Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Don’t you wish you could say the same thing.
Yes and no, Anonymous.
There have been two sides to these discussions, a substance side and a process side. The process side has been the most horrible nightmare that I have ever encountered. The substance side has been the most wonderful dream that I have ever experienced. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the hundreds of wins that I have seen on the substance side if I had not lived through the hundreds of losses that I have lived through on the substance side.
I have asked myself from time to time whether I would put up that fateful post of the morning of May 13, 2002, all over again if I had a chance to go back and do it over. I cannot give a definitive answer to that question. The pain on the process side makes me think that it would be crazy to choose that path again. But the amazing stuff on the substance side makes me think that there is no way on God’s green earth that I could ever elect to choose a different path. I have achieved everything that I had ever hoped to achieve with my life multiplied by 500. That’s not nothing. I have been blessed in a very big way.
The reality of course is that none of us get do-overs. The cards are dealt one by one and we play our hands to the best of our ability. I am not happy or unhappy about where things stand. I am insanely happy about where things stand on the substance side and I am insanely unhappy about where things stand on the process side. And of course there is no way to separate the two. We cannot enjoy the substance side wins without working through the ugly, smelly process side stuff. This thing came to us as a package — substance stuff wonderful beyond words and process stuff horrible beyond imagination.
This is why I sometimes use that catch phrase — “I love my country.” I believe that our economic and political systems provide us the means to turn this all into something very, very, very good. I believe that we are as a society working our way through a process that in the end lands us in a place where we all deep in our hearts very much want to go. My job is to steer us to that place.
I am not jumping up and down in happiness. But I am very excited about what the future appears to hold for all of us. I see us as being on the one-yard line in the last minutes of the Super Bowl. I still have to get the ball across the goal line or years of hard work go to waste. But if I can make that one last play for one yard of ground we all get to experience something so good that we will for the rest of our lives look back at these days as the days our our lives that really meant something, the days that made all the other days worth the trouble they brought.
So I don’t want to drop the ball, you know? I want to make a good pass or a good run or whatever it takes to get the job done. I don’t focus on whether I am happy or unhappy about where things stand. I focus on getting that ball across the line. I am aware of how happy millions of people will be if I do that. And I am aware of how much human misery will follow if I drop the ball or get intercepted or get tackled. I pray that I am up to it.
I am not even a tiny bit sad that we are as nation on the one-yard line in the Super Bowl. That’s amazing. It is of course a huge honor to have played such a big role in taking us this far. But I do want to make that one last play. Even with the hundreds of successes on the substance side, I can’t afford to let down my guard and celebrate too much until I have made that last pass or that last run. That’s my focus. I feel a combination of excitement of where we all will be when we open the entire internet to honest posting re the implications of the last 35 years of peer-reviewed research in this field combined with a sense of responsibility that I not get too giddy about all the big gains already achieved and start thinking that those last few yards will come automatically — we have to work it to get there and so this is not the time to ease up and do something stupid, no matter how close to the goal line we are today.
I hope that all helps at least a tiny bit.
Love you, man.
Rob
Anonymous says
Do you regret quitting your job?
Rob says
I do not, Anonymous.
That’s not a decision that I made lightly. In Chapter 12 of my book (Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work), I examine the possibility that worse could come to worse and that I would not be able to provide for my family. I say that, in those unlikely circumstances, one has to conclude that that was what was meant (by God or by Evolution or by The Fates or by whatever you believe in — I believe in God) to be and that my wife and my children have to learn whatever lesson they were meant to learn from the experience.
Tolkien was an orphan. He could have given up on life when he lost first his father and then his mother. He didn’t. He put his loneliness to a good purpose. He developed the fantasy world that became Lord of the Rings many years later, a trilogy that some list as the best novel of the 20th Century. I don’t believe that those sorts of things happen by accident. I believe that Tolkien was meant to write Lord of the Rings. The opportunity to develop the special skills needed to write it were presented to him when he lost his father and mother. He could have said “no” to the assignment, just as Frodo was tempted to say “no” to his assignment. He said “yes” and that changed history (as did Frodo in the imaginary world in which he said “yes” as well).
