Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
If any newspaper ran a story, as you say, you and they would both be in court defending yourselves against a lawsuits for false accusations.
The accusations aren’t false. So we need have no concerns on that score.
But you are pointing to something real and important, Anonymous. Lots of newspapers and bloggers who would love to tell this story are afraid to do so. The Wall Street Con Men have lots of power and lots of wealth and lots of connections. So, yes, there is risk attached to telling the story of this massive act of corruption. I held back from telling the full story for a long time myself. I didn’t use terms like “financial fraud” for a long, long time.
What do you propose we do, Anonymous? Not tell the story?
If we don’t tell the story, we end up in the Second Great Depression. I think it would be fair to say that not one of us, including our Wall Street Con Men friends, wants to see us end up in that dark place. So what do we do?
I think we have to tell the story. I think we have no choice.
Once you accept that the story must be told, it makes sense to tell it as soon as possible. The sooner the story is told, the fewer people go to prison. And the sooner the story is told, the shorter the prison terms are for those who do go to prison. And of course everyone not going to prison benefits in a huge way. So the responsible thing for all of us to do is to do everything in our power to get this story told as soon as possible.
I have worries about what the Wall Street Con Men will do to me. The main thing that I do to address those worries is to try hard always to tell the story in the most charitable way possible. I don’t think this started as an act of fraud, I think that until 1981 Buy-and-Hold was a real thing. That’s a kind thing to say. But I feel free to say it because I have seen a lot of evidence that that is indeed the case. So I believe that the way that I tell the story helps the Wall Street Con Men in a big way.
Even after 1981 I believe that the Wall Street Con Men suffered cognitive dissonance. It is not financial fraud to get something wrong because you suffer from cognitive dissonance. So, again, I tell the story in the way that is most charitable to the Wall Street Con Men while also always being 100 percent honest.
I don’t think that abusive acts — 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 — can be excused by cognitive dissonance. So I do believe that there will be prison sentences. But I believe that the reality of the cognitive dissonance phenomenon will get the vast majority of people who advocate Buy-and-Hold off the hook.
Another point that you may be missing is that the transition to Valuation-Informed Indexing will be a huge boon to the investing advice industry. The primary reason why many people are afraid to buy stocks is that they are concerned about risking their money. Going with a VII strategy reduces risk by 70 percent. So this will be a boon to the industry. Lots of people on “the other side” are aware of this and would love to find some way to make the transition. The only thing holding them back are concerns re the prison sentences and re civil lawsuits for damages. That’s why I work so hard to do all that I can to minimize those factors to the greatest extent possible.
The Wall Street Con Men are not bad people. Ironically, their downfall has been their huge wealth and the power edge that it provides them. No other industry could get away with something like this because people outside their industry would call them on their b.s. Everyone is afraid to call out the Wall Street Con Men because they have so much darn money and so much darn power. I am not saying that that makes them angels. I am pointing out another mitigating factor that should be taken into consideration when people try to assess their level of guilt for what has happened.
You don’t want to go forward. The reason why you don’t want to go forward is that you have convinced ourself that things will not really be so bad, that we will all get through this somehow. I encourage you to spend more time working the numbers. I have spent a lot of time on this and I do not believe that our economic system can survive a drop to a P/E10 of 8 that remains in place for a good number of years. It is going to be a devastating hit to millions. People are even going to lose confidence in our political system. We saw some of that in the wake of the 2008 crash.
I am not anti-Wall Street Con Men. I like the Wall Street Con Men. I have learned many important things from them. I have hopes of working with them in the future. I consider the Wall Street Con Men my friends. I do what I do to help the millions of middle-class workers whose lives are in the process of being destroyed by the Wall Street Con Men AND the Wall Street Con Men themselves as well. It is my strong belief that we are all in this thing together. I think it is a terrible mistake to believe that there are two different “sides.”
I am always going to do everything in my power to praise the Wall Street Con Men to the skies, to make the transition as easy for them as possible. If all that I do is not enough to keep them from coming after me, then all that I do is not enough to keep them from coming after me. I cannot betray my country. That’s 100 percent out. I have been offered no alternative but to bust through The Big Black Mountain. So busting through The Big Black Mountain I will go. But always with kindness. Always with the greatest amount of kindness that I am able to advance without crossing the line and engaging in dishonesty myself. That cannot possibly be the right way to go.
