Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Please explain how it is a felony when you have posts blocked, but is not a felony when you block posts.
I don’t block posts to keep people from learning about an error that I made in a retirement study.
That’s a big, big, big, big. big, big, big difference.
But, again — it doesn’t matter what I say about it. It’s your jury that will determine the length of your prison sentence. It’s what your jury says about it that matters.
I wish you the best of luck with it, man. But that’s as far as it goes.
Rob
Opinions do not constitute a felony. Move on with your life.
Members of juries are entitled to form opinions too, Anonymous.
That’s how our system works.
I wish you the best of luck with it. But that’s as far as it goes for me.
I naturally wish you all good things.
Rob
“Opinions do not constitute a felony.”
That is a fact. Your “juries” are hypothetical, not to mention absurd. Using a hypothetical to argue against facts is pathetically weak. It convinces no one. All you do is shake your fist against reality. What a tragic waste of 15 years.
Tell it to Matt Lauer, you know?
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, old friend.
Rob
Matt Lauer was sent to prison for banning you? For calling you an idiot?
Keep on shaking that fist, baby. Doesn’t accomplish anything, but it feels like you’re doing something, and that’s all that matters.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out, Anonymous.
I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.
Rob
Matt Lauer? Someone needs to teach you how to do a proper analogy.
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob
I think it’s a good analogy.
Lots of people knew about Lauer. They kept their mouths shut out of fear.
The problem with using intimidation tactics to keep a cover-up going is that, once a small number of people overcome their fear and speak out, the rest work up the courage to speak out too. Things can turn fast.
Lots of people understand that Shiller is saying something different from what Bogle is saying. Lots of people understand that, if valuations affect long-term returns, there is zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate is the same number at all valuation levels.
I think that it is a shame what happened to Matt Lauer. It is of course a shame for the women involved. But it is also a shame for Lauer, in my assessment. If he had never been led to believe that he could get away with such behavior, he would in all likelihood have engaged in less of it. So those who led Lauer to believe that he could get away with his outrageous behavior contributed to the problem.
So it is in the investing advice field. Everyone who follows the peer-reviewed research in this field has known since 1981 that the safe withdrawal rate is a number that changes with changes in the valuation level. People should have spoken up when the Trinity study (on which the Greaney study was based) was published in the mid-1990s. The Trinity study should never have passed peer review. The people on the committee knew about Shiller’s research. They should have spoken up.
We all played a role in creating the climate in which the things Matt Lauer did could happen. And we all played a role in creating a climate in which the errors in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies could be covered up for 15 years.
When we want to know the realities of stock investing, we will come to know them. The peer-reviewed research we need to learn to realities has been available to us for 36 years now. We just need to give ourselves permission to talk about it on every investing discussion board and blog on the internet. I believe that we will make the change in the days following the next price crash, when it will become clear to all of us that we can no longer afford to pretend not to know what we all on some level of consciousness do know — valuations really do matter, in the calculation of safe withdrawal rates and in every other strategic question facing long-term stock investors.
My sincere take.
Rob
News flash, Rob. It is not all about what you think. It is what the broader community thinks. Of course, you also think the community is not being honest or is holding back, yet that is just you again inserting your opinion.
What I think matters a great deal re one aspect of the question, Anonymous. I do not feel even a tiny bit comfortable posting dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements. So, if I do not believe that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site contains a valuations adjustment, I need to say that whether my fellow community members dare to do so or not. It is not ALL about what I think. But what I think influences my posting given that I do not feel comfortable posting dishonestly.
I agree with you that what the broader community thinks matters a great deal. If the broader community is not willing to insist on recognition of my right to post honestly, then you Goons can be successful in your efforts to get me banned from any board or blog at which I post. If my views are not heard, then in a practical sense the fact that I am posting honestly doesn’t matter much — no one is hearing those honest views. So in that respect, yes, what the broader community thinks matters a great deal. I don’t disagree.