I wouldn’t have been able to develop the Retire Early board into the most successful discussion board at the Motley Fool site had I stayed at my corporate job, Anonymous. I wouldn’t have been able to write “Passion Saving.” I wouldn’t have met all the wonderful people that I met at the Retire Early board and learned from their stories. I never would have been put in circumstances in which I had to work up the courage to stand up to Greaney. I never would have met John Walter Russell or Wade Pfau or Rob Arnott or any of the others. I never would have developed the five calculators at this site or have written the hundreds of columns or have recorded the hundreds of RobCasts or any of the rest of it.
I was meant to leave that job at that time. I was meant to remain there for nine years accumulating the assets that permitted me to do all the wonderful stuff that I became empowered to do as a result of leaving that job. But I was not meant to remain there until age 65 or whatever and to collect a pension. Taking that path would have killed me or turned me into an alcoholic. I am sure.
Now —
Being sure doesn’t mean that one never has doubts. What makes life hard is that, even when one is sure, one can entertain doubts from time to time. There is no instruction booklet for life that we are handed when we are born and can follow to reach a successful conclusion. We have to figure it out as we go along. So I won’t say that I never stop and think about the question you asked.
What I say is that every time that I stop to think about it, I reach the same conclusion — it was the right thing to do and I do not regret the decision. That’s what I mean when I say that I am “100 percent sure.”
I hope that helps a small bit, my old friend.
Rob
Anonymous says
“That’s not a decision that I made lightly. In Chapter 12 of my book (Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work), I examine the possibility that worse could come to worse and that I would not be able to provide for my family. I say that, in those unlikely circumstances, one has to conclude that that was what was meant (by God or by Evolution or by The Fates or by whatever you believe in — I believe in God) to be and that my wife and my children have to learn whatever lesson they were meant to learn from the experience.”
What lesson did your wife and children learn from all of this?
Rob says
We don’t know yet, Anonymous. We’re still living through it.
The point is that things happen in this life for a purpose. That’s a core belief of mine. John Walter Russell said a long, long time ago (perhaps in 2003) that (I am paraphrasing): “I believe that this is going to work out better than anyone could possibly imagine.” That had the ring of truth for me at the time he said it and there have been scores and scores of things that have happened in the days since that have confirmed for me that we are in the process of seeing some amazing, positive, life-affirming developments here. As I often put it, the good that we have seen here has been 50 times more good than the bad that we have seen here has been bad.
What makes life hard is that you don’t get to see the conclusion of the process while you are working your way through it. You have to have faith in your fellow man that, if you do what is right, there will be a payoff at the end. I believe that. I love my country. I love the internet. I love Bogle’s idea of using the peer-reviewed research as guidance on how to invest. My confidence in those things is going to pay off in the long run. The great things about our economic and legal system are going to pay off big time for all of us. The invention of the internet is going to pay off big time for all of us. The peer-reviewed research is going to pay off big time for all of us.
I believe that strongly. But you never know precisely how it is going to happen. That’s the drama. That’s the scary part. That’s what makes faith hard. That what makes life hard.
And we cannot force God (or Evolution or whatever) to play it the way we want Him to play it. My mother once told me that maybe Valuation-Informed Indexing might catch on after I die. That one also had the ring of truth to my ears! Maybe I watched too many episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” when I was a kid and I am just drawn to trick endings. But I could see something like that happening. It could turn out that Valuation-Informed Indexing really is the future and that in time it becomes dominant over Buy-and-Hold but that all this would only happen after I were no longer around. I would hate that! But it could happen. I don’t rule out something like that.
That could benefit my boys. They will be around after I am gone. It could be that that they will see it all play out in a positive way after I am gone and then realize for themselves the importance of being determined and perhaps make some change in their own lives as a result that will pay off in a big way for them or their children. I don’t know the specifics. We don’t get to know the specifics. But of course I wouldn’t know the specifics of staying at the corporate job either. Some people would describe that path as “safer.” But no one can ever say for sure. You might choose the safe path and then end up becoming an alcoholic because the work you do is so meaningless — Oops!
I have done the right thing for my country and for my fellow community members and for my profession and for my family and for myself and for my parents (who did so much to prepare me to do something like this) and for my friends (from whom I have learned things that made it possible for me to pull this off) and from the authors of my favorite books and for the writers of the songs that aided my determination and for the academic researchers who long for the day when they can do honest work again. I don’t have any doubt about any of that.
