Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Hi Rob. Come join us.
Love,
Robert, Wade, Bill and Michael
We’ll all be working together in the days following the next price crash, Anonymous.
The only difference is that there will be more human misery if we wait.
I vote for us all pulling together today.
But you know what? I only get one vote. Others get to decide what others do.
So we will have to wait a bit to see how things play out.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.
Rob
“We’ll all be working together in the days following the next price crash, Anonymous.”
Regardless, of what happens in the market, why would anyone “work” with you.
Because they like the idea of retiring early. Because they care about their fellow community members and enjoy helping people. Because they are stimulated by an intellectual challenge. Because they love their country. Because they want to have a successful blog or a successful site. Because they want to make lots of money. There are an endless number of possibilities.
The only thing standing in our way is the difficulty that we humans sometimes have with saying the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong” or even the words “I’m” and “Not” and “Sure.” That’s the entire deal here. Those words are always hard to get out and they are especially hard to get out in circumstances like this, where the stakes are so high. If investing weren’t so important, we would have made a fix here years and years ago. Our troubles stem from the fact that investing is super important and so it is super important to get this stuff right. And so it is super hard to admit mistakes made in this field.
But all of that will be stuff in the rear-view mirror in the days following the next crash. Do you see people “defending” the Madoff fund today? There is nothing to defend in a Get Rich Quick scheme after it has collapsed. What’s the appeal of it at that point? What’s the appeal of Buy-and-Hold after it has destroyed millions of lives? It is because the appeal drops to zero once the realities are acknowledged that you cannot bear to see the realities openly explored at even a single site. You feel that your entire life rides on this cover-up remaining in place. That’s why you fight so hard.
There won’t be anything for you to fight for in the days following the crash. You may feel today that that will be the end of the world for you. But the reality is that you are going to have to pick yourself up and get to work again. And the natural person for you to work with will be me since I’ve been here all along and since you have never had any good reason for hating me going back to the first day.
Your views are going to CHANGE after the crash. That’s the part that you are not seeing. Your views on stock investing are rooted in emotion and, when the P/E10 goes from 30 to 15, that’s a big, big, big emotional change experienced by millions of investors. With that emotional change comes the possibility of hearing out new ideas about how stock investing works and with that openness comes learning and then excitement re the idea of building something that truly works for the long term.
We will be working together in the days following the crash, Anonymous. I am pretty darn sure. I am not even able to imagine any reason why we wouldn’t be. So that’s the way that I expect to see it play out.
But of course I could be wrong! That’s always the wicked curve that we humans always just have to cope with the best we can. If only life could be a steady diet of fastballs and change-ups!
My best and warmest wishes to you, man.
Rob
“Because they like the idea of retiring early…Because they want to have a successful blog or a successful site. Because they want to make lots of money.”
Your only contribution to those matters is to serve as the perfect example of what NOT to do.
So you say with words, Anonymous.
But your behavior over these past 16 years tells a very different story re the level of confidence you feel in your strategy.
It will be interesting to see how things play out.
I naturally wish you all good things in any event.
Rob the Bad Boy
“Because they like the idea of retiring early. Because they care about their fellow community members and enjoy helping people. Because they are stimulated by an intellectual challenge. Because they love their country. Because they want to have a successful blog or a successful site. Because they want to make lots of money. There are an endless number of possibilities.”
I don’t think you understand the question. Why, specifically, do you think they would want to work with you? What skill set, expertise, etc do you bring to the table that would compel them to have you take part in their work?
For starters, my name is on the famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002, pointing out that John Greaney got an important number wrong in the retirement study posted at his web site, Anonymous.
Then you’ve got about 5,000 things since then. I gave up on Buy-and-Hold on the evening of August 27, 2002, when Greaney put forward his first death threat. I have only written about Valuation-Informed Indexing since that date. That puts me a cool 16 years ahead of anyone else working in this field.
Fair enough?
Rob
“For starters, my name is on the famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002, pointing out that John Greaney got an important number wrong in the retirement study posted at his web site, Anonymous.”
That probably works against you. Even Wade wrote a whole column pointing out where you went wrong.
I believe that Wade will testify honestly when he is put under oath.
But we’ll see, you know? We are all going to find out together how things play out in the days following the next price crash.
I hope that works for you, my long-time Goon friend.
Rob
Yes, the next price crash turns the whole world turns upside down, leaving you on top. Or so you believe.
We recently had a crash. You may have heard about it. It was in all the papers. The biggest crash of any current investor’s lifetime. But, as Wade pointed out, nothing changed for you. Yeah yeah, people got mad at Taylor Larimore or whatever. But for you, nothing changed.
All your future plans are based on nothing more than wishful thinking. I realize that’s all you’ve got. But still, it’s sad. 16 years down the toilet. Obviously to be followed by another 16. And then, God willing still another 16.
I don’t feel even a tiny bit comfortable posting dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements, Anonymous.
So we will just have to wait to see how it all plays out.
I wish you the best of luck with it in any event.
I hope that helps a small bit.
My best wishes.
Rob
Don’t you have even one goal that is within your own control? That doesn’t require a market crash? You used to say you were going to do this or that. Of course, you hardly ever followed through. But at least you had the idea to try something. Now, nothing. Totally inert.
So, the following needs to happen:
– A big crash
– An article written up on the front page of The New York Times
– Buy and Hold (defined by you) is recognized as the primary cause of the financial crash
– Congress steps in to investigate the buy and hold industry
– Thousands upon thousands of “Buy and Holders” are identified as culprits in a massive scheme
– All the leading experts admit that they are wrong and have been lying
– Proof of death threats and job threats that have never been substantiated are suddenly supported with information that was hidden for decades
– Congress, the press and industry experts all conclude that Rob Bennett singlehandedly has the solution to all our problems (despite little to no visibility to his site)
– Unknown Wall Street con-men are fearful of Rob Bennett’s new status as the financial savior that they seek a quick remedy by offering to pay up settlement fees of $500+ million, making Rob Bennett one of the wealthiest men of our time.
Did I miss anything?
Don’t you have even one goal that is within your own control? That doesn’t require a market crash? You used to say you were going to do this or that. Of course, you hardly ever followed through. But at least you had the idea to try something. Now, nothing. Totally inert.
We all live in communities. We all are affected by the laws enacted by lot of other humans. I respect those laws. I follow them.
I control what I do. And I intend to remain on the right side of those laws. I have never given two seconds of consideration to playing it any other way.
Not this boy.
My best wishes.
