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, unless Jack Bogle agrees with you on VII, the entire world economy will collapse.
He doesn’t have to agree with me or anyone else. He needs to show a willingness to follow the laws of the United States, the country in which he lives and which I am certain on some level of consciousness he loves.
I often make a comparison between the “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) advances we have achieved over the past 35 years in the investing realm and the revolutionary advances we achieved in the 1960s in the Civil Rights realm. The race relations problem has been with us since the founding of our country. Where do you think we would be today had the people who opposed a change in our understanding of what constitutes civil rights for blacks succeeded in shutting down efforts that were engaged in to advance our understanding? I think we would be in a very bad place. Yes, it is possible that the Republic would have fallen by now had we taken that dark path. There are no guarantees that the republic will always stand if as a people we elect to follow a very dark path.
That’s how it is in the investing realm. Bogle was the main figure leading us to huge advances. Buy-and-Hold roots investing advice in a scientific process of scientific discovery. That is its primary appeal to millions of middle-class people. But we learned in 1981 that Buy-and-Hold can never work in the real world; for a research-based strategy to work, honest and accurate reports of what the research says must be permitted and the Buy-and-Holders have been engaging in criminally abusive behavior to block the spreading of knowledge re what the new peer-reviewed research says since 1981. We are now in an economic crisis that has cost millions of people their jobs and is in the process of causing millions of failed retirements as a result. Yes, the anger that people will feel when they see with their own eyes how much human misery has been caused by Bogle and the other Wall Street Con Men and by you Goons that the world economy might collapse and we may see huge political instability as well.
If you have any doubts re this, please just read up on what happened in the First Great Depression, one of the earlier economic crises caused by the widespread belief that it is not necessary to exercise price discipline when buying stocks. When millions of people become persuaded that it is a good idea to follow a pure Get Rich Quick approach, things always end badly. It is not even possible for the rational human mind to imagine a scenario in which large numbers of people would come to follow a pure Get Rich Quick approach and things would not end badly. Buy-and-Hold ALWAYS destroys the economic system in which it is tolerated for a time and it can never be any other way.
We have a huge edge this time that we did not possess in the late 1920s. This time we have 35 years of peer-reviewed research showing us how stock investing works in the real world. Once we spread the word re the implications of the last 35 years of peer-reviewed research, we can all realistically expect to see the biggest surge of economic growth ever experienced in our history. It’s no little deal to bring an end to bull markets and bear markets and economic crises and the boom/bust cycle that has made capitalism a dirty word in the minds of so many smart and good people.
I don’t think we are going to see a collapse in the world economy because I think we are as a people going to work up the courage to stand up to you Goons and to send you away to long prison sentences. We were smart enough to deal with this sort of problem before this particular manifestation of it appeared before our eyes. But we do need to work up the courage to take effective action. The 35 years of peer-reviewed research does us no good unless we all feel free to talk openly about it at every investing board and blog on the internet. Right now the huge advances we have achieved over the past 35 years are only intellectual. We need to give them practical significance. We do that by announcing long prison sentences for those who have posted in “defense” of Mel Linduaer, John Greaney and Jack Bogle. That’s the act that gets us over the one-yard line and brings on our second independence day.
Yes, we are at risk of a collapse in the world economic system if we don’t get off the dark path we are on today. We are already seeing the effects of poor choices we have made in recent years. Take a freakin’ look around you, Anonymous. Go to YouTube and play last week’s debate and tell me after hearing that exchange of words between between the two remaining candidates for President of this nation that you think everything is just hunky dory.
There are consequences that follow from committing huge acts of financial fraud. That’s why as a people we adopted laws making it a FELONY to do this foolish and destructive thing.
Rob
Anonymous says
Here we are on Thanksgiving. It is a day to be grateful, yet all we see is another bitter post by Rob.
Rob says
The last 35 years of peer-reviewed research is BY FAR the most important 35 years of peer-reviewed research in the history of investing analysis. Once every investing discussion board and blog on the internet has been opened to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics, everyone living on Planet Earth will be living a richer (in every sense of the word) life.
What you call “bitter” I call “loving,” Anonymous.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Anonymous says
You lack self awareness.
Rob says
I don’t see it, Anonymous.
Rob