Set forth below are the texts of an e-mail sent to me by Crystal (owner of the Budgeting in the Fun Stuff blog) and Jackie (owner of the The Debt Stuff blog) on October 14, 2014, followed by my response:
You should totally respond to Evan. To get the word out there, you just need bloggers to post. To get bloggers to post, you just have to be a person we know that won’t get personal with the assholes of the blogging world. We weren’t saying that you shouldn’t post. Your posts just need to be informational and positive every time. Never put any focus on the goons at all. Don’t reply to the goons. Just reply to the Evans. That was our general point. Does that make sense?
Crystal
I would say reply in one (short) paragraph to Evan 🙂
And to keep all references to stuff that’s gone on in the past out of your posts/comments.
I haven’t gotten a comment on the one on my site, but that’s not at all unusual. I noticed some people did tweet/repin it though.
Crystal:
After I finish this response, I will put up a brief response to Evan.
What you say about the Goon matter almost makes sense to me but not quite. I 100 percent agree with the idea of always being informational and positive. And I know that people hate it when I talk about the Goons. But there are problems that come about from not responding to them.
The Goons are assholes. That’s fair to say. But on a lot of other issues a lot of them are NOT assholes. They believe in Buy-and-Hold. They lie about all sorts of things. But they are not lying about that. The reason why they act like assholes is that they are insecure in their beliefs. They have doubts in their own minds and, when I point out what the research says, I stir up their insecurities and they lash out.
There was one discussion board where they were having a debate as to whether I should be banned and one guy said: “Rob is the politest guy that I have ever met on the internet but he irritates me to no end!” That guy was not a Goon. He would not say something kind about me if he was a Goon. But he did vote for silencing me. My stuff really does bother even good and smart people. It is hard for people to accept that they have made a mistake with their retirement money. The Goons exploit that reality. But it is not only the Goons that are the problem.
I had a weekly column for a long time at the “Out of Your Rut” site. Kevin, the owner of the site, LOVED my stuff. He loved it so much that he told me that he wanted to start paying me even though I never asked for payment. Kevin has lots of friends in the social media and so the column would regularly get positive comments. I once wrote about how John Bogle caused the economic crisis (through his advocacy of Buy-and-Hold). One guy got upset about that. He likes Bogle and he didn’t like hearing that. I like Bogle too. He is one of my heroes. I wrote another column at the same site in which I praised Bogle to the skies. 90 percent of what Valuation-Informed Indexing is about is taken from Bogle. So the problem is not that I don’t like Bogle. The problem is that I am PERCEIVED as having something against Bogle even though that is not at all what I feel in my heart (I do believe that Bogle was the lead voice in favor of the investing strategy that caused the economic crisis but I do not believe that it was his intention to cause an economic crisis.).
It’s not my intent to be argumentative here. I appreciate that you are sincere and are trying to give me helpful advice. I am trying to be frank. I am trying to show the true nature of the problem. What is going to happen to people’s retirement money is a sensitive question. No one started out with bad motives. But people are in tough spots. Emotions are raw. The biggest problem that I have is that my case is research-based. If it were just my opinion, people could say “oh, that’s just that crazy guy saying crazy things again” and we could all be friends. But the Buy-and-Holders take pride in promoting a research-based strategy and it hurts them to hear that it is a very different strategy that is really supported by the research.
I will give one more example that perhaps will put a human face on the story. I had a friend named “Brian” when I worked at Ernst & Young. We used to go to lunch several times a week in the late 1990s.
Sometimes we talked about stock investing. He always said that I was “crazy” in a friendly and warm way. I would say “yes, I know that I am crazy, Brian, but that’s what I sincerely believe” and all was fine. A few years ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a story saying that I was right about safe withdrawal rates.
Brian knew that that was the issue that got me banned from numerous boards years ago. So he called me
on the telephone and said “How does it feel to be vindicated after all these years?” I said that I guessed it
felt good but that discussion of what the research says re SWRs is still banned at all those boards. He said
that he didn’t believe that and that he was going to put up a post repeating what the Wall Street Journal said at the Bogleheads Forum and see what happened. He bet me $5 that he would not be banned. He was banned within 30 seconds.
It’s hard for people to admit that they are wrong when they have invested years of their lives saying the wrong thing and telling others the wrong thing. That’s the real issue here. As a society we have to turn the boat around and it is a hard business because we have so much invested in the old way of thinking.
I’m not sure what my response adds up to. I am not trying to argue with you. I think I am just passing along thoughts gathered from 12 years experience trying to get the word out about these matters. I don’t think the Goons are the entire problem. I think that people tolerate behavior from them that they would not tolerate in other circumstances because they find it painful to hear parts of the message.