Rob
So, the following needs to happen:
– A big crash
– An article written up on the front page of The New York Times
– Buy and Hold (defined by you) is recognized as the primary cause of the financial crash
– Congress steps in to investigate the buy and hold industry
– Thousands upon thousands of “Buy and Holders” are identified as culprits in a massive scheme
– All the leading experts admit that they are wrong and have been lying
– Proof of death threats and job threats that have never been substantiated are suddenly supported with information that was hidden for decades
– Congress, the press and industry experts all conclude that Rob Bennett singlehandedly has the solution to all our problems (despite little to no visibility to his site)
– Unknown Wall Street con-men are fearful of Rob Bennett’s new status as the financial savior that they seek a quick remedy by offering to pay up settlement fees of $500+ million, making Rob Bennett one of the wealthiest men of our time.
Did I miss anything?
Everything that needs to happen has already happened with the one exception being that we need to see enforcement of the laws against financial fraud, which I am 100 percent certain we will see in the days following the next price crash.
Either I am right or I am wrong. Those are the only possibilities.
I wish you the best of luck with it.
Does that help at all?
Rob
So your answer to the question about your goals is “I follow the law.”
That is not a goal. That big glob of lint in your dryer duct follows the law. A goal is what distinguishes you from that pile of lint. Do you even leave the house any more? Maybe for an Al-Anon meeting?
“Everything that needs to happen has already happened “
I guess the world missed all of that.
So your answer to the question about your goals is “I follow the law.”
That is not a goal. That big glob of lint in your dryer duct follows the law. A goal is what distinguishes you from that pile of lint. Do you even leave the house any more? Maybe for an Al-Anon meeting?
Yes, I attend Al-Anon meetings. I have written about that here before. My job is to pull us all together. Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold is an addiction. I attend the meetings to learn how to deal with addicts.
You cannot force an addict to give up his addiction, Anonymous. You would benefit from knowing how stock investing works. You should be thrilled to open every site on the internet to honest posting on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research so that you could learn as much as possible from as many different people as possible in as short a time as possible. But you aren’t ready for that today. There are no words that I can say that can force you to do things a person suffering from your addiction finds repulsive.
You have probably heard that an addict needs to hit bottom before he becomes ready to learn about a new way of living. I think it would be fair to say that we will be hitting bottom as a society when we experience the next price crash and millions of people see their retirement accounts reduced by 50 percent or more. That’s hitting bottom. It is not going to be one bit pleasant. But it is something that we need to live through to get to a better place.
My job is to prepare for those days. I write columns. I talk things over with you Goons. I do my best to be responsive to your questions. I ponder things that have gone on over the past 16 years when I take my daily walks. I attend meetings. I do what I can, There are things that I cannot do today. There are things that I will only be able to do starting in the days following the next crash. I try to hold back from doing things that cannot be done today while being sure to do the things that can be done and to prepare for the days when it will become possible to do a lot more.
Does all of that not make a good bit of sense?
Rob
“Everything that needs to happen has already happened “
I guess the world missed all of that.
You cannot speak for the entire world, Anonymous. You can only speak for yourself.
Lots of good and smart people haven’t missed it. Lots of good and smart people have told me in very clear and encouraging terms that they haven’t missed it.
Those people will be speaking up publicly in the days following the next price crash. We are working our way through a process. We are going to end up in a very, very good place. I am 100 percent sure.
I hope that works for you.
Rob
“Lots of good and smart people haven’t missed it. Lots of good and smart people have told me in very clear and encouraging terms that they haven’t missed it.”
Despite the claim of “thousands”, not one of them posts here even though the posting is anonymous. Hhhhmmmmmm……..
“We are going to end up in a very, very good place.”
Work hard, save and avoid unproven timing schemes and you will end up in a good place.
“My job is to prepare for those days.”
“those days” being a 50-65% crash. An event that happens on average once a century, and already happened less than a decade ago.
I’m trying hard to think of an able-bodied person who has less ambition than you. No one comes to mind. Even bored teenagers at least care about their video games.
“Lots of good and smart people haven’t missed it. Lots of good and smart people have told me in very clear and encouraging terms that they haven’t missed it.”
Despite the claim of “thousands”, not one of them posts here even though the posting is anonymous. Hhhhmmmmmm……..
“We are going to end up in a very, very good place.”
Work hard, save and avoid unproven timing schemes and you will end up in a good place.
There is 36 years of peer-reviewed research supporting Valuation-Informed Indexing.
In contrast, there has never been a single piece of peer-reviewed research supporting the idea that it is not necessary to practice price discipline when buying stocks. Wade Pfau spent months of his time searching the literature trying to find one and came up empty-handed. That’s when he declared: “Yes, Virginia — Valuation-Informed Indexing works!”
The Buy-and-Holders responded by threatening to send defamatory e-mails to his employer in an effort to get him fired from his job if he continued doing honest work in this field. That tells the tale that needs to be told.
My best wishes.
Rob
“My job is to prepare for those days.”
“those days” being a 50-65% crash. An event that happens on average once a century, and already happened less than a decade ago.
I’m trying hard to think of an able-bodied person who has less ambition than you. No one comes to mind. Even bored teenagers at least care about their video games.
A price crash of 50 percent to 65 percent is certainly a rare event speaking generally. But a P/E10 level in the the 30s is also a rare event. There has never in the history of the stock market been a time when we suffered a lasting price crash starting from a time when the P/E10 level was at fair-value levels or lower. But there has also never in the history of the market been a time when we went to a P/E10 level in the 30s and did not see a price crash of 50 percent to 65 percent. In fact, there has never been a time when we went to the 30s and did not see a Great Depression.
This is why it is so important that we permit honest discussion of the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research at every site on the internet. If we don’t take valuations into consideration, we have no idea what is going on in the market. The P/E10 level tells us how irrational investors are being at a given point in time. We need to know that. Investor irrationality hurts all of us and the only way we can address it is to talk about it.
My sincere take.
Rob
“There is 36 years of peer-reviewed research supporting Valuation-Informed Indexing.”
Do you have a link to just one successful retirement based on VII?
“That’s when he declared: “Yes, Virginia — Valuation-Informed Indexing works!”
Do you have a link where Wade said this (not just you saying Wade said this)?
This entire site is your link, Anonymous.
The members of your jury will determine the length of your prison sentence. That one is not my call.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
“But there has also never in the history of the market been a time when we went to a P/E10 level in the 30s and did not see a price crash of 50 percent to 65 percent”
And there have never been two such crashes less than 80 years apart. Which means you’ll be reporting on the next one when you’re in your 130’s.
We’ll see, Anonymous.
I wish you the best of luck with it, in any event. I hope that helps a small bit.