I wish the broader community would insist on recognition of my right to post honestly. That’s what I have always wanted. It has not happened. I am not sure what you would have me do re this reality. I cannot change it. I have to accept it. I do. I don’t like it one tiny little bit. But I accept the reality.
I believe that the reality will change in the days following the next price crash. Stocks are today priced at two times fair value. A 50 percent price drop would just bring us to fair value. Following a 50 percent price drop, a fellow who today has a portfolio valued at $1 million would have a portfolio valued at $500,000. A fellow who today has a portfolio valued at $100,000 would have a portfolio valued at $50,000. And like that.
Will that change affect how millions view the question of whether honest posting on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research should be permitted at every discussion board and blog on the internet? I sure believe that it will. I believe that many of my fellow community members will be stunned to see half of their life savings vanish into thin air. I think they will be looking for explanations of what happened to them. I think that the Ban on Honest Posting offers a pretty darn persuasive explanation. I believe that following the next price crash there will be as many people referring to Jack Bogle as “Saint Jack” as we have today referring to Bernie Madoff as “Saint Bernie.”
Could I be wrong?
It’s been known to happen. I believed on the morning of May 13, 2002, that the broader community would shut down you Goons within two or three days. I think it would be fair to conclude at this point in the proceedings that the joke was on me re that one. It is at least theoretically possible that that will prove to be the case re this other matter as well. I don’t expect to see it happen. But you never know, right?
It seems to me that we are just going to have to wait to see how things play out. I have a hard time coming up with any other realistic options to offer you at this point in the proceedings.
I don’t say that what the broader community thinks doesn’t matter. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that I believe that what the broader community thinks matters a great deal. I have put millions of words forward during the first 15 years of our discussions. I do that to persuade members of the broader community of the merit of the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. I wouldn’t bother if I didn’t think that what those people think matters.
I guess you could say that I don’t think that what those people think AT THIS POINT IN TIME matters enough to me to persuade me to post dishonestly. It does not. But the broader community may change what it thinks in response to the hit it takes in the next crash. And, even if I knew in advance that the broader community would never change what it thinks, I still would not to sacrifice my personal integrity by saying that I believe that Greaney’s study contains a valuation adjustment. So, even if the broader community didn’t change, I would still feel compelled to post honestly re these matters.
My personal view is that this stuff should not even be a tiny bit controversial. Honest posting is permitted in all other fields and no one even remarks on it. It is just taken as a given. Why is the investing advice field so different? I think it’s that darn Get Rich Quick impulse that resides within all of us. It makes us act contrary to our self-interest. That’s what makes this story so exciting. What Shiller has really done is to teach us what we need to know to for the first time in history act in our self interest when buying stocks. That’s no small thing.
Consider this one, Anonymous. Stocks are today priced at two times fair value. And there is now a Ban on Honest Posting in effect at every large investing board and blog on the internet. Do you think those are unrelated phenomena? I do not. If you ponder it a bit, I think you will see that we could never get to a P/E10 value of 30 without a Ban on Honest Posting being in effect. If honest posting were permitted, lots of people would tell us what the research says and that would cause us to sell stocks and that would bring the P/E10 level down to fair-market levels. It’s only the Ban on Honest Posting that permits us to continue acting in so self-destructive a manner as to push the P/E10 value up to 30.
The Ban on Honest Posting serves a purpose today. It’s not a constructive purpose. It is a self-destructive purpose. It is like the hiding place that an alcoholic uses to keep his addiction from being exposed. But it does serve a purpose. The Get Rich Quickers/Buy-and-Holders want to keep that P/E10 at 30 or thereabouts. And they can’t do it if we all gain the freedom to post honestly re the peer-reviewed research. So most of us go along with what has to be done to keep that P/E10 value at 30 even though it includes some pretty darn nasty stuff.
