Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Do you think you should be awarded a Nobel prize? Should you be Time Magazines man of the year? Should you be on the front page of The New York Times?
I think the work that I have done over the past 13 years is of huge importance, Anonymous.
The work that I have done is built on the work of many others. As I have noted many times, there would be no Valuation-Informed Indexing today had it not been for the hugely important work that was done before me by Jack Bogle and all the other Buy-and-Hold pioneers.
And it was Shiller who showed that the Buy-and-Holders made a mistake in not realizing the importance of always engaging in long-term timing (price discipline) when buying stocks. But Shiller did not fully develop the insight. He explained the theory in a good bit of depth in his book. But he did not address the strategic implications AT ALL in his book. He has done a tiny bit of that in more recent years. But still not that much.
I have explored the strategic aspects in great depth over the past 13 years. Certainly the work that I have done should be featured on the front page of the New York Times. Of that there is no question whatsoever. I don’t believe that I am eligible for a Nobel Prize. I don’t know all the rules that apply. But my sense is that I don’t possess the credentials in the economics field that would be needed to be up for that prize. However, I think that Wade Pfau should win a Nobel prize for the peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with him. And I certainly should be given the recognition that I earned by getting him interested in the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept and by helping him learn what he needed to learn to complete the research.
As far as the Man of the Year thing goes, I would like to see a joint award following the next price crash, when all this is going to break open. Why not award Bogle, Shiller, Pfau, Arnott, Russell and me the award jointly? I certainly could not have done what I have done without the help of those five. And none of them could have had much impact without the other five either. Bogle is well known. But his work only hurts people until he corrects his mistake, which was discovered by Shiller and then exposed by me and Russell and Arnott and Pfau. Shiller is also well known. But his theoretical work cannot help people in the real world until the strategic implications that follow from it are well known. And it is Russell and Pfau and me who have worked so hard to get those strategic implications explored and publicized.
There’s plenty of credit to go around. There will be lots of others who will be receiving big-time recognition once we open every investing discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting. In ordinary circumstances, it would not have been possible for someone like me to accomplish such amazing things. It happened this way because of the insanely abusive tactics of the Buy-and-Holders. I was able to do what I have done because I saw back in 2002 that no one else had explored the implications of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) findings and I saw a huge opportunity there. Why not create the only web site on the internet that did that and profit in a huge way while also helping millions of people to achieve financial freedom many years earlier than has ever before been possible?
You Goons hate me for that. Your entire Campaign of Terror against our board and blog communities is rooted in envy. You can’t stand it that someone else took advantage of this opportunity while you missed out. That’s too sad, you know? You could have done it. You should have done it.
But you don’t need to permit yourself to be consumed by regret. You can still do amazing things today. I haven’t covered everything there is to cover re the first true research-based strategy. Nor has Shiller. Nor has Russell. Nor has Arnott. So get to it, you know? You won’t. Goons don’t do positive. Goons don’t do constructive. Goons don’t do life-affirming. But that path remains open to you all the same. It’s your call. No one has forced you to play it in the way that you have elected to play it.
The millions of middle-class investors whose lives you have destroyed will overcome you following the next price crash. That’s how our country (which I love) works. We don’t always get things right in one year or two years or even in 13 years. The Civil Rights Revolution took a long time. The Moon Landing took a long time. The Computer Revolution took a long time. That’s the way it goes. I am not the first person who had to face obstacles in my efforts to do good for millions of people. I won’t be the first to use the benefits available to all in this country to overcome those obstacles either.
I have done amazing things. I am very proud of the work I have done.
Lots of other people have done amazing things too. I am proud of those people too. We all should be.
You Goons have destroyed millions of lives with your hate and anger and contempt and envy. We all should be ashamed of ourselves for permitting your abusiveness to continue for so long. Our bad!
But if we end up in the right place, as I firmly believe we will following the next price crash, the good we achieve here will be 50 times bigger than the ugliness we have seen play out before us because as a society we lacked the courage to stand up to you Goons and to the Wall Street Con Men whose bidding you do. We’re not perfect. But I think it would be fair to say that our system of government has achieved a lot of great things over the years.
I have zero concern re whether I will receive the recognition that I merit following the next price crash. I DO have concerns that we may as a society destroy ourselves if we elect to seek revenge on you Goons instead of showing the mercy and understanding that has been characteristic of us in our best days. So I see it as my job to do what I can to steer things in a positive direction. That’s what I’m about. That’s why I continue to engage in conversations with you Goons when words appear before me that suggest to me that there might be opportunities to take this all to a better place than the sewer where Mel Linduaer and John Greaney and my good friend Jack Bogle have elected to take it during the first 13 years of discussions.
The Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies did not contain valuation adjustments. Lots of people either did notice it or could have noticed it had they been paying attention. But I am the one who noticed it and went public with what I noticed and then didn’t back down re my right to warn people of the dangers of those studies when you Goons threatened me with career destruction if I continued to do honest work. That’s how great discoveries are made, Anonymous. That’s what I did and that’s how it is done. I have huge gratitude for the thousands of good and smart and generous people who helped. I offer no apologies to the con men and to the Goons who have been holding back progress for 13 years now.
I hope that helps a bit, Goon friend.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.
Front-Page Rob
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