Rob
And there have never been two such crashes less than 80 years apart. Which means you’ll be reporting on the next one when you’re in your 130’s.
I am going to give a fuller response to this one because I think you are making a legitimate point here. It is odd to see two crashes within a short time-period. If we see another crash within the next year or two or three, that will indeed be the second one within 10 or 12 years. Why are we seeing things play out this way?
If Shiller is right (his research showed that valuations affect long-term returns), then stock prices are determined primarily by shifts in investor emotions, not by economic realities. If that is the case, then irrational exuberance is always going to be followed by irrational depression. It is high P/E10s that cause low P/E10s. It is bull markets that cause bear markets (and the economic crises that inevitably follow from them). There is nothing that we humans can do to avoid bear markets and economic crises except to permit discussion of the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field and thereby prevent bull markets from developing in the first place.
Something kept the drop in P/E10 values that began in September 2008 from resolving itself. We saw only a drop to fair-value P/E10 levels, not a drop to P/E10 levels of one-half of fair value, which is where P/E10 values have fallen to in every earlier bear market before the full bull/bear cycle came to an end. It appears that what happened is that the Federal Reserve stepped in and pumped money into the stock market and then kept interest rates low in an effort to keep us from falling into the Second Great Depression. That kept the bear market from resolving itself. And so the emotional pressure that pulls stock market prices down to insanely low levels at the end of every bull/bear cycle remains in place today. It is only after we see that drop that the stock market will again be able to provide normal returns (6.5 percent real per year rather than the 3.3 percent real returns that we have been seeing for 18 years running now).
Investors are still evidencing an insane level of emotion today. We see that in every post that you Goons put forward here. The Federal Reserve has shown itself able to stretch out the bear market to a time-period longer than we have ever seen before. But it has not shown an ability to change the investor psychology that causes bear markets. So we remain at risk of a big price crash after having already experienced one not too long ago. Pumping up stock prices for a time does not change the underlying investor psychology. If anything, stretching out the bear market makes things worse rather than better.
The core question is always — Are stock price changes caused by economic realities or by investor emotion? If stock price changes are caused by economic realities, the market is efficient and Buy-and-Hold is the ideal strategy (and the safe withdrawal rate is always the same number). If stock price changes are caused by investor emotion, then the only way in which we can deal with economic crises effectively is to help investors rein in their emotional impulses. That is, we need to open up every investing site and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.
Yes, it would be odd to see two price crashes within a short amount of time. But we allowed stock prices to go to levels never seen before in U.S. history in the late 1990s. The Wall Street Con Men have never pushed Buy-and-Hold as hard as they have pushed it in recent decades. So they have created circumstances more dangerous and more damaging that we have ever lived through before. The fundamentals haven’t changed. If the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research is legitimate research (I believe that it is), it is investor psychology that we need to focus on. We need to provide a counter to the relentless promotion of the pure Get Rich Quick “ideas” that have made the Wall Street Con Men so wealthy. We need to permit honest posting on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research.
I hope that helps a small bit.
Rob
There doesn’t have to be a crash. Stock returns could simply be lower in the future. Or earnings might be greater than average. As a student of Shiller, surely you are aware that PE10 will go down this year even if the market stays the same.
“This entire site is your link, Anonymous.”
Yes, it is just you saying it and no proof to back up anything you say.
“This entire site is your link, Anonymous.”
Yes, it is just you saying it and no proof to back up anything you say.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all good things, in any event.
Proof-Lacking Rob
The only thing a jury will use your site for is to determine your level of sanity.
There doesn’t have to be a crash. Stock returns could simply be lower in the future. Or earnings might be greater than average. As a student of Shiller, surely you are aware that PE10 will go down this year even if the market stays the same.
For returns to remain low enough for long enough for P/E10 levels to return to fair-value levels is just a more drawn-out way to experience the same negative effects that we would experience in a crash. The annualized real return on stocks for the past 18 years has been 3.5 percent real. That’s half of the return that millions of investors have been counting on to finance their retirements. And we are nowhere even close to fair-value price levels after those 18 years of poor returns. We are still at P/E10 levels so high that the one time in history when we experienced them before we saw a Great Depression as a result. Not good. Great depressions hurt people, Anonymous. In very serious ways.
And you are wrong when you say that earnings could be enough better than average to help us to avoid the massive amounts of human misery that always follow when as a society we permit P/E10 levels to rise to the levels they have reached in recent decades. It is possible that earnings could increase enough to support a long-term average return of 6.6 percent real or 6.7 percent real rather than the 6.5 percent real that has applied for 150 years now. But we were not looking at 6.6 percent returns in the late 1990s, Try 20 percent. Try 25 percent. Try 30 percent. That’s a massive amount of human suffering that our Wall Street Con Men friends caused with their relentless promotion of the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage.
Not this boy, you know? I am going to continue to post honestly re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. I am happy to do anything in my power to get your prison sentence reduced a bit. But no financial fraud garbage for this boy. I don’t like the idea of going to prison in the days following the next price crash. And I don’t like the idea of causing millions of failed retirements. I was a Buy-and-Holder myself once upon a time because I believed that Bogle was sincere about using the peer-reviewed research as a guide. I think Bogle was on the right track in the days before he went to the dark side. I am going to continue to tell people how stock investing works according to ALL of the peer-reviewed research, both the pre-1981 research that supports Buy-and-Hold and the post-1981 research that shows that valuations need to be taken into consideration to get any of the numbers even roughly right.
I hope that works for you, my good friend.
Rob
Do you think a jury will accept your website as credible support for your positions?
The only thing a jury will use your site for is to determine your level of sanity.
It will be interesting to see how things play out.
My best wishes.
Rob
Do you think a jury will accept your website as credible support for your positions?
I think that everything will be checked out with great care.
My suggestion will be that the first thing that people should check out is whether or not the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. I have a funny feeling that a jury meeting in the days following the next price crash will not require 16 years to figure out the answer to that one.
But we’ll see.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, my dear Goon friend.
Rob
Meanwhile, the Bogleheads Forum turns 11 without you.
Okay, Phoenix.
MIA Rob
From the Bogleheads wiki page:
“An independent and noncommercial Bogleheads Forum was established on February 19, 2007 by an individual with username Phoenix. The primary driver behind creation of the new forum was acute disruption at Vanguard Diehards resulting from Morningstar’s lax moderation policies.”
Acute disruption. Lax moderation. Wow, that sounds unpleasant. Unfortunately they provide no further details.
The fact that some Buy-and-Holders view it as “acute disruption” to tell people what the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research teach us about how stock investing works tells a tale, Anonymous.
