Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“Thousands of our fellow community members have asked that you Goons dial it back and permit honest posting. I have had numerous university professors contact me and tell me that they are now including stuff that they learned from me in their courses. I have had investment advisors call me and talk to me for hours about how they can help their clients with Valuation-Informed Indexing insights.”
If this is the case, why don’t these supporters post here your website? Everything is anonymous, so they shouldn’t have any fear.
You are making an intelligent point, Anonymous. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this one. I think I have some clues at this point. I don’t think that I have it all figured out.
I mentioned my wife in an earlier comment. She says that she is confident that I have done hugely important work. So far so good. But she reacts negatively when I use the word “Goons.” I might say at dinner “let me tell you what I was talking over with the Goons today…” and she will interrupt and object to my use of the word “Goons.” I believe that this disconnect that she evidences is shared by most of the other humans. I have been able to watch this closely enough and long enough that I am coming to have a better sense of how it is that we humans come to experience the cognitive dissonance phenomenon.
The famous study on cognitive dissonance was done by asking people to say which of two lines is longer, a 12-inch line or an 18-inch line. When asked alone, just about everyone gets it right. We all have eyes and our eyes do their job and send a message to our brains informing us as to which line is longer. The next step to the experiment is to have five fake study participants in the same room answer the question with the wrong answer. “the 12-inch line is longer,” says one. “Yes, obviously,” says another. “I agree, it is clearly the 12-inch line that is longer.” Then the real study participant, the one who has eyes that would work perfectly well if he were alone in the room. gets confused “It appears to me that the 12-inch line is probably the longer one,” he says.
Do you see what is happening?
We have eyes. We have brains. We are capable of seeing reality and reporting it to others. But we also have a deep and compelling need to be at one with our fellow humans. It is built into us. Some would say that it was put there by evolution. The member of the tribe that walks his own way ends up getting eaten by animals or starving or freezing to death or whatever. The member of the tribe who learns the importance of getting along with his fellow community members lives long enough to pass along his genes to another generation. Getting along with our fellow community members is important stuff. We will sacrifice just about anything not to be removed from the tribe. We will say that a 12-inch line is longer than an 18-inch line if that is what it takes.
And we will believe it!
That’s an important part of the story. We humans value honesty. We tell lies all the time, of course. But we still value honesty. We have a hard time telling lies without the benefit of a good excuse. It’s hard to come up with a good reason why we should say that a 12-inch line is longer than an 18-inch line. So we come up with stories justifying what we said. It’s not so much that we want to justify what we said to others. It’s more than we want to justify what we said to ourselves. We cannot bear to think that we are liars. So we always rationalize our self-deceptions.
We all want to believe that our retirement accounts are worth two times what they are really worth today. We want to believe that Buy-and-Hold is a real thing, that it is not necessary to divide our portfolio values by two just because stocks are currently priced at two times their fair value. We come up with stories. And we believe those stories. The Buy-and-Holders are not really lying when they say that they believe that Buy-and-Hold works. They would pass a lie detector test in which they were asked if Buy-and-Hold works and in which they answered “yes.” They follow the strategy themselves. They don’t tell others to do things that they are not willing to do themselves.
My wife doesn’t have money in stocks. And she is married to me. You Goons have blocked my ability to earn an income for 15 years. That hurts my wife. She has every reason in the world to be angry at you Goons and she has no reason to say anything supportive of Buy-and-Hold. So why does she say that I am wrong to refer to you Goons as “Goons”?
I believe that what is going on is that she wants to belong to the community. This is built deep into her as it is built deep into all of us. If she says “oh, those awful Goons!”, she is not just expressing support for me, which she would otherwise be inclined to do. She is also expressing negative thoughts about the tribe as a whole. If you truly are Goons and yet you walk free, the tribe has messed up, it has failed to protect the rest of us from a gang of Goons. It’s scary for my wife to form that thought in her mind. To form that thought would require that she break from the tribe and evolution has formed her to view breaking from the tribe as a terrible mistake. So her mind creates what it perceives as a safe middle ground — she shows support for her husband by saying that he has done work of huge importance and yet she sticks with the tribe by expressing the view that he must have done something wrong to bring on the Goon attacks.