I have done the right thing for the Wall Street Con Men. The Wall Street Con Men never meant to cause an economic crisis when they came up with Buy-and-Hold. They thought they were doing a good thing. They never imagined in their worst nightmares that they were creating a monster and that some day things would get so horribly out of hand. I have done the right thing for you Goons. You cannot bear to acknowledge it. But I believe that 100 percent. I treat you like humans. I don’t make rationalizations for not standing up to you (I once did, but I have not done this since the morning of May 13, 2002). I show you respect when I treat you like humans. That’s charity. Failing to speak up is cowardice, not kindness. I am 100 percent sure re that one.
I cannot tell you what lessons my wife and children will learn from this. I can tell you that I know that I have done the right thing and that I BELIEVE that doing the right thing pays off in the long run. I have lived a blessed life in just about every other respect. Perhaps I have had it too good and God wanted me to experience some suffering to prepare my soul in some way for other things that I will be seeing in future days and perhaps the same is true for my wife and my children. I do not know. I believe that there is a purpose in life and I believe that abandoning all that you believe in because some Goon on the internet is embarrassed for people to know that he got an important number wrong in a retirement study posted at his web site is not the way to go. Not for anyone. Not even for that Goon.
That’s where I am coming from in any event, Anonymous.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.
Rob
Anonymous says
“Taking that path would have killed me or turned me into an alcoholic. I am sure.”
You were unhappy in your job. (Newsflash: Most people are.) So quitting made you happier, but you have admitted that it caused your family significant hardship.
So setting aside the valuable “lessons” that were inflicted on them, the bottom line is you put your own personal well-being ahead of your family’s. Or is that a flawed conclusion?
Rob says
It’s a flawed conclusion, Anonymous. I explained why in the comments just up above.
Just take one thing, the economic collapse that we will see if we cannot as a country find some way to get accurate and honest reports re what the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research says about how stock investing works out to the millions of middle-class investors who want and need access to such information. My boys will be living through that economic collapse. It will affect their lives in hundreds of ways — the type of work they do, the stability of our government, the social fabric of the nation, and on and on and on.
You are saying that all of the people who are familiar with what the peer-reviewed research says should keep it zipped because you Goons want to keep people from finding out. I don’t buy it. This is a great country. All who live in it have received great blessings as a consequence of having been fortunate enough to be born in it. And we are supposed to hold back from doing the right thing because we prefer the easy money we can make working a corporate job.
I obviously have an obligation to support my family financially. And I obviously have been doing a good job of it. Nobody here has ever missed a meal, Goons or no Goons. But my boys are at substantial risk of having to live through an economic collapse if I don’t do what I can to overcome you Goons and help the thousands of our fellow community members who have expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted on all of our boards and blogs to see that little dream come true. Compared to making a few extra bucks in the short term, doing the work that I have been doing for the past 15 years is 10,000 times more important to my boys’ future than making a few extra bucks.
You don’t see it that way. Or at least you pretend that you do not understand. But you are a freakin’ Goon! Goons have messed-up brains, you know? I have a funny feeling that your inner gooniness might be influencing what you are able to “understand” re these matters. I mean, come on.
I love my country. I wish that you Goons did not exist or that Motley Fool had taken appropriate steps to rein you in back when it was first implored to do so by the majority of the Retire Early board community. But I ain’t betraying my country because of some intimidation tactics applied by a group of internet Goons. I mean, come freakin’ on. It’s not exactly a close call.
The people of the United States will win this one. The day that your prison sentence is announced will be declared a national holiday and children will sing special songs and play special games in honor of that importance advance for many years to come. I am 100 percent sure.
And I will be able to say that I led the effort. And my boys will be able to look to that example for guidance on how to live their own lives in a way that brings LONG-TERM fulfillment and pride and satisfaction and peace.
The short-term isn’t all that matters, Anonymous. I know that saying that to you is like holding garlic up to the face of vampire. But it is what I believe. My responsibility is to help my family in a LONG-TERM sense and the long-term of people living in the United States is not looking too super if we don’t figure out how to overcome you Goons and get honest and accurate investment advice out to millions.
Fortunately, we have had THOUSANDS of good and smart people express a desire to help doing just that during the first 15 years of The Great Debate. Something tells me that you Goons will no longer be with us following the next price crash, that we will all be working together to do the work that out boards and blogs were created to do in the first place.