The fact that even more Buy-and-Holders (MOST Buy-and-Holders) tolerate the sort of behavior that we have seen for 16 years now from that first group of Buy-and-Holders also tells an important tale.
Buy-and-Holders find discussion of the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research to be unpleasant because the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research DISCREDITS Buy-and-Hold. The real unpleasantness will arrive when you see your retirement portfolio reduced by 50 percent or more. I am the guy trying to spare you that unpleasantness. If the people who came before me had done the job, nothing that I have said would have come as any sort of shock. It came as a shock because too many people in this field are more concerned with being popular and thereby turning a quick buck than they are with telling people what they need to know to invest effectively for the long term.
I offer zero apologies. I believe that the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field is legitimate research.
My best wishes.
Rob
Nevertheless, it was nice of Phoenix to drop by on the anniversary and say Hi after all these years. That’s more than you got from your thousands of supporters.
My take is that Phoenix should have been showing gratitude to those people all along for trying to help out the community as a whole by asking that honest posting be permitted. If Phoenix were thinking clearly, he would see that permitting honest posting would have helped him as much as it helped all the rest of us.
And, if those people were not afraid of what Phoenix and the rest of you Goons would say about them if they showed up here, they would show up here. I agree that they should show up here regardless. They should not let your abusiveness influence them. But they do. It’s human nature not to want to be abused and most will go to great lengths to avoid it.
I did that for a time. I get it. But I have felt better about myself ever since I worked up the courage to stand up to you. I believe that lots of others will be experiencing those good feelings in the days following the next price crash. But we will have to wait a bit to find out for certain.
Anyway, I wish you and my old friend Phoenix the best of luck in all your future life endeavors in any event.
Rob
What would they be afraid of exactly? This sounds completely ridiculous.
I think it is ridiculous to say that people should not be afraid of death threats and threats of career destruction. The very fact that you employ such tactics shows that you know perfectly well that people are afraid of such things. You employ such tactics because such tactics work.
But only in the short term. In the long term they land you in a prison cell.
It’s not worth it. And it’s not a close call.
My sincere take.
Rob
Why is it that you are the only one that has seen the death threats and job threats and no one else has seen them?
Why is it that you are the one that has figured out that buy and hold is the cause of our financial problems?
Why is it that you are the only one that thinks that proponents of buy and hold are committing fraud?
Why is it that you are the only one that believes you will be getting a $500 million windfall?
Why is it that you are the only one that has seen the death threats and job threats and no one else has seen them?
I’m not the only one. There have been thousands of people who over the course of the past 16 years have expressed a desire that honest posting re the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research be permitted. But those thousands are very much in a minority. They represent about 10 percent of the population. A 90 percent majority can stomp out opposing viewpoints if it is determined enough to do so. And there is a mountain of money to be made in this field. So that 90 percent majority is exceedingly determined.
But to put forward even a single death threat reveals a weak hand. The Buy-and-Holders don’t have enough confidence in their strategy to be willing to engage in civil and reasoned debate re what the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research says about it. Their tactics are desperation tactics. They have “worked” so far. But they can only work for so long as most of the 90 percent can live with the results that follow from the Ban on Honest Posting. I don’t foresee too many in that 90 percent continuing to tolerate your criminally abusive tactics after the next price crash scares the bejeebers out of all of us by showing us once again where the relentless promotion of the Buy-and-Hold “strategy” always leaves us.
There is an old saying that “the bigger they come, the harder they fall.” That’s the story with Buy-and-Hold. There are lots of wealthy and powerful and well-connected people fighting hard to keep challenges to this strategy suppressed. They have managed to keep it going for years and years beyond how long it would have remained a popular strategy if the laws of the United States were being enforced in a reasonable way. But all that ultimately means is that the downfall will come quicker than it would have come had normal procedures been followed. Had we been permitting honest discussion all along, it would have taken some time for Valuation-Informed Indexing to supplant Buy-and-Hold as the dominant strategy because people would have wanted to consider the questions from all sorts of angles before making a change. Now, the change can happen very quickly once we all experience the effects of another price crash. Part of the story today is the massive act of financial fraud and that makes anyone associated in any way with the Buy-and-Hold strategy look very, very bad. Support for Buy-and-Hold today is a mile wide and an inch deep. Permit honest posting at a single site and the entire con will quickly unravel.
We’ll see how it goes, Anonymous. I am staying on the right side of the law and I am never even going to give two seconds consideration to playing it any other way. So we’ll see where events take us. I will always praise my Buy-and-Hold friends to the skies for the many very important and legitimate insights that they developed, which helped us all in very big ways. But I will never say that John Greaney included a valuations adjustment in the retirement study he posted at his web site. And I will never deny that there is today 37 years of peer-reviewed research showing that valuations affect long-term returns. We’ll see where that takes us all as events continue to play out before us.
I wish you all good things. But there are limits, you know?
Steadfast Rob
“I’m not the only one. There have been thousands of people who over the course of the past 16 years have expressed a desire that honest posting re the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research be permitted”
That wasn’t the question. This was the question:
“Why is it that you are the only one that has seen the death threats and job threats and no one else has seen them?”
Please answer that.
“Why is it that you are the only one that has seen the death threats and job threats and no one else has seen them?
I’m not the only one. There have been thousands of people who over the course of the past 16 years have expressed a desire that honest posting re the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research be permitted. But those thousands are very much in a minority. They represent about 10 percent of the population. A 90 percent majority can stomp out opposing viewpoints if it is determined enough to do so. And there is a mountain of money to be made in this field. So that 90 percent majority is exceedingly determined.
But to put forward even a single death threat reveals a weak hand. The Buy-and-Holders don’t have enough confidence in their strategy to be willing to engage in civil and reasoned debate re what the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research says about it. Their tactics are desperation tactics. They have “worked” so far. But they can only work for so long as most of the 90 percent can live with the results that follow from the Ban on Honest Posting. I don’t foresee too many in that 90 percent continuing to tolerate your criminally abusive tactics after the next price crash scares the bejeebers out of all of us by showing us once again where the relentless promotion of the Buy-and-Hold “strategy” always leaves us.”
Here are just a few reasons why you get banned from various forums. First, you do not directly answer a question. Secondly, you go off on a tangent with your own agenda, derailing a discussion. Third, you make an allegation (death threat), yet refuse to provide any proof that this ever occurred when asked.
That wasn’t the question. This was the question:
“Why is it that you are the only one that has seen the death threats and job threats and no one else has seen them?”
Please answer that.
