.
I hope that all makes good sense to you, my long-time abusive-posting friend.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Anonymous says
Hmm fantasizing about the probability of the confidence another person has in an opinion…interesting way to make a living…
Rob says
You are being sarcastic. But, yes, this is very important work.
There is 34 years of peer-reviewed research showing that there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for a single investor. Bogle is a giant in this field. Bogle still advocates Buy-and-Hold strategies to this day.
Huh?
We all should be trying to explain that one, Anonymous. The survival of our economic system is at stake.
The contradictions evident here CAN be resolved.
There is a great deal of literature in the psychology field relating to cognitive dissonance. That’s the phenomenon that explains what is going on in the investing field. Bogle knows about Shiller. Bogle knows about the 34 years of peer-reviewed research. But he doesn’t want to know. So he pretends to both himself and others that he does not know.
It is everyone else’s job to help him snap out of it. That’s a win/win/win. But there are a lot of people in the investing field who are not comfortable with the discussion of psychological phenomena. This is a money field. They want certainty. Psychology is not an exact science. There are always going to be uncertainties in dealing with psychological phenomena. Allowing discussions of psychological phenomena in investing discussions softens them.
That’s a wonderful thing. We very much need to soften discussions held in the investing field. But bringing in discussions of human psychology threaten lots of the Big Shot “experts”working in tis field.
We need more of this sort of thing. I look forward to the day when we are ALL engaged in discussions of this sort of thing. Human psychology is the Forbidden Continent of InvestoWorld. When we begin traveling to the Forbidden Continent together, we will soon be making advances that we cannot even imagine as possible today.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
Anonymous says
We all should be trying to explain that one, Anonymous.
I might check with your family and make sure they agree that’s the best use of your time…
Rob says
I’ve checked with my entire country, Anonymous.
The laws of our nation support the principle that we should permit honest posting re the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research.
We all support the idea of opening the internet to honest posting. Even you.
That’s why you hate me so much.
You don’t really hate me. You hate the voice of common sense within you that tells you that I am right. The Get Rich Quick voice within you demands that you silence that voice. And I won’t shut up. I keep reminding you about the voice of common sense within you that the Get Rich Quick voice wants to silence so desperately.
That’s where we stand. You hate me because I give voice to a part of yourself that you want silenced. Enough of the population (not a majority, but perhaps 10 percent) feels the same that you have been able to overcome the 90 percent of the population that either supports the idea of permitting honest posting (but not nearly as intensely as you oppose it) or is more or less indifferent on the question and can be pulled in either direction depending on what they see others doing.
If the Get Rich Quick side of us wins, we all go down. Our economic system collapses.
If the Common Sense side of us that believes that what the peer-reviewed research says matters wins, we get to enjoy the biggest economic surge that we have seen in our history, we get to see the risk of stock investing reduced by 70 percent and returns that are sufficiently increased to let us retire five to ten years sooner.
The Get Rich Quick side fights hard. Because the Get Rich Quick side is desperate. Let honest posting appear at one large site and Valuation-Informed Indexing will pick up enough steam to take over the world in six months. The Common Sense side is scared. Let others step forward and get their heads chopped off. It’s not my problem. It’s not my responsibility. That’s how the good guys think about this one.
Our nation voted as a whole on this one when we enacted laws making financial fraud a felony. We knew about the danger of widespread financial fraud and we acted to make sure that this sort of situation never took place. We knew how many human lives would be destroyed if the investing advice field ever became so corrupt that errors in retirement studies could be publicly described and yet remain uncorrected for 13 years.
Get Rich Quick has won for these 13 years.
But have you been able to get the laws against financial fraud repealed?
You haven’t. Those laws remain on the books.
That means that we remain a basically good people.
That means that those who post in “defense” of Mel Lindauer and John Greaney and Jack Bogle will find themselves in prison cells following the next price crash.
I love my country.
I am staying on the right side of The Felony Line.
You make your choices for you. I love my country. That’s the choice that I have made for me.
I have never given the idea of flipping to the Goon side two seconds of consideration. Not once in 13 years. I won’t give it two seconds of consideration once in 13 billion years. I know myself well enough to know that much. If you had been paying attention over the past 13 years, you would too.
We’ll see how it all works out. I am not God. I could be wrong. If I were, I would probably be the last to know.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors regardless of what investing strategy you elect to pursue.
My family is part of this country. If my country goes down, my family goes down too. By acting to protect my country, I act to protect my family as well. There’s no conflict there.
Rob