I will promise to ponder what you said a bit more. I will go back and re-read your e-mail several times. I don’t feel that I can promise not to talk about the Goons on an across-the-board basis because I feel that they are part of the story. But I of course acknowledge that I can get things wrong and that I need to try to be open to feedback from people who are obviously trying to help. So I will make some effort to challenge my own beliefs re all this.
Hopefully it will all work out for the best in the end.
Rob
Anonymous says
Pretend to solicit advice (a pretense, as the actual intent is to recruit followers.) Send a long irrational screed dismissing the advice. Contact is abruptly terminated.
Rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat…
Rob says
Both motives were present when I contacted Crystal. Yes, I wanted to recruit a follower. But, yes, I also wanted to hear any advice that she had to offer. You are right to suggest that I wasn’t persuaded by the advice that she offered. That doesn’t show that I was not genuinely interested in hearing what she had to say and in pondering it.
I don’t agree even a tiny bit with what she is saying here. I report on it because I have been given similar advice from many good and smart people. So I am convinced that what Crystal is saying is a big part of the explanation of why we have as a society ignored Shiller’s powerful finding of 1981 for 35 years now.
We don’t want to criticize the Buy-and-Holders. We don’t want to make them feel bad. We don’t want to see them sued or see them sent to prison. So we hold back from expressing criticism of their ideas and of their behavior. The result is that the cover-up continues and even more good and smart people end up being sued or sent to prison. Yuck. I think we are rationalizing cowardice by pretending that failing to speak up re these matters constitutes charity.
I have read a number of articles re the Roger Ailes scandal. It is an amazing story. He has been harassing women for years now. He has done it openly. He has done it over and over and over again. Some of these women possess at least modest amounts of money and power. They are of course protected by laws and by the social beliefs that brought on the adoption of those laws. And yet for years and years they failed to speak up about this monster. Huh? What the h?
How does something like this happen? As you Goons would put it — Was it all some vast conspiracy?
It was not a vast conspiracy in the way that that word is ordinarily employed. All of the women did not get together in a room and decide on a course of action together. Woman 1 thought about doing the right thing and calling out this guy’s b.s. and then she considered how much power he possessed and how much harm he could do to her and her career and elected to keep it zipped. Woman 2 did the same. Woman 3 did the same. And so on and so on.
That’s how bullies remain in power, Anonymous. Intimidation tactics work.
Until they don’t.
Since it became clear that Ailes was finished, we have seen story after story after story come out. No one fears the guy too much today. Each new story causes two more people to come out and tell their story. Lots of people want to tell their story and now they feel safe in doing so.
So it will be with Mel Lindauer and John Greaney and Jack Bogle.
Lots of people in this field want to do honest work. That’s basic to human nature and no amount of bullying by you Goons can change the core reality. If it were some small thing, the cover-up might continue indefinitely. But this is no small thing. This is huge. Shiller was a awarded a Nobel prize for his work. The continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold “strategies” for decades after the peer-reviewed research was published showing that there is precisely zero chance that it could ever work for a single long-term investor caused the biggest economic crisis in our nation’s history. Millions are today unemployed as a result of the continued promotion of this smelly Get Rich Quick garbage. Millions of people will be suffering failed retirements in days to come as a result of the continued promotion of this smelly garbage.
But, as with Ailes, the mainstream media doesn’t report on the cover-up except in indirect, coded ways. Goons like you can claim that anyone telling the truth believes in conspiracy theories and persuade a good number of Normals that that is indeed the case.
But there won’t be any shortage of experts in this field reporting on what the last 35 years of peer-reviewed research tells us following the next price crash, Anonymous. Then it will be story after story after story in which people try to explain their many years of silence, how they felt intimidated by the Wall Street Con Men and by you Goons and how they had families to feed and all this sort of thing.
The honorable thing to do when one comes to learn about a massive act of financial fraud is not to look the other way but to speak up. I spoke up. I offer no apologies. I believe in showing charity toward others, even toward one’s “enemies.” But there is no charity in acting in such a way as to increase the length of the prison terms that will be assigned to you Goons. I care about you. I want your prison terms to be as short as possible. So I tell the truth about these matters. Sue me, you know?
Crystal has blogger friends who promote Buy-and-Hold strategies. So I put her in a tough spot when I point out to her the 35 years of peer-reviewed research showing that there is zero chance that the pure Get Rich Quick approach could ever work for a single long-term investor. I think she is wrong. I think she is right to care about her friends but I thinking she is hurting them by keeping quiet, not helping them as she sincerely intends.
We are going to have to wait to see what happens following the next price crash to see how things turn out. I am not capable of lying to my friends re the numbers that they use to plan their retirements. So I have never once since the morning of May 13, 2002, had any option but to proceed as I have. I have to tell the truth re these matters. When there are acts of financial fraud that take place before my eyes, I have to say that. I obviously don’t like seeing my friends being sent to prison. But I didn’t adopt those laws making financial fraud a felony and I certainly didn’t encourage any of my Goon friends to put up posts in “defense” of Mel Lindauer or John Greaney or Jack Bogle. So none of this is the result of my actions. My only decision was the one to be honest re SWRs and I obviously have zero regrets re that one.