When Wade Pfau presented our research findings at the Boglehead Forum, Mel Linduaer, lots of community members were excited to hear about it. Mel Lindauer made clear that honest posting on that research would not be permitted by attacking Wade for having engaged in unethical research practices. Wade stood up for himself. But when Bogle failed to speak up, Wade flipped. He had a family to provide for. So here we are.
It is not possible to talk about what the peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works without talking about the corruption that has come to dominate this field in the Buy-and-Hold Era. People are afraid of Bogle. He is a powerful and wealthy and well-connected man. The penalty for “crossing” him is career death. So people keep quiet and wait for others to stick their necks out.
Are people going to continue to keep quiet in the days following the next price crash. Are people going to let our economic system be destroyed by the Second Great Depression because of their fears of what will be done to their careers if they point out Bogle’s behavior and Lindauer’s behavior and Greaney’s behavior? I guess we will see, you know?
I think we are going to see the biggest economic advance in our nation’s history in the days following the next price crash, Anonymous. I think we are as a nation going to work up the courage to say clearly and plainly and boldly and confidently that there is no valuation adjustment in the Greaney “study” or in any other Buy-and-Hold retirement study and that our lives will just get better and better and better and better from that point forward as we open the entire internet up to honest posting on scores of other critically important investment-related topics as well. But there is only one way to find out for sure. That’s to watch as things play out.
I am more confident that Greaney’s study lacks a valuation adjustment today than I was on the morning of May 13, 2002. Why? Because thousands of people have looked at the “study” in the past 16 years and not one has ever been able to identify a valuation adjustment in it. And because I have seen the behavior of those posting in “defense” of Greaney and Bogle and Lindauer. If Buy-and-Hold were a legitimate strategy, we never would have seen a single death threat or a single demand for a single unjustified board banning or a single act of defamation or a single threat to get a single academic researcher fired from a single job.
Are there millions of people who love this country as much as I do, enough to stand up to Bogle and Linduaer and Greaney and say plainly and unapologetically that Buy-and-Hold is a big pile of smelly Get Rich Quick garbage? I believe that there are. We will find out for sure in the days following the next price crash, when we are going to need to decide as a nation whether we want our economic system (and ultimately our political system as well) to survive or not.
I want to see both our economic system and our political system to survive. I intend to remain on the right side of the law. I will continue to post in support of the millions of middle-class investors whose lives are in the process of being destroyed by this massive act of financial fraud. And we will get to see together how it all plays out in the real world.
I wish you the best of luck with it in any event. I see you as a friend regardless of our differences of opinion re how stock investing works. Does that help at all?
Rob
Here are just a few reasons why you get banned from various forums. First, you do not directly answer a question. Secondly, you go off on a tangent with your own agenda, derailing a discussion. Third, you make an allegation (death threat), yet refuse to provide any proof that this ever occurred when asked.
It will be interesting to see how things play out in the days following the next price crash, Anonymous.
I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, in any event.
Please take good care, my long-time Goon friend.
Rob the Patient
Once again, another non-answer. This deserves repeating:
“Here are just a few reasons why you get banned from various forums. First, you do not directly answer a question. Secondly, you go off on a tangent with your own agenda, derailing a discussion. Third, you make an allegation (death threat), yet refuse to provide any proof that this ever occurred when asked.”
Okay.
Hang in there, man.
Rob the Consistent
“It will be interesting to see how things play out in the days following the next price crash, Anonymous.“
You seem to have put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t you think you should have a plan B
“Here are just a few reasons why you get banned from various forums. First, you do not directly answer a question. Secondly, you go off on a tangent with your own agenda, derailing a discussion. Third, you make an allegation (death threat), yet refuse to provide any proof that this ever occurred when asked.”
Also known as acute disruption. Failure to stop such behavior would definitely be lax moderation.
You seem to have put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t you think you should have a plan B
I have pointed out many times that asking me to post dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements is akin to asking me to flap my arms in the air and fly to the moon. I don’t bother flapping my arms in the air because I have zero confidence that doing so will help me fly to the moon. I have no Plan B re that matter because the entire thing is silliness. Similarly, I have no Plan B re refusing to post dishonestly re the numbers my friends are using to plan their retirements. It is impossible for me even to imagine doing such a thing. So, no, there is no Plan B.
A person cannot be one thing all his life and then change completely because some Goon on the internet is embarrassed for people to learn that he got an important number wrong in a retirement study. I have always loved my country. I still do today. I still will tomorrow. No, there is no Plan B. I will stand or fall on my belief that a citizen of the United States has the right to post honestly re what the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research in this field says about how stock investing works in the real world.
I believe that I will stand high in the days following the next price crash. But I would rather fall than stand by agreeing to post dishonestly re the numbers that my friends are using to plan their retirements. There are some things that are too core to a person’s identity for him to abandon them,, even under intense pressure. My belief that one tries to help one’s fellow community members with his posts is core. There is zero room for negotiation re that one. No Plan B.
I said in one of my shares in one of my Al-Anon meetings that the Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy is something that I would die for if it came to that. There was a guy who came up to me after the meeting and said that that’s the kind of investing strategy that he is looking for, one that is so good that the guy who promotes it is willing to die for it. He was joking. I got the joke. I see the humor in it. But the fact remains that I would rather die than betray my fellow community members re an issue that could cause them to suffer one of the worst life setbacks imaginable. That’s a place to which I cannot go.
People used ton say in the old days that I had lots of passion, lots of energy. This is the same passion that I evidenced when writing about saving applied in the investing realm. If I stop caring about the people who read my words, I cannot write any more words. And, if I start lying about what the peer-reviewed research says to appease some internet Goon, I have stopped caring about the people who read my words. So, no, I don’t go there. And, no, there is no Plan B re that one.
I hope that works for you, my dear Goon friend.
Rob
Also known as acute disruption. Failure to stop such behavior would definitely be lax moderation.
Then let’s disrupt!
A failed retirement is a serious life setback. When you get the numbers wrong in a study that people are using to plan their retirements, you need to make some changes. It it takes a bit of disruption to bring about those changes, let’s get about the business of disruption!
My sincere take, Anonymous. No apologies whatsoever.
Rob the Disruptor
“Then let’s disrupt!”
And how has that strategy been working for you?
“No apologies whatsoever.”
Of course not. Narcissists never apologize. Why should they? They’re never wrong.
And how has that strategy been working for you?
It’s worked amazingly great, beyond-words great.
Have you taken a look at the stuff I have developed over the past 16 years? None of that would have happened had I not worked up the courage to put forward that insanely disruptive post from the morning of May 13, 2002.
Are you joking?
Rob
They’re never wrong.
If I were wrong, we never would have seen a single death threat. Greaney would have pointed to the section of his study that contained the valuation adjustment and that would have been the end of it. I mean, come on.