Does the alcoholic need a hiding place any more after he hits bottom and is lying in the gutter? It seems to me that he does not. There is no purpose served at that point in putting the bottles in a hiding place. So it is with Buy-and-Hold after prices have crashed. What good would it do anyone at that point to lie about this stuff? Once prices have crashed, you cannot keep them up by telling more lies. Once there is no need to feed the fantasy, it is my view that telling the truth re these matters will catch on like wildfire.
But we are going to have to wait to find out for sure. There’s no other way for me to persuade you that that is what is going to happen except for you to see it with your own eyes. And there’s no other way for you to persuade me that that is not what is going to happen than for me to see it with my own eyes.
Does all of that help at all?
Rob
There is not one single post from anyone that says you cannot post honestly. We just hope one day you can actually make a post that is actually honest and not filled with lies and exaggerations.
I pointed out on the morning of May 13, 2002, that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site does not contain an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.
Is that a lie or an exaggeration?
Rob
“Is that a lie or an exaggeration?”
Wade Pfau already explained how you were wrong. Why do we need to keep repeating that.
You do not have to repeat anything that you do not care to repeat, Anonymous.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
“You do not have to repeat anything that you do not care to repeat, Anonymous.”
Then your issue has been addressed and you don’t need to keep bringing it up yet again. Wade Pfau’s column brought it to a conclusion.
Wade’s column sure didn’t bring it to a conclusion for me, Anonymous. Wade’s column highlighted for me why all of the people in the United States need to pull together to insure that prison sentences are announced for you Goons as soon as possible.
Wade spent many years in school learning his trade. He obviously wants to do honest work in this field and to help us all. He should be permitted to do so.
I will go a step further than that at the risk of sounding “controversial.” I think that Wade and all other academic researchers working in this field should not only be permitted to do honest work but should be ENCOURAGED to do so.
Call me madcap.
Rob
“Wade’s column sure didn’t bring it to a conclusion for me, Anonymous.”
And there is your problem. John Greaney gave you the answer within an hour of your question. Many others, including Wade, have also given you the answer. You just didn’t like it. Same goes for everything else. Unless people agree with you, you just can’t let it go. Normal people agree to disagree and then move on. You don’t. You are still talking about something from 15 years ago acting as if you never got an answer. When people don’t go along with it, you decide to respond in some silly way, such as with the prison threats.
When you behave this way it is no wonder you are banned. You behavior is pathological.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out, Anonymous.
I am going to continue posting honestly re safe withdrawal rates and re scores of other critically important investment-related topics.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
“I am going to continue posting honestly re safe withdrawal rates and re scores of other critically important investment-related topics.”
What does that have to do with the point made? The issue was that you can’t move on.
It’s the peer-reviewed research that refuses to move on, Anonymous. It’s been saying the same thing for 36 years now.
I’m just some guy on the internet who tells people what it says. You’ve got no gripe with me. Your gripe is with that darn research.
It’s a troll! That’s the darn story here. The last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field is trolling us!
Rob
Wrong. You have one interpretation and others have a different interpretation. The points have been discussed. Everyone has moved on, but you can’t.
I agree that I have one interpretation and others have a different interpretation. There are two academic schools of thought re how stock investing works, one based on the research of Eugene Fama and one based on the research of Robert Shiller. Those who believe in the research of Shiller are very much in the minority. But the Shiller school (Valuation-Informed Indexing) is 100 percent a legitimate school.
I half agree that the points have been discussed. There’s been a good bit of discussion at a good number of places. But there has never been any HONEST discussion. We have norms in our society re how discussions are to be held. Those norms do not permit death threats or demands for unjustified board bannings or thousands of acts of defamation or threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. The Buy-and-Holders have resorted to those tactics in every discussion that has been held. So there has never been any legitimate discussion. That’s what we need if we are going to move forward. People are not capable of making an informed choice so long as the discussions are poisoned with the abusive tactics that the Buy-and-Holders consistently bring to the table.