That’s my take on it, Anonymous. I believe that there are lots of people out there who want to explore these issues — about 10 percent of the population follows a Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy today and about another 10 percent has sufficient interest in the possibility to want to be able to ask questions about it. But virtually no one feels comfortable being separated from the tribe. So my supporters generally keep it zipped once it becomes clear to them that supporting the views I put forward is tribe-separation behavior.
It doesn’t matter that these people could post anonymously. It logically seems that it should matter. If you can post anonymously, no one can actually hurt you for saying what you believe, you are safe. You are safe but you do not feel safe. People do not feel safe forming ideas in their heads that are tribe-separation thoughts. People SELF-censor. People don’t even let themselves form the prohibited thoughts. There is a SOCIAL TABOO against belief in or even consideration of Valuation-Informed Indexing today. It is so important to the tribe that we continue to believe that our stock portfolios are worth two times what the peer-reviewed research of the past 36 years shows they are really worth that the vast majority of us do not dare to question the conventional wisdom, even in our own heads, even with the cloak of anonymity in place to protect us.
These ideas will not spread until as a society we take steps to make people feel safe entertaining them. Once we do that, they will spread quickly. The thing that is holding us back is the fear that we all feel deep down inside not to break with the tribe.
These are my sincere thoughts re these terribly important matters, in any event.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors, old friend.
Rob
Long Time Hoco Researcher says
My wife doesn’t have money in stocks. And she is married to me. You Goons have blocked my ability to earn an income for 15 years. That hurts my wife. She has every reason in the world to be angry at you Goons and she has no reason to say anything supportive of Buy-and-Hold. So why does she say that I am wrong to refer to you Goons as Goons”?
Because your wife isn’t a narcissistic, passive-aggressive, mentally ill internet troll and Habitual Liar whose mental illness and multiple personality disorders preclude him from holding a job. What hurts your wife the most is your passive-aggressive behavioral disorder which you use to browbeat her into submission. Your wife knows who the real Goon is. She’s married to him.
Anonymous says
Rob,
Please help us understand why you wouldn’t do everything in your power to relieve the stress on your wife by getting a job. Many of us just cannot understand your thinking here.
Rob says
Your wife knows who the real Goon is. She’s married to him.
Okay, John. Given the content of this particular blog entry, I think your words re this matter should be permitted to appear here.
This mean old research-loving Goon wishes you all good things.
Rob
Long Time Hoco Researcher says
“It doesn’t matter that these people could post anonymously. It logically seems that it should matter. If you can post anonymously, no one can actually hurt you for saying what you believe, you are safe. You are safe but you do not feel safe. People do not feel safe forming ideas in their heads that are tribe-separation thoughts. People SELF-censor. People don’t even let themselves form the prohibited thoughts. There is a SOCIAL TABOO against belief in or even consideration of Valuation-Informed Indexing today. It is so important to the tribe that we continue to believe that our stock portfolios are worth two times what the peer-reviewed research of the past 36 years shows they are really worth that the vast majority of us do not dare to question the conventional wisdom, even in our own heads, even with the cloak of anonymity in place to protect us.”
Bat$hit Crazy rationalization comes so easily to the narcissistic, passive-aggressive, mentally ill internet troll and Habitual Liar Rob Hocus No Step 2 Bennett.
Rob says
Please help us understand why you wouldn’t do everything in your power to relieve the stress on your wife by getting a job.
Because I think that I can bring in a higher income (by a factor of 500 or more) by doing the work that I am doing today. I have spent decades developing the abilities that I employ to do this work. I want to put my talents to their highest and best use.
We know from the reactions that we saw to my posts before you Goons were able to intervene with your garbage that there are millions of middle-class investors who want to know more about what the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works in the real world. I have the ability to reach those people through this amazing new communications medium and it would be foolish and irresponsible of me to pass up the opportunity.