Rob
“Have you taken a look at the stuff I have developed over the past 16 years?”
In fact, I have. It distills down to about three paragraphs of misguided ill-informed investing advice, and several million words of persecution complaints.
Okay, Anonymous.
Please take good care, man.
Rob
“So, no, there is no Plan B.”
What about getting a job that provides you a paycheck? Why wouldn’t that be a rational plan B?
I took a trip down to the unemployment office and asked them to tell me about any jobs that pay $500 million plus. They said they were fresh out at the moment.
Maybe next week.
Rob
“I took a trip down to the unemployment office and asked them to tell me about any jobs that pay $500 million plus. They said they were fresh out at the moment.”
But doesn’t any job pay more than you are making now?
Does the job have to pay $500 million? Can’t you work a normal job while waiting for your $500 million?
Does the job have to pay $500 million? Can’t you work a normal job while waiting for your $500 million?
It’s a theoretical possibility. But anything that takes time or energy or attention away from the work that seems likely to pay a whole big bunch more than $500 million is a long-term financial mistake, in my assessment.
Gee, I wonder if you Goons might not have my long-term financial success as your #1 priority? Some of these things are so hard to figure out!
Rob
But doesn’t any job pay more than you are making now?
If you go by dollars in hand, a minimum wage job would pay more than the work that I have been doing for the past 16 years. And it’s not a close call.
If you go by value created, the work that seems likely to pay well in excess of $500 million is the winner by a long, long, long shot. We are talking Bill Gates levels of wealth creation.
I employ a value-created model. The entire reason why I began exploring financial freedom issues in the first place is because I wanted to create more value with my limited number of working hours. My corporate job was paying a nice income. But I felt that I had the potential to create a lot more value for the world by putting my talents to better use and I believe that in the long term it is the value that one creates for the world that determines the wealth that one creates for one’s self. Holy moly, talk about striking pure gold!
I had no idea that this would pay off the way it did. I was confident that I was on the right track. But there is no way that any human being could anticipate this taking me to the places it has taken me over the course of the past 16 years. That’s one of the reasons why I love this country so much. Things are set up so that it is possible for an individual to generate huge benefits for the world at large while also generating huge financial rewards for himself and his loved ones. I like!
My best wishes to you, Goon friend.
Rob
“If you go by value created, the work that seems likely to pay well in excess of $500 million is the winner by a long, long, long shot. We are talking Bill Gates levels of wealth creation.“
Value is not what you think it is. Value is what someone else ascribes and is willing to pay you for it. According to the market, the value is $0.00
That’s so at a time when stocks are priced at two times their real value.
How much value do you think will be ascribed to honest work in the investing field in the days when millions of middle-class people have just experienced a loss of 50 percent of their life savings?
Some of these things are so hard to figure out!
Rob
“How much value do you think will be ascribed to honest work in the investing field in the days when millions of middle-class people have just experienced a loss of 50 percent of their life savings?”
To YOUR work? Still zero. Oh, you might have a tiny bit of entertainment value. If you stood in the town square making your speeches, a few quarters might get tossed your way. A good chuckle is worth a quarter. But that’s about it.
Okay.
I do wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, in any event.
Rob
“That’s so at a time when stocks are priced at two times their real value.”
If you had to chose between the following:
A). $500 million in stocks (made up of the S&P 500 at today’s prices), which you would own free and clear in your account today.
Or
B). Your hope of getting a $500 million settlement payment after your expected crash.
What would you take?
I would take the stocks.
Rob
I thought the stocks are cotton candy nothingness and the $500 million settlement is as good as money in the bank.
Half of the money in stocks today is cotton candy nothingness. Half is real, lasting value. $250 million of real, lasting value is a lot of real, lasting value.
The $500 million is not money in the bank today. But I would be a fool to do anything to jeopardize collecting it.
Rob
So you are willing to take a $250 million discount on your $500 million settlement? You must be worried about your plan coming through.
“It will be interesting to see how things play out in the days following the next price crash, Anonymous.”
I see you make this comment on a regular basis, yet I have never seen you describe how you think the series of events will play out after the crash. Can you spell that out for us?
So you are willing to take a $250 million discount on your $500 million settlement? You must be worried about your plan coming through.
First of all, it’s not a “plan.” It’s a settlement offer. The idea is to put all the nasty stuff behind us so that we can all focus on the wonderful, exciting, life-affirming stuff. What a terrible person I am to suggest such a thing!
Second, I am not worried that I will not collect the $500 million. But my claims have not been converted into cash as of today. The fact that I would prefer $250 million in cash today to the prospect of collecting $500 million or more at a later date does not suggest worry. It shows that I appreciate the value of having cash over having a larger amount that may become cash at a later date.
I am worried that the next crash will cause a collapse of our economic system. That’s a real worry. That;s one that we all should be worried about, in my assessment. Collecting the $500 million would help address that worry. I intend to use a portion of the funds to promote this site and to fund hundreds of blogs that would permit honest posting on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research. So that will help.
But collecting $250 million in cash today would also help. I could use a portion of that money to promote the site and to finance new blogs too. So that would help too. And that $250 million could be put to immediate use addressing the economic crisis problem. That’s a big plus over waiting until after the next crash to put those funds to good use.
I want to make as much money as I can make for myself and my family. But I wouldn’t agree to say that Greaney’s study contains a valuation adjustment for all the money in the world. Aiding the massive act of financial fraud hurts us all in a very serious way. That’s what you want. You want me to keep my mouth shut about the massive act of financial fraud. If our economic system collapses, $250 million won’t do me much good and $500 million won’t do me much good. So no thanks, you know?
We all should be doing everything in our power to bring the massive act of financial fraud to a full and complete stop. If we make tons of money for ourselves doing that, all the better. Those who help in that effort have earned tons of compensation for the value they have contributed to millions.
That’s my “plan.” My plan is to do both — expose the massive act of financial fraud while bringing in tons of money for myself and my family by doing it. That’s what makes sense.
My best wishes.
Rob
“It will be interesting to see how things play out in the days following the next price crash, Anonymous.”
I see you make this comment on a regular basis, yet I have never seen you describe how you think the series of events will play out after the crash. Can you spell that out for us?
It’s a question of people working up the courage to speak up.