I am not sure what you mean by the phrase “move on.” I want to see every discussion board and blog on the internet opened to HONEST posting on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research. All of my efforts are aimed at achieving that goal. I see achievement of that goal as the answer. I see achievement of that goal as the future. I have the sense that you don’t see my continued pursuit of that goal as “moving on.”
Huh?
What the f?
How am I going to achieve the goal if I don’t continue to pursue the goal?
How are we going to bring the universe of investors around to Valuation-Informed Indexing if we do not open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research?
It is my strong sense that we are working at cross purposes, Anonymous. I don’t mean that we are not friends. I mean that we are trying to achieve different sorts of goals. You are trying to keep Buy-and-Hold going a little while longer and I am trying to convert the entire world to Valuation-Informed Indexing as soon as possible.
Do you think that there might be something to that?
Rob
“I want to see every discussion board and blog on the internet opened to HONEST posting on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research.”
Obviously “HONEST posting” is code for people listening to you and agreeing with you. That hasn’t happened in 15 years, and there’s not a speck of evidence to suggest that it will ever happen. So your goal is futile. When a goal is plainly futile, normal people move on to other goals. That’s called “adaptability”. One thing that Rob Bennett is not is adaptable.
“I agree that I have one interpretation and others have a different interpretation.”
That’s it. That’s all you need to say. There is no need to keep rehashing the same stuff for over 15 years. There is no need to make up silly stories about prison. Try acting normal for a change and move on.
“How am I going to achieve the goal if I don’t continue to pursue the goal?”
It is your goal, not anyone else’s. Making up stories and threats haven’t changed a thing. You can’t think or see clearly.
Obviously “HONEST posting” is code for people listening to you and agreeing with you. That hasn’t happened in 15 years, and there’s not a speck of evidence to suggest that it will ever happen. So your goal is futile. When a goal is plainly futile, normal people move on to other goals. That’s called “adaptability”. One thing that Rob Bennett is not is adaptable.
“Honest posting” is code for people listening if they care to listen and electing not to listen if they do not care to listen while permitting all other community members to do the same.
There’s a mountain of evidence that it will happen. There’s so much evidence that it would take days just to go through it all. The very fact that the published rules of every site at which I have posted permit honest posting is powerful evidence. I mean, come on.
I don’t think that my goal is even a tiny bit futile. My personal belief is that the cover-up is futile. The very fact that you engage in criminal behavior shows that you yourself see the futility of your efforts. If you thought that you could keep the cover-up going without criminal acts, you would not turn to criminal acts. Criminal behavior is desperate behavior. I mean, come on.
I am adaptable. But I do have some core beliefs. One is that I love my country. So I am not going to engage in criminal acts. I am not THAT adaptable. No apologies.
My best wishes.
Rob
That’s it. That’s all you need to say. There is no need to keep rehashing the same stuff for over 15 years. There is no need to make up silly stories about prison. Try acting normal for a change and move on.
I don’t understand what you are trying to communicate here,.
You seem to agree that there are two interpretations. Then you say that there is no need to “rehash the same stuff.” If one interpretation shows that Greaney got the numbers wrong in his study on May 13, 2002, that same interpretation shows that he got the numbers wrong on May 14, 2002. Is it a “rehash” to make that point a second time?
Valuations have been affecting long-term returns for 36 years now. Actually, valuations have been affecting long-term returns since the first market opened for business. But we have had peer-reviewed research showing that for 36 years now. Are you saying that we should mention one time what the research shows and then never mention it again? If yes, can you say why? It seems to me that we should mention the realities whenever it would be helpful to our fellow community members to do so.
Isn’t it the purpose of our boards to help people?
Death threats are not normal. Demands for unjustified board bannings are not normal. Thousands of acts of defamation are not normal. Threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs are not normal. It is you Goons who have violated community norms, not me.
The length of your prison sentence is not for me to determine. Your jury members will make that call.
Does “moving on” mean turning my back on my country? No thanks. I love my country. I think I will continue to stand by it.