People generate wealth by adding value. Opening the internet to honest posting on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field is the biggest value-add that I have ever come across in my lifetime. I love the work. I obviously hate the ugly stuff that you Goons add to the mix. But I think it is a terrible mistake for people to shy away from doing the important work that needs to be done here out of fear of the ugly, smelly stuff that you Goon dish out.
We have laws against financial fraud. Let’s enforce them, you know. Then we all get to the place where deep in our hearts we all really want to be (including you Goons, to be sure!).
It’s a win/win/win/win/win, Anonymous. Learning experiences are the one true free lunch available to us in this world. If you were thinking clearly, you would have seen this yourself going back to the first day. That’s my sincere take in any event.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, man.
Rob
Long Time Hoco Researcher says
“Anonymous says
September 4, 2017 at 4:17 pm
Rob,
Please help us understand why you wouldn’t do everything in your power to relieve the stress on your wife by getting a job. Many of us just cannot understand your thinking here.”
“Rob says
September 4, 2017 at 4:17 pm
Okay, John. Given the content of this particular blog entry, I think your words re this matter should be permitted to appear here.
This mean old research-loving Goon wishes you all good things.
Rob”
Rob Hocus No Step 2 Bennett, I see you’re trying to use your passive-aggressive personality disorder as a tool to try to get under the skin of those posting comments by calling everybody John. Good try but it won’t work. You’re just a mentally ill internet troll grasping at straws. You can call us by any name you want but it won’t change the fact that Rob Hocus No Step 2 Bennett is a narcissistic, passive-aggressive, mentally ill internet troll and Habitual Liar relegated to bleating about his Hocomania Routine on the far fringes of the Interwebz. Most everyone save for a small handful of HocoResearchers have joined Wade Pfau and countless others in leaving your drama far behind them. There’s just a handful of us who still enjoy playing Poke-the-Troll with you. Use whatever name makes you happy to address us, it won’t change the dynamic that you’re the troll with the Plop and we’re the only folks who pay any attention to you. All the serious personal finance discussion boards and blogs are blissfully hocus-free! The Golden Age of Bat$hit Crazy Hocomania ended years ago. All the left now is a sorry old troll just mailin’ it in…
Rob says
Bat$hit Crazy rationalization comes so easily to the narcissistic, passive-aggressive, mentally ill internet troll and Habitual Liar Rob Hocus No Step 2 Bennett.
Yeah, yeah.
Rob
Long Time Hoco Researcher says
Because I think that I can bring in a higher income (by a factor of 500 or more) by doing the work that I am doing today. I have spent decades developing the abilities that I employ to do this work. I want to put my talents to their highest and best use.
“Your only “talent” consists of trolling the internet 24/7 with Bat$hit Crazy Hocomania. And the market has quite correctly placed the appropriate value on your “talent.” $0.00.
Rob says
Rob Hocus No Step 2 Bennett, I see you’re trying to use your passive-aggressive personality disorder as a tool to try to get under the skin of those posting comments by calling everybody John.
I wasn’t calling Anonymous “John.” My response to you just happened to follow his comment.
Most everyone save for a small handful of HocoResearchers have joined Wade Pfau and countless others in leaving your drama far behind them.
If the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research is legitimate (I strongly believe that it is), we will be seeing another stock crash in the not-too-distant future. At that time, those who thought that they were leaving the drama far behind them will discover that it followed them to their hiding place.
The purpose of research is to uncover realities. Shiller uncovered a very big and very important reality in 1981. That’s why he was awarded a Nobel prize for his work. That reality is not going away because you ban some guy from 20 different investing boards and blogs. I cannot help with the problem for the time-being. But the problem remains regardless of how many bans you insist on.
I will do what I can to help out when as a society we reach a point where we take action re you Goons. I can do no more and I can do no less, you know?
Rob
Rob says
And the market has quite correctly placed the appropriate value on your “talent.” $0.00.