Just another one of those crazy feelings that have been known to pass through my brain from time to time. I am not God. I could be wrong. We are probably just going to have to wait to see what happens following the next price crash to be able to say for sure.
I hope that works for you.
Rob
Anonymous says
“Nobody here has ever missed a meal”
That’s great, but frankly it’s not saying much. Even homeless people get regular meals. The real question is whether your family truly agrees with your course of action. I don’t recall you saying that they do, or that you ever even asked.
Rob says
I’ve certainly asked. There have been lots of conversations about it. And I have written here about my wife’s feelings about the matter on more than one occasion.
My wife accepts that my work has great importance. She knows that I am honest. She knows about the things that John Walter Russell and Wade Pfau and Rob Arnott and hundreds of others have said about my work. And she knows what an internet Goon is. So she gets the basic picture and we are in agreement that far.
The fact that money has not been coming in for 15 years scares her. I think it would be fair to say that we do not see eye to eye re that one.
I see her reaction as being similar to the reactions of lots of others. Wade Pfau’s reaction is similar in many respects. He gets it that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies are dangerous; they do not tell the people planning retirements what they need to know. Wade has said that on many occasions. He even wrote to the authors of the Trinity study asking that they correct their study. So Wade gets it.
But then again he doesn’t. Wade is no longer contacting the authors of Buy-and-Hold retirement studies seeking corrections. He is not even asking that the Bogleheads Forum be opened to honest posting. He is not seeking to get the research paper that he co-authored with me written up on the front page of the New York Times. So — Wade DOESN’T get it.
He gets it and he doesn’t get it. At the same time! The same person! That’s where we are today, Anonymous.
That’s my wife. She gets it and she doesn’t get it. At the same time. The same person. That’s where we are as a people.
I spoke with an acquaintance of mine about these general issues a week or two ago. He has every reason to take my side and he certainly did not want to endorse the behavior of you Goons. At one point, I mentioned something you Goons did and his face had a look of intense distaste. So he is not biased against me, he is if anything biased for me. But his conclusion was: “The stock market goes up and the stock market goes down — it always has!”
That’s what you might call a philosophical attitude. Does this fellow get it? Or does he not get it?
It is my view that he does NOT get it. It certainly is true that the market has always gone up and down. But what he is missing is that the downs cause us bigger problems today because millions of middle-class people need to finance their own retirements and the downs throw all their numbers wildly off when it is too late in their lives to make up for the losses. So the huge losses that have been typical in the market in the past are no longer acceptable.
Fortunately, Shiller’s research shows us how to avoid both the ups and the downs. But we cannot talk about Shiller’s research because the Buy-and-Holders didn’t know about it when they developed their strategy (he hadn’t published it yet!) and it makes them feel bad to acknowledge not always having known everything there is to know about the subject. So each day we drift closer to the edge of the waterfalls and all of us who see what is happening keep it to ourselves if we know what is good for us.
This guy thinks he gets it. And he is a smart fellow and a nice fellow and an unbiased fellow. Yet he does not get an important part of the story. He intellectually is capable of getting it. But emotionally he cannot accept what has happened. It is an incredible story. What I am saying is that most of the biggest-name experts in the field — good and smart people — are giving dangerous advice and aren’t even aware that they are doing it. This fellow tunes this out and just retreats to his philosophical stance — the market goes up and down, it always has and it always will.
That’s what I am up against. That’s a different version of my wife’s take. She knows me. So she knows that there is merit to much of what I am saying. But there are elements to this story that are hard to swallow. There’s a thing called “cognitive dissonance.” When a story is too hard for the humans to swallow, this cognitive dissonance thing kicks in.
I believe that the next price crash is going to bring the cognitive dissonance to an end. It is one thing to read peer-reviewed research showing that the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold is going to put us in the Second Great Depression. It is something else to see with your own eyes the human misery that that entails. I believe that the next price crash will shock the cognitive dissonance away. I don’t have much choice. If I didn’t believe that, I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.
Maybe I will be proven wrong. I am not God. I have gotten things wrong before. I cannot say with certainty that it is not in the process of happening again.