Rob
It is your goal, not anyone else’s. Making up stories and threats haven’t changed a thing. You can’t think or see clearly.
I have a funny feeling that lots and lots of people will be pursuing similar goals on the day following my receipt of my $500 million settlement check.
We send signals as a society re what goals we want people to pursue when we either reward or punish behavior. When we ban people who post honestly re the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research, we get fewer people posting honestly. Surprise! Surprise! I would like to see MORE people posting honestly. So I want to show people that they can make millions posting honestly. I want to REWARD honest posting.
If people who came before me had collected $500 million checks for their efforts, I would never have been subjected to a single death threat. The entire Goon problem is the result of the failure of lots of people who came before me to stick with this thing long enough. If I “move on,” as you put it, I make things worse for all who come after me, not better.
Again, I believe that we are pursuing different objectives. You are trying to keep the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage going. I am trying to bury it 30 feet in the ground, where it can do no further harm to humans and other living things.
Do you see?
Rob
“Honest posting is code for people listening if they care to listen and electing not to listen if they do not care to listen while permitting all other community members to do the same.”
Everyone already believes that’s the current situation. That is, everyone except the tiny handful of people whose behavior is so atrocious that they need to be removed from the conversation. Nothing will change for those people until they realize that THEY are the problem.
And since you’ve said you will NEVER admit that you are the problem, nothing will ever change for you. So we’ve circled back to futility. You think my situation is futile? I can post wherever I want. I can go to the Bogleheads conference if I want. Not you. So you lash out in frustration, day after day, year after year, demanding that the world change to suit you. It ain’t gonna happen, son.
Now here’s where you say it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
You’re right, Anonymous. That’s exactly what I say here. No, I don’t think that I have presented any problem whatsoever. My contribution has been 100 percent positive. And it is has been a very, very, very BIG positive. I am humbled and honored to have been able to make that kind of contribution and it is certainly my intent to continue making it.
An easy way to see it is to look at the Ask Me Anything session that Wade Pfau did with the Financial Independence sub-reddit community recently. Wade said that the safe withdrawal rate is not always 4 percent. There is no way in God’s green earth that he would have gotten away with saying something like that before I came on the scene. I said something a lot more mild than that on the morning of May 13, 2002. All that I did then was to ask a question — I asked whether we should be taking valuations into consideration when calculating safe withdrawal rates. That was enough to cause Greaney and his Goons to threaten to come to my house with a baseball bat and to kill my wife and children as my punishment for my “crime.”
No one threatened Wade when he told the truth about safe withdrawal rates. That’s because things are changing for the better. Things are changing SLOWLY. But they are changing. And they are changing because people like me are becoming less and less willing all the time to tolerate the insane abusiveness of you Goons. Good for me! Good for all of us who stand up to you!
When I was at the Bogleheads Forum, they occasionally took polls of the community to see who the most popular posters were. John D. Craig and Microlepsis always scored near the top of those polls. Those guys made huge positive contributions. But they were attacked mercilessly by the sorts of “individuals” who have posted in “defense” of Mel Linduaer. And of course once Lindauer and his Goon pals got control of the community, those two great posters were banned for life. Surprise! Surprise!
I am going to bring them back. I am 100 percent sure that, when they are brought back, they will offer us all even more good stuff than they offered us in earlier days because they will feel free to say what they believe to an extent that they never felt to do so before. And I will encourage other top-notch posters who today are afraid to say what they believe to do so. That’s how you grow a board. Word will spread all over the internet and things will just get better and better and better and better for all of us. Even for you Goons, believe it or not!
Yes, we will see how it all plays out. I love my country and I have full confidence that my country will do the right thing for all of us in the end. I wish that it all happened like magic. I wish that it hadn’t taken 15 years already to get there. But the important thing is that we get there in the end. And I remain 100 percent confident that we will get there in the end. And that, when we look back, each and every one of us will say that it was worth the fight it took to get us there 500 times over.
Could I be wrong?