If you truly believed that, you never would have sought a single banning, John. You would have just let people come to their own conclusions.
Please give me a freakin’ break.
Rob
Anonymous says
“Because I think that I can bring in a higher income (by a factor of 500 or more) by doing the work that I am doing today.”
But 500 times zero still equals zero.
Rob says
But 500 times zero still equals zero.
It will be interesting to see how things play out, Anonymous.
I certainly wish you the best of luck with it.
Rob
Anonymous says
“It will be interesting to see how things play out, Anonymous.”
We have seen in play out. The score is still ZERO.
Rob says
We have seen in play out. The score is still ZERO.
Financially, the score is today zero. That’s a fair enough comment.
But, as I noted above, financial rewards go to those who offer great value to the world. The materials at this site offer so much value that I can’t even count it. If I listed everything of huge importance, I would need to write one of those book-length posts. So I will limit myself to one thing. The peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with Wade Pfau is the most important research published in this field. That one thing alone could easily bring in over $500 million once prison sentences have been announced for you Goons, which I think it would be fair to expect following the next price crash. If I had shown millions of people how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 10 percent, I would be on the cover of Time magazine. I showed how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent. Gee, I wonder if that will get me anything in days to come.
You Goons showed how important you thought that research was when you threatened Pfau. If you didn’t think it was going to change the world, you never would have been willing to risk going to prison to block us from telling people about it. Actions speaks louder than words, Anonymous. For so long as you continue behaving as you have for the past 15 years, I know how important you think this stuff is no matter what words you put forward. Every time you advance a death threat or a demand for an unjustified board banning, you might as well be shouting at the top of your lungs “you are on to something super important, Rob, don’t stop, just keep pushing, you’re almost there!”
I’ve been listening to what you have been telling me going back to the first day, my good friend. Perhaps I should give you a cut, eh?
Rob
Anonymous says
So goons have to go to prison for you to get 500 million? I don’t understand the link.
Rob says
The link is that I need to have this story written up on the front page of the New York Times to get the $500 million. The Wall Street Con Men are not going to just hand it to me because I am a nice guy. They will pay up when the story is being talked about at every site on the internet and they see no choice but to move on to the first true research-based strategy. But you Goons understand that you will be going to prison. So you will do anything in your power to keep people from learning about it. And to get the story written up in the New York Times, I need to have lots of people talking about it. We are working at cross purposes, Anonymous.
The ordinary way for things to play out would have been for Bogle to have given an “I Was Wrong” speech in 1981, when he learned from the publication of Shiller’s research that he was wrong about valuations and about long-term timing. Once he failed to do that, pressures began to develop to keep discussion of the implications of Shiller’s research findings limited. Those pressures grew stronger ans stronger and stronger as more lives were destroyed by the cover-up. By May 2002, the pressures to keep the cover-up going were strong enough that Greaney could threaten to kill my wife and children if I continued posting honestly re safe withdrawal rates and get away with it. And now that we have seen an economic crisis it is even worse. Engaging in a cover-up is like walking in quicksand; the harder you struggle to get out, the deeper in you go.
The only way out at this point is just to tell the truth about the entire story. But you don’t want that because of the prison term that will follow. There’s nothing that I can do about it; I cannot change the facts. I have to wait for the next price crash to change people’s willingness to tolerate your abusive behavior. At that point things will just get better and better and better and better. The payment of the $500 million will only be a small part of it. There will be all sorts of wonderful things going on. We will as a society become able to benefit from 36 years of powerful investing insights in the space of a single day. It will be exciting an liberating stuff, a second American Independence Day.
I can’t make it happen by myself, Anonymous. If I could, I would. I have tried everything that I can think of. The only thing that I haven’t tried is doing all the same things after millions of people have seen more than half of their life savings disappear. I think that will make a difference. I saw what happened with the Madoff investors after they lost their life savings. They didn’t think it was a joke. I don’t think that millions of middle-class investors will see your abusive and criminal behavior as a joke either after the crash. So we will have to wait to see how things play out.
