Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Do you think you might want to maybe ask…. oh, I don’t know, maybe THE NEW YORK TIMES about that?
I’ve contacted reporters for the New York Times as well as reporters for many other fine publications, Anonymous. A few years back, I was posting the contents of my e-mails to reporters as blog entries here. I bet that, if you did some searching, you could find at least one that went to a New York Times reporter.
There was one fellow whom I wrote to who showed a lot of interest in writing a big article. He was not with the New York Times. But he has a significant following on the internet. We had two very long telephone calls (two hours or so each). We communicated by e-mail probably four times. He asked me for books to read so that he could better understand the background and I pointed him to Irrational Exuberance and A Random Walk Down Wall Street. He asked lots of questions, including a good number of hard questions. That’s a very good sign. Reporters don’t run articles until they have challenged their sources with hard questions. So this guy was close to biting.
He did not end up publishing an article and he was not willing to tell me why. But I can guess.
That journalist (and all journalists who work for the New York Times and all other publications) was in the same spot that Wade Pfau was in when he did his research with me showing that making the switch to Valuation-Informed Indexing reduces the risk of stock investing by 70 percent. Wade very much looked forward to winning a Nobel prize and I am sure that the reporter that I worked with very much looked forward to winning a Pulitzer prize. But at what price?
When you Goons threatened to destroy Wade’s career if he continued to publish honest research and Jack Bogle signaled that he would employ his power and wealth and contacts to support your efforts, Wade thought about his responsibility to provide for his two small children and thought better of the idea of helping millions of middle-class people by doing the job that he was being trained for all of his life to be able to do. I am virtually certain that the same thing happened to the reporter that I worked with. And of course there are numerous bloggers in this field who have told me or showed me that similar concerns drive their decisions about what to write at their blogs.
The 12-year cover up of the errors in the Old School retirement studies is the biggest act of financial fraud in U.S. history, as you well know. Lots of people will be going to prison when this gets out. It will get out eventually. It has to get out eventually or our entire economic system will go down. But how do you think you would feel if you were the reporter who was preparing the article that would tell the world about the most massive act of financial fraud in U.S. history?
And how do you think you would feel if you were that reporter’s editor or publisher?
There’s a scene in the movie All the Presidents Men in which the Ben Bradlee character is telling the Bob Woodward character that he had better not f this up or it might bring down the Washington Post. There’s where we are with the 12-year cover up of the errors in the Old School retirement studies. Lots of people will be going to prison when this story comes out. How far do you think the people who will be going to prison will be willing to go to keep from the American people news of what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field says about how stock investing works? We are taking about very desperate characters here, Anonymous.
There is a lot of money behind Buy-and-Hold. There is a lot of power behind Buy-and-Hold. There are a lot of connections behind Buy-and-Hold. We are dealing here with people who don’t play nice. We are dealing here with brutally abusive and ruthlessly vicious people. That’s the story. That’s why the New York Times has not run this story as of today.
What’s going to happen following the next price crash? That’s the big question.
I say that the Wall Street Con Men are brutal and vicious and wealthy and powerful and well-connected. But I do not say that that is ALL that is true of them. Jack Bogle tells bits of the truth about stock investing in just about every speech he gives and in just about every article he publishes. Why the f does he do that if he is trying so hard to cover up the truth? It doesn’t make any friggin’ sense, does it?
It doesn’t make sense on a surface level. Bogle is suffering cognitive dissonance, like you Goons. He does not want people to feel free to discuss the peer-reviewed research of the past 33 years. He hates with a burning hate the idea of millions of middle-class investors learning the truth about stock investing. But he is a good man. He is a smart man and a good man. He has devoted his life to helping middle-class investors. He has been responsible for scores of powerful and important insights. He loves his country. He does not want to see this economic crisis take us into the Second Great Depression.
So what do you think he is going to do following the next price crash?
I think he is going to flip. I think he is going to walk to the front of a large room and say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” That’s when the New York Times will publish its article. It would be better if it did it today. But the editors of the New York Times want Bogle’s okay before going ahead. EVERYONE will be telling the truth about stock investing once Old Saint Jack gives the signal that it is safe to do so. We are all today waiting for Old Saint Jack to make the first move.
I have written to the man. Three times. My good friend Rob Arnott has written to the man. Others have written to him. John Craig wrote to him. Lots of people want Jack to come clean. It would be a wonderful, wonderful thing if he came clean by the close of business today. That would take us off of this very dark path and put us on to a very, very bright path.
I can’t force the issue.
The posts that I write here will help us in the days following the day on which Jack gives his speech. Things will move quicker and smoother because of the articles that I posted in the days before he gave his speech.