The Harvey Weinstein matter is a good model. There is not one person on the planet who thinks that matter was handled properly over the years. Everyone was afraid that if he or she spoke up, he or she would lose his or her job. So everyone looked to others to do the job. Which meant that the job didn’t get done. As more and more time passed, it got harder and harder to speak up. It’s one thing to say “I saw this guy do something wrong yesterday.” It’s something else to say “I saw this guy do something wrong 15 years ago and I have been keeping my mouth shut all this time.” From a big picture perspective, the story makes no sense. How could so many good people let such a monster do the things he did? But, when you put yourself in the shoes of the people who would have had to speak up for good things to happen, you can understand why the matter was covered up for so long.
The deepening of the economic crisis will scare people. I am not the only one who loves this country. There are millions of us. None of us want to suffer the sorts of consequences that you Goons dish out when anyone dares to “cross’ you by posting honestly re the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. We need something to help people overcome the fear they have of speaking out. With a deepening of the economic crisis, there will be a new and bigger fear to overcome the fears that have been holding people back from speaking out. Today, people can say: “Why should I be the one to speak out? — I will lose my job or my family will be threatened.” After the crash, the answer will be “You better speak out or we may all go down together.” And people will do it.
And, as we saw with the Weinstein matter, once one person speaks out, it makes it easier for the second to speak out. And then the third. And then it’s twenty and then 200 and then 2,000. Fear can be used to control people but only for a time, Once a small number speak out, people who have been aching to speak out for a long time see that the bullies are going down and rush to join the party. The thing accelerates and accelerates.
You can’t have a society where millions of people are investing in stocks to provide for their retirements and yet honest posting on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research is banned at every internet site. It is just not a viable situation. The situation has continued for a long time because prices have remained high and so people haven’t had to deal in a practical sense with the negative consequences of telling lies about thus stuff. That changes with the crash. Then the theoretical flaws in the Buy-and-Hold Model become very, very real to people. And a few people work up the courage to speak up. And then the practice of speaking up spreads like wildfire.
And we all live happily ever after.
Rob
“The deepening of the economic crisis will scare people.”
And that helps you how? You think people are going to see you as the strong, calming voice, leading them out of their fear? Your ego is simply unbelievable.
“The fact that I would prefer $250 million in cash today to the prospect of collecting $500 million or more at a later date does not suggest worry. It shows that I appreciate the value of having cash over having a larger amount that may become cash at a later date.”
Would you take a ham sandwich? I doubt you’ll get a better offer than that.
The economic crisis doesn’t help me. It scares me to death. It is the one aspect of this thing that I am afraid I am not going to be able to overcome.
But the deepening of the economic crisis will surely shake people out of their complacency. That means that people will become more open to looking at new ideas — and we just happen to have 37 years of powerful, Nobel-prize-winning ideas for people to look at.
The last 37 years of peer-reviewed research is our way out of the mess that Buy-and-Hold brought us to, Anonymous. Bogle was right the first time — we all should be using the peer-reviewed research in this field as a guide to how to invest in stocks. It’s by learning what the research says that you become able to rein in your emotions. And it is the human inclination to become emotional about stock investing that has made stocks so risky an asset class for a long, long time now.
Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick is the enemy. The last 36 years of peer-reviewed research is the tool we all need to overcome the enemy.
Rob
“That means that people will become more open to looking at new ideas — and we just happen to have 37 years of powerful, Nobel-prize-winning ideas for people to look at.”
Even if that were true, how does that lead to $500 million in your wallet? Or if Wade was here, he would repeat his question: “What is step 2?”
You, of course, have never had an answer. But Wade did. He said there is no step 2. He was right six years ago, and he’s just as right today.
There is no one who wants to see our economic system fail, Anonymous. There is no one who wants to see millions of failed retirements. There is no one who wants to see the Second Great Depression.
We are all in this together. There are no two “sides.” We are all on the side of the human beings and the human beings want to know as much as possible about how to invest their retirement money.
If Shiller had published his “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) research findings in 1961 rather than in 1981, we would all be Valuation-Informed Indexers today. Bogle would have led the way. I would be best friends with him today.
Okay?
The thing that we are all suffering from is that there was 16 years between the time when Fama published his research showing that short-term timing never works and the time when Shiller published his research showing that long-term timing always works and is always required. During most of that time, index funds were not available and so no one thought to test long-term timing, which only works with index funds. So a large number of good and smart people in good faith developed an investing strategy that they thought was supported by the peer-reviewed research but in reality was the OPPOSITE of what the peer-reviewed research would support once all the peer-reviewed research needed to make intelligent choices had been published.
So in 1981 our Buy-and-Hold friends were put in the terrible position of either coming clean and acknowledging that they had made a pretty darn basic mistake (they had concluded that no form of market timing works or is required after only checking one of the two forms of market timing!), which they felt would cause their readers and clients to question their expertise or to cover up the error. Covering up the error did not look like too bad an option at the time because stocks were priced at one-half of their fair value and so it was hard for anyone to imagine that prices could ever again rise even to fair-value levels much less to overpriced levels.
So it became industry practice to ignore Shiller’s research findings, to act as if it was no big deal that valuations affect long-term returns and to continue to push the now discredited Buy-and-Hold strategy. When prices reached levels where it was clear that continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold would cause an economic crisis, it was even harder to admit the mistake because now the cover-up had been going on for years and years. And so here we are. 100 percent of the peer-reviewed research available to us shows that there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for even a single long-term investor and we have 37 years of peer-reviewed research showing that continued promotion of this “strategy” will cause a Second Great Depression. But to acknowledge the mistake means turning the entire industry on its head. People will go to prison, there will be millions of civil lawsuits, reputations will be destroyed and on and on and on.
What do we need to do?
We need to solve the problem in a balanced, healthy, constrictive, life-affirming way.
The more people who go to prison and the longer they go to prison, the more hostility we will see. Which means the less energy we will have as a society to get about the business of developing and promoting Valuation-Informed Indexing, the first true research-based strategy, the answer for all of us, the thing that each and every one of us has been hoping to discover dating back to the 1960s and probably even before. Yet we have to tell the truth about what the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research says. If we don’t do that, we continue going downward. And, after the next price crash hits, the policy of continuing to go downward will become universally seen as unacceptable. So what? Where do we go from there?
We go in the direction that I have been suggesting for 16 years now. We COMBINE 100 percent honesty (which allows us to invest effectively for the long run) with 100 percent charity (which permits our Buy-and-Hold friends to come off looking liken heroes instead of depraved con men who should spend the remaining years of their lives in prison cells). Love is the combination of honesty and charity. Love is the answer. Love is the ONLY answer. There is not one of us who is not better off if love is applied to this matter. Love is the answer for each and every last one of us, Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers alike.