If we had played this the right way, we gradually would have moved from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing as people learned more about Shiller’s research. The financial fraud stuff kept things bottled for 36 years. So now what should have happened over 36 years will happen in one day when we have the story published on the front page of the New York Times. None of this crazy stuff was my idea. I am just some guy on the internet who cannot bear the thought of posting dishonestly re the numbers that my fellow community members are using to plan their retirements. But here we are.
I wish you all good things. But the idea that I am going to travel to the wrong side of the felony line is nutso stuff. That ain’t never going to happen. And, if I say that I believe that Greaney included a valuations adjustment in his study, then I am aiding the cover-up. Not this boy.
We will just have to wait and see. John Walter Russell once said that he thought that it would all work out far better than any of us could imagine. We will have to have a little faith in the goodness of our fellow humans.
Rob
Anonymous says
“They will pay up when the story is being talked about at every site on the internet and they see no choice but to move on to the first true research-based strategy. ”
I am getting even more confused. I don’t see the link that would cause the con-men to give you $500 million. What are they getting fir the $500 million. Also, how is this linked to goons going to prison?
Rob says
The Wall Street Con Men can make a lot more money with Valuation-Informed Indexing than they ever did with Buy-and-Hold. It actually works. It is superior in every way.
There is no reason for me to have any difference with any of them. They love their country just as I do. The problem is that they are in a trap. They are not willing to come clean until they see a way out of the trap.
The next price crash will increase the pressure on them to come clean. And I will offer to put their history in the best light possible. People are going to be accusing them of a lot worse than cognitive dissonance in the days following the next price crash. I can make a good case that much of this can be traced to cognitive dissonance. And I have mountain of credibility given that I came clean on the morning of May 13, 2002.
For the $500 million, they get to rebuild the economic system of their country. Does that sound like a strong enough value proposition to you? The alternative is years of lawsuits. Do you think that’s something that they are going to want to live through? I have a funny feeling that the settlement offer is going to sound very good to them when they see stories in the newspaper talking about the possibility that we will be falling into the second great depression. Just another one of those crazy hunches that I have become famous for over the years.
It’s linked to Goons going to prison just because that follows once people come clean and the truth about what has held up progress for 15 years comes out. I don’t personally care about you going to prison, Anonymous. If I could take the prison stuff off the table, I would be happy to do so. It would make it a lot easier to work out a deal with you. But how the heck do you propose that I do that. If people learn that the safe withdrawal rate studies are in error and that we have known this for 36 years now (since before the safe withdrawal rate studies even existed!), they are going to be mighty pissed off. What do you propose that I say to them to calm them down?
You come up with something that does not get me sent to prison too and I will say it. How’s that for a deal?
There are things that I can say that I think will help a bit. You don’t have to give anything up for me to say those things. I am going to say those things regardless. Just because I think it is the right thing to do.
I won’t say that Greaney’s study contains a valuations adjustment. You are on your own trying to explain that one. I wish you the best of luck with it.
Does that help?
Rob
Anonymous says
“For the $500 million, they get to rebuild the economic system of their country. Does that sound like a strong enough value proposition to you? The alternative is years of lawsuits. ”
Why lawsuits? They can just read about VII and begin investing that way for free without having to pay a dime since you made all the information public.
“It’s linked to Goons going to prison just because that follows once people come clean and the truth about what has held up progress for 15 years comes out. ”
Why would they go to prison for disagreeing with you and posting on your website? That doesn’t amount to fraud. Merely, it is someone having a different opinion.
Rob says
Why lawsuits? They can just read about VII and begin investing that way for free without having to pay a dime since you made all the information public.
We can’t get the money back that has been lost as a result of the 36-year cover-up, Anonymous. Yes, people can learn what they need to learn by reading my web site. But don’t you think that lots of those people are going to get angry when they learn what was done to them? Check out some of the statements of Madoff investors after they lost their retirement money. They were pissed. They brought lawsuits. They demanded prison sentences. We are going to need to deal with that anger in some way.