But what would you have me do? Every piece of evidence that we have seen for 15 years now has supported the peer-reviewed research of the last 36 years. Shiller says that investing is a highly emotional activity and the Buy-and-Holders have let their emotions run wild to the point of threatening to get academic researchers fired from their jobs if they continue to produce honest research. I have developed a funny feeling over the years that this Shiller fellow might be on to something. And you don’t need to have an I.Q. of 140 to see that, if this Shiller fellow is on to something, continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold is going to leave us all in a very, very, very scary place.
So I do what I have to do, Anonymous. You make it sound like a father’s ONLY responsibility is to bring in the bucks. That’s one important responsibility and I have honored it well for 25 years of marriage now. But that is not my only responsibility. If I wake up in the middle of the night and see that the house is on fire, I have a responsibility to bring my family members to safety. I cannot just lay in bed and tell myself “Hey! I bring in a steady paycheck! Let someone else handle the darn fire problem!”
Our economic system is on fire. Things have reached a point where the fire is beginning to spread to our political system. I have responsibilities in that regard too. So I am doing what I can. We have to find a means to work around you Goons and get honest and accurate reports of what the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works to the millions of middle-class investors who very much want it and need it. That’s my job. I have been elected to carry out the task. So I intend to carry it out to completion.
That’s the deal, Anonymous. I talk to my wife about it frequently. We are not in complete agreement. That makes it harder to do the job. But the job must be done successfully all the same. The survival of our economic and political systems is no small thing. SOMEONE sure has to do this job? Do you see anyone else stepping up to the plate? No, me neither. That’s why I am leading the charge.
I hope that works for you.
Rob
Anonymous says
Are you not able to simultaneously put an end to the goons AND work a job that brings home a check? It seems there are plenty of hours in the day to do both.
Rob says
If I had to do it that way, I certainly could do it that way. It it comes to that, I’ll do it that way.
It’s not an issue at the moment.
Rob
Anonymous says
Ummmm…..Rob………you are around 60 years old by now, don’t you think time is running short? Not to mention, you have already negatively impacted your expected social security benefit.
Rob says
Running short for what? The shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing is the biggest advance in the history of personal finance. And it’s not exactly a close call!
And I have a funny feeling that the $500 million settlement payment will make up for a good bit of the Social Security benefit shortfall.
Holy moly!
Rob
Anonymous says
And if the $500 million doesn’t come in, it seems a bit too late in the game to go back to work.
Rob says
Um — Thanks for your concern. I am deeply touched, Goon pal.
My backatcha is — It’s a little late in the game for you to shout out “I didn’t mean for it to go this far!” on the day when they are carting you off to a prison cell. I won’t deny a wee bit of craziness on my part. But there’s crazy and then there’s Crazy, you know? I am not inclined to take lessons in Sane Living Tactics from any of my Goon friends.
It’ll all work out, man. Hang in there.
Rob
Anonymous says
“The fact that money has not been coming in for 15 years scares her. I think it would be fair to say that we do not see eye to eye re that one.”
“It’s not an issue at the moment.”
Your wife’s fear isn’t an issue? That’s kinda insensitive.
Rob says
Her fear is an issue. It’s the money that is not an issue.
And, again, the irrationality of that combination reminds me of the general reaction to Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) research findings. Everyone acknowledges that Shiller did something very important. But people shrug their shoulders when you ask them if they can identify what that “something” is in practical, how-to-invest terms.
We are all scared that we are investing improperly, much as my wife is scared that we do not have a regular paycheck coming in. But we not scared (or at least we pretend that we are not!) that as a society we have not incorporated Shiller’s findings into our thinking about how stock investing works, much as my wife is not scared about what we would be giving up by not putting our full energies into further development of the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept (there is no job that anyone could get that would pay 1/100th of what the VII work is likely to pay, according to all available signs).
Humans are not entirely rational beings, Anonymous. The evidence re this one is overwhelming. Yet the investing model that we use ASSUMES that they are, in contradiction to 145 years of historical data showing otherwise.
We have to get over this hill. We all want the same thing — to invest effectively. So we are going to figure out a way to conquer the hill. We don’t have any choice. It’s just a matter of time. Any thought of holding back any longer is self-destructive irrationality.
My sincere take.