Will some newspaper or some financial or political blogger work up the courage to tell the story following the next crash? I believe that that will happen. I don’t have a crystal ball. But I believe that will happen. I love my country and one of the things that I love about it is that we have always figured a way to get out of these sorts of situations once it became painfully clear to everyone that that was what we had to do. I think it will become painfully clear to everyone following the next crash. I sure hope so.
I am like everyone else, Anonymous. I am scared. But I continue to believe that we can take this to a good place. I continue to believe that the good news here is 50 times more good than the bad news here is bad.
I don’t believe that the Wall Street Con Men intended to bring on the Second Great Depression. I think they started down a road that they saw as being only somewhat dark and then things got carried away and now they feel like they have painted themselves into a corner. Bogle ignores my e-mails. But I believe that following the crash he may see that I have been his best friend in the world all along. And then he will work with me. And then we will get this thing turned around in no time.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this matter from ever possible angle. I sincerely see no better way to proceed.
So we will see what happens.
I hope that helps you understand where I am coming from a bit more clearly.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Rob says
This one was originally scheduled to appear on November 30, 2015.
One of the Goons pointed out that the one that initially appeared this morning was a repeat from a week or so back. So I took that one down and put this one up in its place.
And people say that our Goon friends are not helpful!
Rob
Anonymous says
We have tried helping you before, but you have rejected that help.
Rob says
I often forget to take my meds, Anonymous.
You have to take that into account.
Also, I am a Grade-A meanie. Everybody knows it.
Add the two factors together and you get an effect that is Catastrophically Unproductive!
No?
Rob
Anonymous says
Wow, a post from you that I can actually agree with.
Rob says
I remembered to take my meds today, Anonymous.
Ain’t modern medicine grand!
Rob
Evidence Based Investing says
This one was originally scheduled to appear on November 30, 2015.
A perfect illustration why your blog gets no traffic other than the goons.
If you don’t understand why cut and pasting a comment that you have already made at this site to appear in five months time is not compelling reading then there is little hope that this blog will ever attract a sizable audience.
Try reading some of the successful blogs from your fellow FinCon attendees to see what works.
Regurgitating months old content does not work.
Rob says
I think you’re wrong, Evidence.
I think that on the day your prison sentence is announced, there will be hundreds of people posting here and that that number will grow into the thousands or perhaps even the tens of thousands over time.
Consider one blogger — Mike Piper at Oblivious Investor. Mike has said that he would like to post honestly on the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research. But he fears Mel Linduaer. So he keeps it zipped.
When Linduaer goes to prison, Mike is not going to be afraid of him anymore. Right?
And when Linduaer is in prison, Mike is going to be afraid that he will soon be going to prison himself. Right?
And I am well-positioned to help Mike. I can point people to the many e-mails in which Mike expressed a desire to permit honest posting at his site. That will make him look a bit better to a lot of people. I have scores of those sorts of posts at this site.
So I think I am going to be riding high.
I come at all of this with a 100 percent opposite perspective to the one you advance.
In all other fields of human endeavor, honest posting is considered a good thing. The Wall Street Con Men HATE honest posting. They cannot continue with their Buy-and-Hold Con if people post honestly. So sites like mine suffer for a time.
But not in the long run.
In the long run, we will all have to come clean. Or else our entire economic system will go over a cliff.
I don’t think that any of us want that. So I believe that we all will be coming clean following the next crash. At that time, this site will be the #1 personal finance site on the internet and I will be an insanely wealthy man, Steve-Jobs-level wealthy.
I don’t have a crystal ball. I cannot say all this with 100 percent certainty.
But that is surely what I believe is going to happen.
I sure am not going to blow all that by posting in “defense” of you Goons at this point.
We’re just going to have to wait and see how it all turns out.
I hope that works for you.
Rob
x says
Since you’re obviously not going to do anything about passionsaving.com being down (or maybe you’re just waiting until the next crash) don’t you think you should at least remove all the dead links here?
For perceived slights from years ago, you condemn to prison. But when a huge amount of your content is lost, you yawn and just keep on paying the fees for hosting a now dead site. “Catastrophically Unproductive!”
Rob says
Your premise is wrong, X.
