Yesterday’s blog entry reported on an e-mail that I sent to Academic Researcher Wade Pfau on May 2, 2011, after the Greaney Goons threatened to get him fired from his job for the “crime” of posting honestly on safe withdrawal rates. Wade responded the same day.
Wade reported that his safe savings rate article had been published in the Journal of Financial Planning. He noted that he included a link to The Retirement Risk Evaluator in a footnote. Wade observed: “It is a pity that you probably shouldn’t mention this for a while, or else those guys [the Greaney Goons] will send a bunch of nasty emails to the Journal of Financial Planning editors.”
Wade said of the article: “Perhaps this approach can replace SWRs, and since safe savings rates do incorporate valuations, as the revised published article makes clear, all is well.”
what says
So, did anyone send any emails to the Journal? It seems to me that Wade was simply sucked into Hocomania for a while and believed your paranoia to be justified.
Rob says
I don’t believe that anyone sent any e-mails to the Journal of Financial Planning, What.
Rob
Rob says
Please note that my first e-mail to Wade complained about the defamatory comments he made about me in his first Bogleheads Forum post. Wade apologized for that one both privately to me and publicly at Bogleheads. One of the things he mentioned in his apology to me was that he was frightened out of saying what he believed because of the “intimidating atmosphere” at Bogleheads.
Wade is obviously not the only one who has done such things. Mike Piper (the blogger at Oblivious Investor) has told me that “there is nothing I would like more” than to see the Campaign of Terror brought to an end and that he thinks Lindauer is “a jerk.” But he doesn’t say that when he posts at Bogleheads. Scott Burns told me “you’re right!” when I first e-mailed him about the errors in the Old School SWR studies. But, when he wrote a column about it, he didn’t refer to me by name and he didn’t express his personal view that I was right. Shiller has said in interviews that he has never told us all that he knows about stock investing because he would be smeared by Buy-and-Holders as “unprofessional” if he were to do so.
It seems that it is not only Wade Pfau who has become “paranoid” as a result of his efforts to post honestly about what the academic research of the past 30 years says in places in which a large number of Buy-and-Holders are present.
If Buy-and-Hold were a legitimate strategy, there never would have been a single death threat or a single act of defamation or a single unjustified board banning or a single threat made to a single academic researcher.
Investing strategies that were truly rooted in the academic research would inspire confidence among those who followed them. Buy-and-Hold obviously does not do this. That is a grave flaw. People following strategies that do not inspire true confidence (bravado is not the same thing) are not going to be able to follow them when they experience horrible losses.
The short version of this point is — Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work. Not for anyone. Not ever. The only research-backed strategies that can work are research strategies rooted in accurate and honest research.
And it ain’t paranoia when they are really out to get you!
Rob
Evidence Based Investing says
Mike Piper (the blogger at Oblivious Investor) has told me that “there is nothing I would like more” than to see the Campaign of Terror brought to an end and that he thinks Lindauer is “a jerk.”
No he didn’t
What he actually said
“Yes, Rob and I spoke at the Financial Blogger Conference last October.
Yes, I said that if he ever wanted a chance to be allowed onto this forum, a good place to start would be to take down his pages disparaging Taylor and Mel.
No, I did not say I was embarrassed by Mel.
No, I did not say Mel was a jerk.
No, I did not say I was afraid of Mel.
In my personal experiences with Mel, he’s been exceedingly helpful and friendly, so I would have no reason to make the above statements about him. “
Rob says
I believe you, Evidence.
Rob
Rob says
Here’s the article re Mel:
http://www.passionsaving.com/mel-lindauer.html
Rob
Evidence Based Investing says
No mention of Mike Piper anywhere in that article.
Rob says
No, there isn’t.
Mike isn’t the only poster who says things he doesn’t believe on Bogleheads because of his fear of what Mel will do to him is he posts honestly any more than Wade is the only academic researcher who understands that long-term timing greatly increases returns while dramatically reducing risk but is afraid what will happen to his career if he publishes research showing that to be so.
This is why we are in an economic crisis, Evidence. We need people giving us honest reports of what the academic research says. The Buy-and-Holders were right on to say that our investing strategies should be rooted in research. Re that one, we are soul brothers. And I offer no criticism of them for making a mistake when they developed the Buy-and-Hold Model. The research needed to know that long-term timing always works and is required had not been published at the time. So the mistake was 100 percent understandable.
What I say is that we must fix the mistake and move on to better things.
There is no other way. The research shows that this economic crisis is going to worsen if we do not do this.
It is not Buy-and-Holders vs. Valuation-Informed Indexers. We are all on the same side. We either all get to enjoy the greatest period of economic growth ever seen or we all are sickened by the huge amount of human misery that will come with a Second Great Depression.
I say that we should open the internet to honest posting on the academic research, leave the ugliness and nastiness of the Buy-and-Hold Era behind, and move on to something 20 times better.
You can help.
Please think it over, my long-time abusive posting friend.
Rob
Evidence Based Investing says
I have tried to help Rob but you seem determined to continue with your abusive posting.
Rob says
I know.
I’m a terrible, terrible meanie, Evidence.
How could anyone be so mean?
Please take good care.
Rob