Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“I have several e-mails in my box this morning from people who came in through that link… I am going to write Barry and ask whether I can have any sort of ongoing relationship with the site. ”
So how did that all work out for you?
I don’t have an ongoing relationship with Barry today. But I believe that I will in days to come. So I would say that it has not worked out well thus far but I remain optimistic that it will work out very well in days to come.
It’s hard to stand up to the abuse from you Goons and to the indifference to it that we see from most Normals. That’s why we are in an economic crisis today. I am not the only person who is aware of Shiller’s “revolutionary” research findings from 1981. Lots of people know about them. Lots of people would be willing and happy to share their thoughts about them if they did not worry about seeing their loved ones threatened and their careers destroyed. That’s just human nature.
I try hard to tune that stuff out. I believe in posting honestly. And I have achieved amazing results on the content side by continuing to post honestly despite the insane levels of abuse that you Goons have directed at me. So I feel that my inclinations have been validated. I have achieved things that it would not be remotely possible for someone like me to achieve if lots of others were posting honestly and developing all of these powerful insights before I could get to them.
So I feel good about the path that I have taken while obviously not feeling at all good about the results that we have achieved together over the first 14 years of our discussions about the realities of stock investing. We are on the right track. We are one step away from entering the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history. But today’s reality is that millions have lost their jobs as a result of the Buy-and-Hold Crisis. Millions are even beginning to lose confidence in our political system as a result of this massive act of financial fraud, as we see in the election results in both parties.
The result of the negative stuff is that I do not have the same degree of intensity when it comes to doing things like following up with people like Barry. In the old days, I would have sent him an e-mail and then another and then another and I might well have eventually broken through and changed the world as a result. What happened instead is that I sent him a single e-mail and then dropped the effort. It might be that he was super busy that day and just couldn’t get to it and that I would have made a good connection had I tried a second time. My down spirits may have hurt me (and millions of others) in this case.
I’m not proud of it, Anonymous. I hate to acknowledge this about myself. But the reality is that I am not Superman. I am made of flesh and blood like everyone else. Shiller hasn’t pushed as hard as he should have pushed. Pfau hasn’t pushed as hard as he should have pushed. Bogle hasn’t pushed as hard as he should have pushed. Arnott hasn’t pushed as hard as he should have pushed. When John Walter Russell was around, he didn’t push as hard as he should have pushed.
We all care what our fellow humans think of us. The Buy-and-Holders are in great pain. They very, very much do not want to hear the realties. That affects the level of desire that those of us who understand at least some of the realities feel about sharing them. We all are missing out for the time-being on lots of exciting advances because some of us are addicted to a Get Rich Quick approach and some of us don’t have what it takes to push at full strength in the face of a massive wall of indifference and abuse.
Whachagonnado?
I love my country. I love my profession. I love the Wall Street Con Men. I love you Goons. I love the millions of middle-class investors whose lives are in the process of being destroyed. All of that remains the case. I have not given up. I have not given two seconds of consideration to the idea of giving up.
But I don’t have the same level of fight in me that I had in me 14 years ago or 10 years ago or five years ago. I just don’t. There’s no benefit in lying about it. Things are what they are. I have taken a huge emotional hit. I have fought on when lots of others were not able to fight on. But I have not fought on with the same level of intensity. It would not be entirely unfair to say that I have to at least some extent been compromised. Yuck! Yucky but true all the same.
Barry is a great guy. I am thrilled about the article he wrote and the link to my other article that he posted. I will always be grateful for that.
And I believe I will have a close ongoing relationship with him in days to come.
In the time since I made that promise, I have done little to fulfill it. I did write one e-mail. I didn’t do nothing. But I didn’t do enough to get the job done. In other circumstances I would be ashamed to say that I did not follow through effectively. In these circumstances, I am going to give myself a break. I have done more than anyone else for 14 years running. I need to save up some energy for what still might be a hard fight to come following the next price crash. So I am going to go easy on myself for the time-being.
I will be sending more e-mails to Barry and to lots and lots of others following the next price crash or perhaps even a bit before that. That’s my pledge to you and to the millions of middle-class investors whose lives are in the process of being destroyed by this massive act of financial fraud. We will get to the place where deep in our hearts we all very much want to be. I will do my part and then some more on top of that and then even some more on top of that.
But it probably won’t be today that I will do that. It probably won’t be tomorrow either. I need a bit of a rest. I am human too.
I will be back fighting at full strength soon.
I hope.
We will have to wait and see how things play out.
My intent is to be back at full strength in the not-too-distant future.
I know that my Goon friends would want and expect no less!
Hang in there, Anonymous. Wish me luck!
Rob
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