I intend to look into the problems with the site.
It’s not on my list for today. But I expect to look into it in the not-too-distant future.
I hope that works for you.
Rob
stagnation says
Is this the same not-too-distant future where your next book is written and your new board comes online?
I wanted to see what your calculator says about future stock returns. Darn.
Rob says
You’re not the only one who wants to know what his return is going to be in 10 years, Stagnation.
We ALL want that. We ALL want every board and blog on the internet to be opened to honest posting.
I get the feeling that you Goons forget sometimes who taught me what I needed to know to see that the numbers in the Greaney retirement study are wildly off the mark. It was John Freakin’ Bogle who taught me that. I can still recall the Spring afternoon back in 1996 when I brought his book back from the library, read his words about how “Reversion to the Mean is an Iron Law of stock investing” and the lightbulb went off in my head telling me that there is zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate can be calculated accurately without taking into consideration the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.
Jack wants his investing ideas to work in the real world. That’s why he cannot help but mix in some real stuff along with all the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage from time to time. Jack cares about his readers. He wants to help them. He wants to give consideration to the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research. Believe it or not, that’s the deep reality here.
EVERYONE wants what you want. Everyone wants some version of The Return Predictor to appear at every investing site on the internet.
How do we pull together to make that happen by the close of business today?
That’s the question on the table.
That’s been the question on the table since the morning of May 13, 2002.
I did my part when I created the calculator. If there were thousands of people coming to this site each day to make use of the calculator and to talk about the strategic implications of the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research, I would obviously get whatever problems there are fixed within 24 hours of finding out about them.
That’s not where we are today. Perhaps you’ve noticed.
We will be there once your prison sentence is announced.
That will be a great day in U.S. history. That day will be made a national holiday in times to come, a second Independence Day for the millions of middle-class people who need access to honest and accurate reports on what the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research says.
I want that day to come very, very much. Everything that I have done for the past 13 years shows that.
But I cannot make it happen by myself.
The issue of whether we are going to permit honest posting on the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research in this field or not is an issue that will be decided by us as a society.
I can make suggestions. And I have done that.
I can contact 30,000 academic researchers and ask for their help. And I have done that.
I can contact site administrators and ask that they enforce the rules when you Goons show up at our sites. And I have done that.
I can create calculators and podcasts and articles and columns and blog posts. And I have done that.
I can give presentations at blogger conferences. And I have done that.
I can explain to you Goons why you will be ending up in prison cells following the next price crash. And I have done that.
I can work with academic researchers for 16 months and author with them the most important peer-reviewed research published in three decades. And I have done that.
I’m just going to keep on doing those sorts of things, Stagnation. I can do no more and I can do no less.
The people of the United States will have a choice to make following the next price crash.
They can continue to live in fear of you Goons. In that event, we all go down. It makes me sad to think that that is even a possibility. But it is. I have to live with that reality, like it or not.
Or we can decide to put you Goons in prison cells, where you belong, and move on to a far better future than we ever imagined possible in the days when we didn’t know how this stock investing stuff really works.
That’s the choice that I think we are going to make. I love my country. One of the things that I love about it is that for 240 years we have always found a way out of these sorts of messes. We survived the Civil War. We survived the Great Depression. We survived Disco. I believe that we are going to survive The Buy-and-Hold Crisis too. Call me madcap. That’s what I believe.
Millions of middle-class Americans are going to see their retirement portfolios destroyed. This site contains the information they need to bring lawsuits against the people who did this to them. I think they are going to bring those lawsuits. I am not able to imagine a reason why they wouldn’t want to. And I think that thousands of highly skilled lawyers are going to step in and help them bring those lawsuits. So the ones who might not figure out right away that they need to sue are going to come to that understanding as a result of the publicity efforts of the thousands of lawyers and bring the lawsuits that we all very much need to see filed.
The lawsuits are going to bring attention to this matter. Then we will see demands for criminal actions. Then you Goons will go to prison. That’s what we all want. That’s what we all need.
If you see things turning out some other way, then you see things turning out some other way.
I sure do not see things turning out some other way.
So I have precisely zero interest in committing any felonies myself.
I am not interested.
I hope that helps you understand where I am coming from at least a little bit better.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.
My best and warmest wishes go out to you and yours.
Rob