Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Rob, serious question here: do you think you’re obsessing about this topic? I agree with the idea that you believe in: buy and hold isn’t the best way to invest. Seriously, though, you must’ve thought to yourself, at least a few times…..that “perhaps I could broaden the range of topics beyond the one idea I talk about daily….that buy and hold is not the best way to invest.” ?
My primary message is not: “Buy-and-Hold is not the best way to invest.”
My primary message is: “Honest posting should be permitted on every discussion board and blog on the internet so that we can all discover together whether Buy-and-Hold is the best way to invest.”
Do you see the difference?
If we permit honest posting, we will have thousands of good and smart people helping us to learn the best way to invest. We can’t possibly go wrong with all that help.
For so long as the Ban on Honest Posting remains in place, we are at the mercy of the Wall Street Con Men. It’s all about making a buck and there is no place in this field for people of personal integrity.
I didn’t write about investing for the first three years in which I posted at Motley Fool. I was very popular. I was doing good and important work and I was happy about it. I have never been “obsessed” about investing issues. I could pretty much take or leave discussions of investing, all else being equal.
But all else is NOT equal. My “obsession” began on the evening of August 27, 2002, when Greaney threatened to kill my wife and children if I continued to “cross” him by posting honestly re safe withdrawal rates. And when 200 of my fellow community members endorsed his post.
That ain’t right, James.
Those people are in pain.
They need our help.
The people who promote Buy-and-Hold are also in pain. I have great respect for these people. I have learned wonderful things from them and I care about them. I want them doing good, clean, honest work again. I know that deep in their hearts they want that for themselves too. I don’t have any doubt about it.
Buy-and-Hold is not just a bad investing strategy today. It is a threat to the survival of our free-market economic system. It is also a threat to the survival of our political system. You saw the reaction to the economic crisis (caused by the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies for 33 years after the peer-reviewed research in this field showed that there is precisely zero chance that Buy-and-Hold can ever work for a single investor) on both the left (the Occupy Wall Street Movement) and the right (the Tea Party Movement). We are likely going to see something ten times worse following the next price crash, a price crash that will put us in the Second Great Depression if we don’t open the internet to honest posting soon after it unfolds.
I love my country, James. I want my two boys to be able to grow up in the same sort of country that I grew up in. One with our economic system. One with our political system.
I have a funny feeling that I am not the only one who wants that.
I have a funny feeling that you want that.
To get it, we need to be able to stand up to the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads when they push their smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage. I understand that you (and lots of others) are afraid. But there is no other way.
I am afraid too. I am just like you.
Do you want to know the difference?
The difference is that I am even more afraid of what happens to us all if we continue to duck this problem.
I do this not just for me. I do it for you. And I do it for my boys. And I do it for the Goons. And I do it for the Wall Street Con Men. And I do it for the millions of middle-class investors whose lives are in the process of being destroyed.
I wish someone else would do it, you know? It’s not the most fun job in the world. If someone else would step forward, that would make me very happy.
Do you see someone else stepping forward?
Someone needs to do this job. No one else has stepped forward. So I continue to give it my best shot. I can do no more and I can do no less.
None of the other good stuff that we all enjoy continues to exist unless we set this right. We all want to see it set right. But someone has to get the ball rolling in the right direction for good things to happen. It seems that somehow the Fates or God or Evolution assigned me to that job. Blame them, you know?
I love my country.
That’s the bottom line here, James.
That’s the reason for the “obsession.”
I wish you all good things.
Rob
Anonymous says
If only you weren’t banned from the boards as you could single-handedly could save the entire world from financial disaster.
Rob says
You are 100 percent on the mark except for the “single-handed” part, Anonymous.
Bogle wants to save the entire world from financial disaster. That’s why he included language in his book that showed me that the numbers in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies are wrong.
Bernstein wants to save the world from financial disaster. That’s why he said that anyone who used one of those studies would have to be out of his mind.
Shiller wants to save the world from financial disaster. That’s why he told us back in March 2000 that we were headed for an economic crisis by the end of the decade if we continued pushing the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage.
Carl Richards wants to save the world from financial disaster. That’s why he told me that my site has huge value and that he had read every article on investing that I have written.
Mike Piper wants to save the world from financial disaster. That’s why he told me that he would like to work up the courage to stand up to Mel Linduaer and the rest of you Goons.
There’s a part of you that wants to save the world from financial disaster, Anonymous. Part of the reason why you fight so hard is that you are embarrassed for people to know that you have destroyed so many lives and caused so many failed retirements. It’s a paradox but, if you didn’t want to do good on some level of consciousness, you wouldn’t be filled with so much hate re the idea of people learning what the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research tells us.
I have for 13 years led the effort to open the internet to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. That much is fair to say.
But I haven’t been working along. Every word that I have put forward is rooted in the work of thousands of good and smart people who came before me and in the brave efforts of the thousands of my fellow community members who have put up posts expressing a desire that honest posting be permitted in this field.
We all want the same things. We all get to enjoy the benefits that follow from opening the internet to honest posting. We all get to experience the prison sentences and civil actions and the Great Depression that follow from keeping the Ban on Honest Posting in place another day, another week, another month another year.
It’s not an accident that we elected as a society to make the crime of financial fraud a felony, Anonymous. We did that because we knew how important it was to avoid this kind of situation. Our laws are not self-enforcing. The Wall Street Con Men have lots of money and power and influence to direct to overcoming our laws. A lot of us f’ed up by letting that money and power and influence overcome our good judgment for a time. Shame on us, you know?