I have ideas. I intend to help. But as with my idea of opening the entire internet to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. I am not going to be able to do the things that I think are good ideas by myself. We are all going to need to pull together to bring things to a successful conclusion. I think we are going to need to adopt an amnesty. We are going to need to launch a national debate to bring everybody up to speed re the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research and then we are going to need to adopt an amnesty to protect all the people who advocated Buy-and-Hold strategies in the years after which they had become discredited by the peer-reviewed research. I can play a big role in making that happen because I have a level of credibility on these issues that one one else possesses. When I ask for an amnesty, it means more than when some Buy-and-Holder asks for an amnesty.
It won’t work if I am at the time engaged in lawsuits aimed at getting compensation for the years of good work that I have done. So the sensible thing is for me to work out a settlement with my Wall Street Con Men friends in which we agree that they pay me a sum of money and then we give some speeches and then we work together as friends to get all the things done that we need to get done. I am ready today. I was ready a number of years back. When Bogle and his Wall Street Con Men pals are ready, we can move forward. When he gives his “I Was Wrong” speech or his “I’m Not Sure” speech, he will be sending a signal to the entire world that he is ready. And I am 100 percent certain that most others will quickly fall in line once he gives that speech.
We do not have differing interests re these matters, Anonymous. Me winning doesn’t mean you losing. Me losing doesn’t mean you winning. It’s either we all win or we all lose. We all want to invest effectively. Every last one of us. Bogle wants to give good investing advice, he wants to help people. That was his boybood dream. He is one “I’m Not Sure” speech away from realizing that dream. He needs to come to understand that he lives in a nation of people and that those people have adopted laws that he must follow and then he needs to get about the business of being sure that on a going forward basis his behavior is always in accord with the word and spirit of those laws. Then he can put the ugly side of this behind him and spend the rest of his life enjoying all the amazing, wonderful stuff that follows from participating in a nation-wide learning experience, the Worlds’s One True Free Lunch.
Why would they go to prison for disagreeing with you and posting on your website? That doesn’t amount to fraud. Merely, it is someone having a different opinion.
Did you notice that up above I said that Bogle needs to give either an “I Was Wrong” speech or an “I’m Not Sure” speech? I prefer that he give an “I Was Wrong” speech. I believe strongly that Valuation-Informed Indexing is the future and we will get there faster if he says the words “I Was Wrong.” But he lives in a country that permits differences of opinion. If he says “I’m Not Sure” and lives up to those words, I believe that that will be enough to bring him to the right side of the law.
A death threat is not a difference of opinion. A death threat is a criminal act when used to block discussion of 36 years of peer-reviewed research. A demand for an unjustified board banning is not an opinion. A demand for an unjustified board banning is a criminal act when used to block discussion of 36 years of peer-reviewed research. The advancing of tens of thousands of acts of defamation is not an opinion. The advancing of tens of thousands of acts of defamation is a criminal act when used to block discussion of 36 years of peer-reviewed research. A threat to get an academic researcher fired from his job is not an opinion. A threat to get an academic researcher fired from his job is a criminal act when used to block discussion of 36 years of peer-reviewed research.
Bogle is on the wrong side of the law today. He needs to come clean. You Goons are on the wrong side of the law today. You need to come clean. Anyone who has posted in “defense” of Bogle or you Goons is on the wrong side of the law today and needs to come clean. That’s where things stand. We can start with the coming-clean process by the close of business today or we can wait until after the next price crash. That one is your call. The big difference in personal terms is that your prison term ends up being longer if we wait. The angrier people are at what has been done to them, the longer that your prison term is going to be. I am 100 percent happy to do anything in my power to make your prison term as short as possible. But this is not a one-man job. I am going to need some cooperation to make the magic happen. From Bogle and from you Goons both.
My best wishes to you in your efforts to overcome your darkest impulses when thinking the matter over, my good friend.
Rob