Rob
Anonymous says
So to summarize, your wife is scared because you have no income. You could (maybe) get a job. Then she wouldn’t be scared. But you refuse. Because your mission is more important than your wife’s fear.
Is any part of that inaccurate?
Rob says
That’s not too far off the mark, Anonymous.
It’s true that I think that the mission in this particular case is more important than my wife’s fear. Please don’t forget that she lives in this country too. I think that it would be fair to say that she will have much greater fears following the next price crash when she sees what it is doing to our society’s belief in the continued viability of our economic system and our political system. I would rather that she experience small, passing fears today than big, pressing fears down the road a piece.
Also, her fears are not well-founded. I am well-positioned to make boatloads of money following the next price crash. Every academic researcher who works in this field will be freed to do honest and accurate and helpful research once this story is written up on the front page of the New York Times. Every blogger will be freed to write honest and accurate and helpful blog entries. Every investment advisor will be freed to offer honest and accurate and helpful investing advice.
The material at this site helps all those people; it shows WHY so many have held back on the important work of exploring the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s research for so long. When all of us on the right side of the law stick together, things become pretty darn impossible for you Goons. We haven’t been united until now and so you Goons have been able to pick us off one by one. But now we have a single site that documents the 15-year cover-up in great detail. There’s power in knowledge. This site provides access to a mountain of knowledge.
I want to see this country survive and then thrive. So do millions of other smart and good and hard-working people who love this country. So, yes, I see this mission as being pretty darn important. My wife and I do not today see eye to eye re this one. I think we will down the road a piece. How do you think I would feel if I permitted her fears to dissuade me from completing the mission and then I had to see her live through what we will all be living through in the days following the next price crash? That’s what matters.
The material at this site lets the entire nation recover quickly from the crash. On the day that the New York Times features our story on its front page, millions of us will be positioned to begin rebuilding our economic and political system. The better we understand what went down, the better able we will be to make good things happen quickly. Every day is going to be important at that time. I am happy to say that I provide a complete record of events here. I certainly don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the completion of the record in any way.
If you were so worried about my wife, you would come clean. You are worried about your own skin. You are worried about going to prison. I cannot help you with that. I can put in a word for you. But that’s as far as it goes. I cannot myself participate in this massive act of financial fraud.
Do you have a wife? Do you have kids? How do you think they will feel when they hear about your prison sentence?
Everything that I did I did because I do not want to betray my country. You did your stuff because you are not able to acknowledge that you once fell for a Get Rich Quick scheme. I think it would be fair to say that that puts me about 10,000 steps ahead of you re this one. I will continue to play it honestly and on the right side of the law. We will see how things play out following the next price crash.
I wish you the best of luck with it, for whatever that is worth.
Rob
Anonymous says
“Do you have a wife? Do you have kids? How do you think they will feel when they hear about your prison sentence?”
Yes, I have a wife. Yes, I have kids. They think your prison talk is nonsense and they are grateful that .I have a job and provide for them instead of running away from responsibility like you do. My wife wants to know why your wife hasn’t left you already.
Rob says
Both of our wives will have to watch to see what happens following the next price crash, Anonymous.
I have zero willingness to post dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements and you have zero willingness to acknowledge that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies don’t contain an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. We are working at cross purposes.
I wish you and your wife all the best that this life has to offer a couple. That’s the best that I can do for you given the circumstances that apply re this particular matter.
Rob
Anonymous says
“Both of our wives will have to watch to see what happens following the next price crash, Anonymous.”
Our wives have watched long enough. Your wife is fearful, mine is not.
Rob says
You wouldn’t be posting here if you were not afraid of going to prison, Anonymous.
If you are fearful, your wife should surely be fearful too. If she knows that you are posting here and she is not fearful, she is not thinking clearly.
My sincere take.
Rob
Anonymous says
“You wouldn’t be posting here if you were not afraid of going to prison, Anonymous.”
On the contrary. No one, including me, would post here if we were afraid. Instead, you wouldn’t keep repeating yourself if you felt your position was correct.
Rob says
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob
Anonymous says
“money has not been coming in for 15 years”
-but-
“her fears are not well-founded”
It doesn’t get much more founded than that.
Rob says
I learned a few good tricks at that Retire Early board that I used to post at, Anonymous.
Perhaps you’ve noticed.
Rob