This thing is headed to a very good place. I know that that’s so because the only alternative we have to taking this to a very good place is for us to take it to the worst place imaginable and I just don’t see anything in my good friend Jack Bogle’s life story to indicate that that is where he is going to take this. Jack is going to do the right thing. Because he loves his country. Because he doesn’t have any other choice. But, sad as it makes me feel to report this reality, it does not look like Jack is going to do the right thing by the close of business today. WhaChaGawnDo?
Jack and I will be working together at a wicked pace in the days following The Big Guy’s Big Speech. We will be best friends. That will be a blast. That is something that I am looking forward to very much.
I will continue contacting reporters in the days leading up to the next crash. But Jack and the other Wall Street Con Men are very powerful people and I think it would be fair to say that they have made it pretty darn clear what will happen to anyone who speaks out of turn before Jack gives his speech.
That’s where things stand today, Anonymous. I will help any reporter who wants help with this. I will answer any question. But I cannot make it happen by myself. I need Jack’s help to bring on all the wonderful stuff that follows from opening the internet to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. We all would be a whole big bunch better off if Jack and the other Wall Street Con Men and the members of their Internet Goon Squads had never committed financial fraud in the first place.
But we do not have access to a time machine that can take us back to those innocent days, do we?
My best wishes to you and yours, my long-time abusive-posting friend.
Rob
It sounds like it is all one big conspiracy and only you have it completely figured out and exposed.
He did not end up publishing an article and he was not willing to tell me why. But I can guess.
So can we Rob, so can we.
It sounds like it is all one big conspiracy and only you have it completely figured out and exposed.
I have gone farther than anyone else in two departments:
1) Exploring the implications of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) findings; and
2) Using plain, easy-to-understand language re the massive act of financial fraud used to achieve the 34-year cover-up.
Thousands of people have commented on flaws in the Buy-and-Hold Model but not often enough or with enough detail to persuade most investors that they need to abandon it before it destroys them.
I see no evidence of a literal “conspiracy.” I have not seen any evidence that people got together in a room and decided to do this to us. I cannot say that there is zero chance that that happened. But I do not believe that that happened. The evidence that I have seen points away from that conclusion. Specifically, I get the same reactions at different sites. It is not possible that every site owner is in on a conspiracy. Yet owners of different sites and community members at different sites respond in very similar ways.
People DO respond in similar ways. That to me is the biggest clue to understanding what is really going on.
I wrote a column just a few weeks ago at the Value Walk site that I think does the best job of explaining what is really going on. I wrote about the famous literature in the psychology field from the 1950s (I believe it was — it could have been the 1940s, I didn’t check) in which those conducting the study showed study participants two cards, one with a line of 12 inches (again, I didn’t recheck the precise details, I am describing generally what was tested) and another with three lines of 12 inches, 18 inches and 24 inches. When asked to identify which line on the second card matched the length of the line on the first card, 95 percent of the test subjects did so successfully. But when four fake test subjects gave the same wrong answer, only one in three genuine test subjects were able to give the right answer. When asked why, they said that they wanted to be “polite.”
That’s the story here. Peer pressure is a huge influence on the human mind. Bull markets are the product of peer pressure. And Buy-and-Hold is the product of peer pressure.
No one believes in Buy-and-Hold. Not in a deep sense. Not Bogle. Not you Goons. Not anyone.
Yet the Buy-and-Holders really do follow the dictates of the strategy. The Buy-and-Holders lie about every subject under the sun. But they don’t lie about that. They “eat their own cooking.”
We know intellectually what works today. But we have not yet given ourselves permission to make use of the huge advances that we have achieved over the past 34 years.
If the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research is valid, this will end in an economic collapse. I believe that, when that becomes apparent to everyone involved, we will all join together to rebuild our broken economy. I should be working WITH Bogle. My work makes his good ideas (of which there are many) workable in the real world. I am his biggest supporter, his best friend, his partner in realization of his vision. He doesn’t see it today. But I believe he will see it tomorrow. I sure hope so.
I will be there for my friend when he is ready to do positive work, Anonymous. And I will be there for you Goons when you are able to say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.”
You give the impression of wanting something else from me. But I have nothing else in me to give. I love my country and I do not want to see her done harm in this way. I believe that there is a part of you buried down deep where you don’t want to see her done harm in this way either. But that part is not dominant in you or in Bogle or in lots of others today. I don’t like that reality. But I have to accept it, like it or not.
That’s where things stand.
I don’t call this a conspiracy, I call it a weakness in human nature. It’s done a lot of people a lot of harm, regardless of what one calls it. I want to get us back on the right track and I will do anything short of committing a felony myself to make that happen. But I won’t be crossing The Felony Line. Not in 13 years and not in 13 billion years.
I wish you all good things. If that counts for anything, you’ve got that much from me.
I don’t have any more to give unless you come back to the right side of The Felony Line yourself, you nasty, dumb Conspirator!