The materials at my site show the way. There is a question that I have been asking myself before I push the send button for every post that I have advanced over the past 16 years. I ask myself: “Is this post as honest as it can possibly be without crossing the line and becoming uncharitable while also as charitable as it can possibly be without crossing the line and becoming dishonest?” We are going to need a big injection of love in the days following the next price crash. People will have seen more than 50 percent of their life savings disappear into thin air. They are going to be angry. They are going to be looking to hang the Buy-and-Holders up on trees. But we need the Buy-and-Holders! They are smart people! They are good people. In a crisis, we need as many smart and good people as we can find to set things right! We are hurting ourselves if we let our anger get so out of hand that it destroys us. Giving in to feelings of hate ain’t the way.
I am the only person alive on Planet Earth who can deliver the message that needs to be delivered in as powerful a way as I can deliver it with the Post Archives housed at this site as my aid. I have a credibility on this subject that no one else possesses because I am the only one who has been posting with both 100 percent honesty and 100 percent charity on THOUSANDS of issues for 16 years running now. I have been a love machine since the morning of May 13, 2002. And our economic system and our political system have been left in a place where they are in need of large does of love.
It is by contributing something of value to the world that we earn compensation for ourselves. My 16-year profession of love for my country (the idea of permitting honest posting about errors in retirement studies is core to what we are all about as a nation) will be providing great value for many decades to come. The idea that there would be even one person in this nation who would hesitate to say that I am entitled to a payment of a whole big bunch more than $500 million is insulting to all the people who have spent blood, sweat and tears building this country. The Wall Street Con Men will be happy to pay the money because I will have done for them what they were not able to do for themselves, because I have freed them to again do good work in this field, which was their motivation for entering it in the first place.
Step Two is freeing us of the need to lie about this stuff. There is not one person alive who wants things to be how they are today. But, as you Goons so often note, we are afraid to speak up, the abusiveness is too brutal for us to handle. I have shown us all the way to overcoming the hate. Everything that I have done is documented here at the site and at scores of other sites. That’s Step Two. It’s a big, big. big, big. big step. The step that we are in the process of working up the courage to take is a step that will be celebrated as the Second American Independence Day in years to come. We are all in the process of being liberated to invest in stocks in a way that permits us to earn far higher returns while taking on dramatically less risk than was ever thought possible in earlier times, as shown in the peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with my good friend Wade Pfau.
That’s Step Two. It is the step in which the investing advice field becomes open to permitting HONEST discussions of what the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research teach us all about how to go about investing in stocks. It is a truly magical step.
My take.
And my sincere best wishes.
Rob
“Step Two is freeing us of the need to lie about this stuff.”
Step 2 is supposed to directly lead to $500 million in your wallet. And that’s your answer. It’s literally “Thanks Rob, I don’t have to lie anymore, please take my money.”
Of all the nutty non sequiturs you’ve expressed over the years, that one takes the gold medal (topical reference.) In fact all the other competitors forfeited after seeing what they were up against.
“The idea that there would be even one person in this nation who would hesitate to say that I am entitled to a payment of a whole big bunch more than $500 million is insulting to all the people who have spent blood, sweat and tears building this country.”
To the opposite, there is yet to be one person, outside of you, that thinks you deserve even one dime.
As to your answer on step 2, it is yet another non-answer as it doesn’t address the actual question since you have once again avoided to describe the process that links you to getting these silly expectations.
It’s literally “Thanks Rob, I don’t have to lie anymore, please take my money.”
Not having to lie is a big deal. Not having to lie means that you can do work that helps people rather than destroys their lives.
I took all of the abuse that I have taken over the past 16 years so that I could do honest work and I wouldn’t consider playing it any other way for all the money in the world. If you don’t think that my good friend Jack Bogle would like to be able to do honest work and help people again, then I guess we just disagree. Strongly.
My best wishes to you, in any event.
Rob
there is yet to be one person, outside of you, that thinks you deserve even one dime.
Your behavior shows that you think my work is of great value indeed. Otherwise, why the 16 years of abusiveness? It’s not because you think Buy-and-Hold can prevail in a civil and reasoned debate.
And of course thousands of non-Goons have expressed their appreciation of my work in the most effusive terms imaginable. So I think it would be fair to say that it’s pretty much unanimous.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, man.
Rob
“So I think it would be fair to say that it’s pretty much unanimous.”
Yup. When you only poll yourself, it’s always unanimous.
I’m the only one who gets to decide the message set forth in the posts that go up under my name. Anonymous. I knew that Greaney’s Goons were going to attack me if I posted honestly re safe withdrawal rates on the morning of May 13, 2002. I took a poll of myself and the verdict was that it needed to be done so I should go ahead and do it anyway. If no one ever posts honestly, we never advance in our understanding of how stock investing works. If no one ever explores the implications of Shiller’s revolutionary (his word) research findings, none of us benefit from the amazing last 36 years of peer-reviewed research.
My poll of myself was unanimous on the morning of May 13, 2002. I could never have worked up the courage it took if the poll hadn’t been unanimous. But it was an so I ventured forward. And I have never regretted for two seconds in the 16 years since. I have never once looked back.
Good for me, you know?
Good for freakin’ me. Somebody sure had to do it.
Take good care.
Rob
“I’m the only one who gets to decide the message set forth in the posts that go up under my name. Anonymous”
Yet what you post has nothing to do with reality. Just because you post something, it doesn’t make it true. Over the years, you have created this long drawn out fairytale and it seems you have come to believe it over time because you repeated it so often.
Okay, Anonymous.
Greaney’s study really DOES contain a valuations adjustment.
Truly outstanding!!!
Rob
“Okay, Anonymous.
Greaney’s study really DOES contain a valuations adjustment.
Truly outstanding!!!
Rob”
To your embarrassment, Greaney already addressed your question back in 2002, which was highlighted in a column written by the famous Wade Pfau. You remember Wade. This is the guy who won’t talk to you anymore.
Wade doesn’t believe that Greaney included a valuation adjustment in his “study” anymore than I do, Anonymous.
We need Wade posting honestly. We all would benefit from that. The first step is getting prison sentences announced for you Goons.
My sincere take.
And my best wishes to you.;
Rob
“Wade doesn’t believe that Greaney included a valuation adjustment in his “study” anymore than I do, Anonymous.”
Wade has pointed out as to why you are wrong on Greaney’s work. You just can’t accept that. Greaney humiliated you and Wade has as well.
Your posts reflect the realities of a desperate man. Get help.
Wade has pointed out as to why you are wrong on Greaney’s work. You just can’t accept that. Greaney humiliated you and Wade has as well.
Life is so unfair!
Humiliated Rob
Your posts reflect the realities of a desperate man. Get help.
Sounds good.
I’m on the case!
Desperate Rob