I could be wrong. It’s been known to happen.
That’s why I say that we will just have to wait and see.
You can indeed post wherever you want. But there’s a problem that you overlook when you say that. Because of your behavior, you cannot be challenged in your beliefs in the way that you need to be challenged in your beliefs to learn what you need to learn to become the most effective investor you can become. So you have hurt yourself as much as you have hurt millions of other middle-class investors.
I don’t play it that way. I want to be challenged and I want to challenge others. I want us all to learn all that we can possibly learn about this important subject matter at this exciting time to be learning about it. I will always wish you all good things because I think of you as a friend despite your goonishness. But one of the good things that I will always wish you is that you be surrounded by fellow community members who care enough about you to challenge you when they think that you have gotten onto a track that may hurt you in the end. That’s one of the things that I mean when I say that I wish you all good things.
I cannot play it any other way, Anonymous. I worked it hard when I was putting together my plan not to get any of the numbers wrong. If I knew that a friend of mine saw that I had gotten a number wrong and that he lacked the courage to tell me, I would have been pretty darn pissed about it. So I am not going to do that to any of my friends. When I saw that Greaney got an important number wrong, I told him. It took me three years to work up the courage, but I did eventually do it. That’s a true friend. No, I am not the problem. And it’s not a close call.
I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors, okay? That much I can do. I have a funny feeling that you may be waiting a long time for this other thing you seem to be set on. But I do indeed wish you the best in all your future life endeavors. I do that with a full and an open heart, my long-time Goon friend. That far I can go and that far I am happy to go.
Rob
“When I was at the Bogleheads Forum,……”
You were never at the Bogleheads forum. It was started for several reasons, including to avoid people like you and you were never allowed to post there.
When I was there, it was at Morningstar.com. It was called “Vanguard Diehards.” They changed the name when they moved it escape me. It was the same community.
Rob
The did not “change the name”. To this day there is a Vanguard forum on Morningstar, separate from the Bogleheads forum. Typical of the careless, sloppy misrepresentation of simple facts that has made you the pariah you are today.
“When I was there, it was at Morningstar.com. It was called “Vanguard Diehards.” They changed the name when they moved it escape me. It was the same community.”
It has always been an entirely different board. You were never on the Bogleheads. You can’t even tell the truth on one simple items, let alone more significant topics.
The did not “change the name”. To this day there is a Vanguard forum on Morningstar, separate from the Bogleheads forum. Typical of the careless, sloppy misrepresentation of simple facts that has made you the pariah you are today.
Most of the Vanguard Diehards community moved to the Bogleheads Forum. There’s a small group that stayed at Morningstar. But that’s not at all the same community that it was before.
Rob
It has always been an entirely different board. You were never on the Bogleheads. You can’t even tell the truth on one simple items, let alone more significant topics.
Why is it again that I say that the Buy-and-Hold strategy is rooted in emotion?
Rob
“Most of the Vanguard Diehards community moved to the Bogleheads Forum. There’s a small group that stayed at Morningstar. But that’s not at all the same community that it was before.”
None of that changes the simple fact that you never posted at the Bogleheads forum. You’ve been told this many times, but it doesn’t matter. You insist that you did. Even though you clearly didn’t. You have your own version of reality.
Just one tiny but illustrative example of what makes you Rob Bennett.
None of that changes the simple fact that you never posted at the Bogleheads forum. You’ve been told this many times, but it doesn’t matter. You insist that you did. Even though you clearly didn’t. You have your own version of reality.
Just one tiny but illustrative example of what makes you Rob Bennett.
Not everybody who reads these words knows the entire history. The community at which I posted was at the time I posted called “Vanguard Diehards” but today is called “Bogleheads Forum.” It is more clear and accurate to say that I posted at Bogleheads Forum than it would be to say that I posted at Vanguard Diehards, which as it exists today is a very different community of people.
My best wishes to you, my long-time abusive-posting friend.
Rob