Rob
So can we Rob, so can we.
In 13 years, there has never once been a Valuation-Informed Indexer who advanced an act of intimidation.
From the Buy-and-Holders, we have seen thousands and thousands and thousands.
That tells the tale re which side has peer-reviewed research backing its claims and which side is desperate to keep the public from learning the realities.
Journalists are afraid today, just as everyone else is afraid today. But you will not be able to control people with fear indefinitely.
We’ll see how it goes.
Rob
Rob,
I think it comes down to something as simple as this. You have stated what you think are problems. People have responded as to how they disagree. You, in turn have responded how you think people are wrong to have disagreed with you. People continued to respond in disagreement. The cycle continued on for some time. Many people grew tired of the cycle and went away. Others eventually got angry because of repetitive comments going in circles. Others decided enough was enough and had you banned.
Your jury will see the posts of the thousands who expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted.
Your jury will see the published rules of all the sites where you violated the published rules thousands of times.
Your jury will see the death threats.
Your jury will see the demands for unjustified board bannings.
Your jury will see the tens of thousands of acts of defamation.
Your jury will see the hundreds of posts in which Wade Pfau showed his growing excitement over Valuation-Informed Indexing as he did more research and learned more about it.
Your jury will see the peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with Wade, research that can fairly be described as the most important research published in this field in the past three decades.
Your jury will see the posts in which Wade expressed his growing fear that you Goons were going to destroy his career and the lack of reaction by Jack Bogle when I asked for his help.
Your jury members will have lost most of their life savings in the crash.
Your jury members will be chosen from a society of people on its way or already in the Second Great Depression, a Great Depression that could have been avoided had you honored your promise to follow the site rules at the boards and blogs at which you posted.
Your jury will be hearing testimony from people like Robert Shiller and Rob Arnott and Michael Kitces, who will be backing me up by reporting on the many acts of intimidation directed at them over the years.
Your jury will see that I was so sure of what the peer-reviewed research says that I contacted 30,000 academic researchers, knowing that none of them would be able to identify any flaws in the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept.
Your jury will hearing from the professor at George Washington University who offered effusive praise for the VII concept and said that he would be in the future teaching it in his classroom and giving me credit for the concept.
Your jury will be bearing from the professor at Columbia University who said that VII follows from Shiller’s research and that he could see how it might work out very well indeed.
Your jury will be seeing the analysis done by Schenkler (a Goon!), who said that VII looked rock-solid and important.
Your jury will be hearing from the posters at the Bogleheads Forum who said that my work challenges basic premises of Buy-and-Hold in a very serious and exciting way.
Your jury will be hearing the threats you directed to Wade Pfau that I don’t even know about yet, the ones that were made in secret.
Your jury will be looking at any e-mails that Wade sent to friends at the time he was thinking of flipping to the dark side because of the threats you made to destroy his career.
Your jury will be looking at the comments made by hundreds of posters at the Diehards Forum when you Goons became so afraid of losing control of that board as a result of your use of insanely abusive tactics that you moved the entire board community to a place where it could be controlled by Goons.
Your jury will be looking at e-mails transmitted among the lawyers at Morningstar.com at the time when you Goons were demanding that I be banned and they couldn’t find a single abusive post in my file while finding thousands and thousands put forward by you Goons.
Your jury will be looking at any e-mails sent by Mel Lindauer and other Goons to Jack Bogle and any e-mails that Bogle sent back.
Your jury will be looking at my e-mail exchanges with Mike Piper in which he said that he would like to permit honest posting but was too afraid of what his readers would do if they learned how big the difference was between the Buy-and-Hold strategy that he endorsed and what the last 34 years of peer-reviewed researc tells us.
Your jury will be looking at how you followed me from site to site, threatening to destroy any board community that permitted honest posting on the safe withdrawal rate issue.
Your jury will be looking at how you burned numerous board communities to the ground because they permitted honest posting for a time.
Your jury will be looking at how the owner of the NoFeeBoards.com site pleaded with his long-time friend Ataloss not to burn his site to the ground and at how Ataloss refused to listen to those pleas.
Your jury will be looking at how John Walter Russell was universally recognized as the best numbers guy at any of our boards by all non-Goons and at how you Goons were so consumed with hate for him once he posted honestly re the SWR issue that you laughed at him on the day he died an early death.
Your jury will be looking at the e-mails that I exchanged with John Greaney in the days before I put forward my famous post of May 13, 2002, in which I asked him to co-author a book with me and he told me that was a bad idea because everyone who ever got to know him well concluded that he was the biggest asshole who ever walked Planet Earth.
And on and on and on and on and on and on.
Good luck with getting a short prison sentence with all that and more being told to your jury, Anonymous.
I think I will stick with my decision to avoid crossing The Felony Line now and forever.
Holy moly!
Rob