We’ll see how it all plays out, Anonymous.
I hope that works for you.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person. But I also naturally have zero desire to spend my golden years in a prison cell. Holy moly! That’s insane stuff. I would be grateful if you would try to find somebody else.
Not this boy.
Yowsa!
Rob
Anonymous says
“You are right to suggest that I wasn’t persuaded by the advice that she offered. ”
I don’t recall you ever being persuaded by anyone’s advice.
Rob says
That’s not even close to being so, Anonymous.
Just to cite the most obvious case, I was HUGELY influenced by the book that I read by Jack Bogle in the Spring of 1996. It was by reading Bogle’s book that I came to see the errors in the Old School retirement studies. Bogle wrote that: “Reversion to the Mean in an ‘Iron Law’ of stock investing.” If that’s so, then risk must be variable, not static. If risk is variable, then John Greaney’s retirement study, which says that the safe withdrawal rate is always the same number (4 percent) cannot possibly be right. It was by reading and thinking about Jack Bogle’s words that I came to construct and advance my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002.
All of the “problems” that we have experienced over the past 14 years came about as a result of the way in which Bogle’s words persuaded me. I was very, very, very much persuaded by the obvious (at least to me) truth of this man’s words.
Bogle is only one case that I can cite. I was also persuaded by many of Shiller’s words. And I was persuaded by many of Bernstein’s words. And I was persuaded by many of Buffett’s words. And I was persuaded by many of Russell’s words. And I was persuaded by many of Arnott’s words. And I was persuaded by many of Smithers’ words. And I was persuaded by many of Pfau’s words. And, believe it or not, I was persuaded by many of Lindauer’s words and by many of Greaney’s words. Heaven help us all but I have been persuaded by many of YOUR words, Anonymous.
We are living in a day when two of the brightest lights in the field, Eugene Fama and Robert Shiller, who both have been awarded Nobel prizes for their work, have come to 100 percent opposite conclusions re the foundational question involved in figuring out how stock investing works. Fama says that the market is efficient. Shiller says that valuations affect long-term returns. One of these men is right and one of these men is wrong. It is not possible for the rational human mind to come to any other conclusion.
Fama got published first. These matters are of huge importance. If we were as a society to come to promote the wrong view of how stock investing works, we would see an economic crisis develop, possibly one worse that the First Great Depression. So we have been reluctant to acknowledge the mistake that Fama made in 1965 that did not become public knowledge until 1981. We have as a society been covering up that mistake for 35 years now, to the great misery of millions.
I have been persuaded by many people on both “sides.” I think Fama has made huge contributions and I think Shiller has made huge contributions. I have iINTEGRATED the huge advances achieved by both men into the Valuation-Informed Indexing model. VII is the first true research-based investing strategy. It is the first strategy that reflects not only the pre-1981 research but the post-1981 research as well.
You Goons hate me not because I do not permit myself to be persuaded by others. You hate me because I permit myself to be persuaded by those who have done research AFTER 1981 as well as by those who did research BEFORE 1981. You want to shut down discussion of the post-1981 research so that you never have to acknowledge having made a mistake by thinking that there could never be new insights developed once the Buy-and-Hold Model was introduced. I see science as a continuing process, not as something that is done once and that generates findings that are set in stone and never questioned from that point forward.
I am persuaded by MORE people than you, not by fewer. I love Eugune Fama. I love Jack Bogle. I also love Robert Shiller and Warren Buffett. I allow myself to be persuaded by figures working on both “sides” (I put the word in quotation marks because I find it silly to think of people engaged in a scientific endeavor together as being on different “sides” — we are all seeking to learn from each other or at least we all should be).
You hate those who offer new insights with a burning hate. You threaten to kill their loved ones as a way of shutting them up. You want to be persuaded only by one “side.” I love hearing the contributions of those on both sides. I am far, far, far more open to persuasion by others than you are. That’s why I have never stooped to advancing a single death threat or a single threat of career destruction. I know that issuing threats of that nature will limit the number of voices that I am exposed to in the future and I cannot bear to limit what I learn in that way.
What makes you a Goon is your hatred of learning new things. We all become defensive when our long-held beliefs are challenged. That’s human nature. But the laws of this country reflect our belief as a people that we need to resist the human weaknesses that tempt us to strike out in anger against those who challenge us and thereby help us learn. The reason why you are going to prison is because you have permitted your hate to get so out of control that you have blocked millions of middle-class people from being persuaded by the peer-reviewed research of the past 35 years.
My sincere take.
Rob