The good news is that it ends with the next price crash and with the announcement of your prison sentence. The laws against financial fraud remain on the books. Following the crash, we will see as a people that we have no choice but to enforce them. And, once your prison sentence is announced, there is not going to be one site owner on the internet permitting posting in “defense” of Mel Linduaer or John Greaney or Jack Bogle. I mean, come friggin’ on!
It’s a good system, Anonymous. It works. A bit slowly from time to time. But in the long run it always works.
Let’s celebrate that much!
No?
Rob
Anonymous says
All of the people you mentioned can and do speak for themselves. Again, you stand alone.
Rob says
None of those people are saying what they believe, Anonymous. They want the laws of the United States to be enforced so that they can speak honestly. Nothing could be more clear.
I do not stand alone. I am not going to prison following the next price crash. You are. I have the people of the United States behind me. You do not.
That’s why I can wait this out and you cannot. I mean, come on.
Rob
Anonymous says
I don’t see them standing with you, but you are the first person I have met that can read minds.
Rob says
I don’t have to read minds, Anonymous. I am going by what people have told me.
I had a long conversation with Mike Piper. He told me that he would LOVE to permit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research at his blog. But he is afraid of what Mel Lindauer would do to him if he did so. He knows that at a bare minimum he would never be permitted to post at the Bogleheads Forum again. And in all likelihood you Goons would burn his site to the ground. His web site is his means of supporting himself. So he is willing to ban honest posting for now. But once your prison sentence is announced those days come to an end.
It’s the same with Scott Burns. He told me in his first e-mail to me that I was right about safe withdrawal rates. Then when he had some time to think about what you Goons would do to him if you found out that he had written an honest column re the cover-up of the errors in the Old School “studies,” he changed his tune a bit. He still told his readers that the studies were in error. But he was careful not to say what the right numbers are. And he pretended that he wasn’t sure himself about whether the “studies” contained errors or not, saying only that “some people” think that.
It’s the same with Jack Bogle. He wrote in his book that it is an “Iron Law” that stock prices revert to the mean. There ain’t no way in God’s green earth that the Old School retirement studies could get the numbers right if that is so. Bogle is happy to signal the truth to those who want to know it. He is just careful not to say it plainly and clearly because he knows that you Goons would destroy him if he did so.
It’s the same with Bill Bernstein. Bill said that anyone who gave thought to using one of the Old School retirement studies to plan a retirement would have to be out of his freakin’ mind given how wildly off the mark they are. That shows that he has a conscience. Then he added that “of course” the studies are analytically valid so that you Goons would stay off his back. I think it would be fair to say that Bill knows what you have to do to make a buck in this field so long as you Goons remain out of prison.
It’s the same with Larry Swedroe. He tried to post honestly and was banned by Mel Lindaer. He came crawling back to Lindauer and promised never to do it again and now he is doing just fine.
It’s the same with Wade Pfau. He LOVED the idea of publishing honest research until you Goons threatened to send defamatory e-mails to his employer to get him fired from his job and Jack Bogle signaled that he was just fine with that.
No mind-reading required, Anonymous.
What is required is enforcement of the laws making financial fraud a felony.
That comes after the next price crash.
Or at least so Rob Bennett believes.
We’ll see.
Fair enough?
Rob
Hearsay Galore says
What a shame that there is not one 3rd party link anywhere on the interwebs to corroborate a single word you just said.
Rob says
It’s a terrible shame, Hearsay.
But the world isn’t going to come to an end on the day following the next crash.
The good news here is 50 times more good than the bad news here is bad.
So we will see what happens following the crash.
Does that work for you?
Rob
Anonymous says
So, if the words don’t exist, then they never said these things and one must conclude that you could only then get that information if you could read minds.
Rob says
Bogle has a lot of good in him, Anonymous. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have written the words in his book that helped me to understand that the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies get the numbers wildly wrong.
Since Bogle has good in him, we can be pretty darn sure that he is going to flip following the next price crash. A man who has good in him is not going to want to see his country go into the Second Great Depression.
Once Bogle flips, you Goons have nothing. You will be in prison. We will have a National Debate re the last 34 years of pee-reviewed research at that time. Every web site will participate.
I don’t like waiting. But I have no choice. I love my country. So I accept that this is the way it must be.
I don’t do felonies. No way, no how. Not this boy.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
Anonymous says
“Since Bogle has good in him, we can be pretty darn sure that he is going to flip following the next price crash. ”
So, you are waiting for him to “flip” and say something else……which means he (and the others) haven’t said anything as to what you are describing. So, you must be reading minds, right????
Rob says
We need full honesty from Bogle and from all the others.
He plays a stupid game where he says enough for people who see through the Buy-and-Hold garbage to know vaguely what to do but not enough to help those who are addicted to Get Rich Quick.
That doesn’t work. That approach brought on the biggest economic crisis in U.S. history.
It’s not just that Get Rich Quick isn’t the answer. Get Rich Quick is the problem.
Every book on investing needs to start with a chapter explaining why Buy-and-Hold never works in the long run. Bogle needs to be more clear, more direct, more honest, more blunt.
He needs to either support Get Rich Quick or Research-Based. It can’t be both. That way has been a way to turn a quick buck for a good number of years now. Now the marketing gimmick is in the process of destroying the country that Jack and I love.
On the days he flips, it is all over for you Goons.
From that point forward, it is good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff for our entire country.
Bogle has no choice but to come clean. Given that reality, he should do it as soon as possible, just as you Goons should.
But if he doesn’t come clean until after the crash, he doesn’t come clean until after the crash. I have asked him to come clean numerous times. I cannot control the timing.
But I ain’t crossing The Felony Line in the interim, Anonymous. When Bogle flips, I want to be here to help out. I can’t help out if I am in prison myself.
So I am going to continue posting honestly re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.
I wish you all good things.
Rob