Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
So, if we take your comments from here as well as previous comments, here is an overview of what should have happened over the past couple decades if you were never banned from the various financial boards:
1. You would have been one of most popular posters (if not the most popular poster) on all the financial boards.
2. You would become one of the most sought after financial experts quoted by much of the press and would even have generated many front page articles on the New York Times (as well as various multi-series publications).
3. You would have been a headlining speaker at most major financial investing forums and other speaking events.
4. You would have been highly published in various peer-reviewed financial publications.
5. You would have possibly been considered for a Nobel prize.
6. Most people following the investment community would now be following VII, which would then lead to the healing of our economy and would then bring on the biggest economic growth we have ever seen in US history.
7. You would have become one of the most wealthy individuals in the US, resulting from speaking fees, book fees, investment advisory fees, etc.
8. You would be working together on a daily basis with Jack Bogle, Wade Pfau, Robert Shiller and a host of other financial experts, with you taking the leading role.
Did I miss anything?
You missed lots of things:
1) Bogle would be viewed as 20 times the expert that he is perceived to be today because his ideas would actually work in the real world — which is what he intended in the first place.
2) The internet would be a far more powerful communications medium because people who have important things to say about the subjects addressed at the various boards and blogs would feel free to post honestly and Goons like you would be banned when they violated the posting rules.
3) I would be getting feedback from all of the experts in this field and I would be able to use that feedback to sharpen my thoughts and my writings.
4) All of the experts would be getting feedback from me and from other Valuation-Informed Indexers and they too would be able to use the feedback to sharpen their thoughts and writings.
5) You Goons would not be headed to prison.
6) We wouldn’t be seeing the political unrest that we have seen in recent years on both the left and the right because our free market economic system would be delivering on its promises.
7) Support for our free market economic system would be growing because people would see that we have solved the problem of the boom/bust cycle.
8) The Retire Early Movement would be surging forward because we all would be spreading the word about the peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with Wade Pfau showing us all how to retire five to ten years sooner while dramatically reducing the risk associated with stock investing.
I can live with all that, Anonymous.
You can’t. Because you were taken. And because it hurts so much to be taken re a matter so important to your future that you cannot bear to acknowledge the obvious reality.
I am sympathetic. I know you are hurting.
But I am also sympathetic to the situations of the millions of middle-class people who ALSO have been taken in by this massive act of financial fraud. Lots of those people want to turn their financial situations in a more positive direction before it is too late to make changes (after the next price crash hits, most of their life savings will be gone and the Pretend Money is never going to return to them).
Those people have rights. I want to see their rights recognized. I want to see the laws against financial fraud enforced. I want to see you Goons placed in prison cells, where you belong.
I hope that all of that makes good sense to you.
It’s not personal. I do care for you Goons.
But I love my country too. And I want to see us all pulling together to bring this Buy-and-Hold Crisis to a full and complete stop by the close of business today. That’s the bottom line here.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors, my long-time Goon friend.
Rob
Anonymous says
They don’t even talk to you when you try posting to them in other formats, so why would they be giving you feedback if you were allowed back on the boards that banned you?
Rob says
Bogle needs to give a speech that contains the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong” (or at the bare minimum “I’m” and “Not” and “Sure”). He needs to invite a reporter from the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal to attend the event. Once that happens, everyone will be talking to everyone about everything. Once Bogle comes clean, no one will be afraid anymore.
The problem is the 34-year cover-up. Everyone in this field wants to make money. There are hundreds of billions to be made giving honest and accurate and research-based investing advice. But a good number of the Buy-and-Holders will be going to prison once this massive act of financial fraud is exposed. And the Wall Street Con Men have lots of money and power and influence. So everyone is scared to discuss the implications of the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research.
Once Bogle comes clean, no one will be scared. Everyone will want to help people and to make tons of money. All is good once Bogle comes clean.
Learning how stock investing works is not a problem for us. It is a solution to the problem of economic crises and the problem of the riskiness of stocks. But Valuation-Informed Indexing is a huge advance over Buy-and-Hold. The Buy-and-Holders will look bad when their con is exposed. There’s nothing that we can do about that. It is baked in the cake.
We have to move forward. Our economic system will collapse unless we find some way to get accurate and honest reports on what the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research says out to the millions of middle-class investors who need and want to know what works. Since we have no choice but to bring the massive con to an end, we should go ahead and do it as quickly as possible.
My take.
Rob
Anonymous says
So you are helpless until Bogle gives that speech. Why does all your future success lie outside your control?
Rob says
You know why, Anonymous. You Goons have engaged in criminal behavior. You have threatened to destroy people’s careers. And Bogle has backed you up. That scares people.
I obviously don’t like the way it is. But I like the idea of posting dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements about 10,000 times less. I would far rather be in my shoes than be in your shoes.
It’s a process. Things are a mess today. We are living through an economic crisis that could have been avoided had you Goons just permitted honest posting re Shiller’s work or had Bogle spoke up against your tactics. It’s horrible to contemplate how many millions of lives have been destroyed over absolutely nothing (knowing how the stock market works benefits everyone).
The other side of the story is that the good news here is 50 times more good than the bad news here is bad. The peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with Wade Pfau shows us how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent while increasing returns enough to retire five to ten years sooner. That ain’t nothing! Our research will be featured on the front page of the New York Times following the next price crash and I think that it would be fair to say that what we learn from that research and from follow-up investigations may be what keeps us from falling into the Second Great Depression. It’s humbling to know that I played a lead role in getting Valuation-Informed Indexing on the map.
In your typical Goon way you look at this as things being outside my control. I look at it as an opportunity to do amazing things that fell into my lap. Had Bogle come clean back in 1981, there would have been thousands of people developing the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept when I came on the scene in 2002. Because of the cover-up, it was left to a nobody like me to do this work. In the short term, that caused me a lot of pain. But I think it’s fair to expect that in the long term it will generate a very big financial payoff. WhaChaGonDo?
Todd Tresidder at the Financial Mentor site and I talked this over at one of the FinCon meetings. He said that he liked it that he had so little competition because people are afraid of what the Buy-and-Holders will do to them if they post honestly re the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research. I don’t quite share his take. I see what he was getting at. But my concern is that the cover-up has already caused a major economic crisis and that it will get a lot worse following the next crash. I worry that we are going to see major political problems when millions of middle-class people learn how they have been tricked by the Wall Street Con Men and by you Goons. I would prefer to have more competition and be living in a more stable political situation than the one that the Buy-and-Hold Lies have brought on.
Still, there are huge opportunities here for those with the courage to stand up to the Con Men and to their Internet Goon Squads. I believe that the biggest payoffs will go to those who got in early and I think it would be fair to say that I’ve got the longest track record of posting honestly re these matters. So in the long term this could turn out to be a very good thing for the Bennett family. I guess we will see.
I am not able to post dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements in any event. It’s just not in me. I remember when I was putting together my plan. I was very careful not to make mistakes. It would have enraged me had I learned that someone who I trusted had engaged in deliberate deception. I don’t ever want people to be that mad at me and to have grounds to bring either civil suits against me or to demand criminal prosecution of me. So I have been careful not to ever offer even the slightest hint of a willingness to sign up with you Goons. Find somebody else, you know? Not this boy! No way, no how.
We’ll see how it goes. If it goes well for the country that I love, it should go very well for me indeed. If it goes poorly for me, I think it would be fair to say that my country will be going down with me. I hate that idea! But this is something that affects the entire country. I can’t dictate the timing of when the con will be exposed as much as I would like to be able to do so. I am just going to have to be patient, like it or not. That’s part of the job.
Wish me luck!
Take care, man.
Rob