Yesterday’s blog entry reported on an e-mail sent to me by Academic Researcher Wade Pfau on May 16, 2011. I sent a response the following day.
Wade:
It’s a revolutionary statement. You are telling the truth about safe withdrawal rates. Every advance that we have achieved over the past nine years started with my decision to tell the truth re SWRs in my May 13, 2002 post. It may be that you cannot see today where this is going to lead you in time. As someone who has already made a good bit of the journey, I can tell you that it is going to take you to some amazing places.
Yes, of course I have been saying this for nine years now. But who am I? I am some guy whose claim to expertise in this field is that I figured out how to get posts to appear at internet discussion boards. My words have power to those who see them. Not too many see them. You are positioned to be able to publish peer-reviewed research. You have the potential to have far more influence.
I of course have no more desire to antagonize the Goons than you do. But the reality obviously is that they ARE antagonized by honest posting on these matters. So that aspect of this is a problem.
My intent was very much to focus on your name (and on Bogle’s name) since it is the fact that you are saying these things (and that, as you note, Bogle has offered important support for the core ideas) that is the news here. I am going to have to give some thought as to whether there is a “soft” way to report this. It won’t work to say only that there is a “new academic study.” I need to give a link to the study for the story to make any sense at all. And, if I give a link, the Goons will be upset with you.
My guess is that I am going to play it the way I planned. My plan was to include your name (and Bogle’s name) in the headline but to offer only limited commentary. I would quote the key paragraph of your blog post (the one I quoted in my comment at your blog) and I would quote from my comment and perhaps from my e-mail to you from yesterday (I presume that you would prefer that I not quote from your e-mail below and I have no problem with that, so I will leave that out of it) and generally leave it at that. If I can think of other things that I can do to soften the blow to the Goons while still making the essential point that there are today people of influence in this field making public statements about the analytical errors contained in the Old School SWR studies, I will do that. But my guess is that I am not going to be able to tell the story that needs to be told without saying at least that much.
If it is any comfort, I think it would be fair to say that the Goons are losing power and influence BY THE DAY. There was a time when I was blacklisted at every major personal finance blog. Today I am having the experience of bloggers COMING TO ME and asking me to write guest blogs. This is a big change. People are having increasingly serious doubts about the Buy-and-Hold mumbo jumbo. About the only thing people are not willing to go along with today are direct and clear statements about the Ban on Honest posting. I believe that a big part of the concern there are the lawsuits that we are likely to see in days to come. But the wall is eroding. I believe that there will come a day in the not-too-distant future when you will be able to do your work in peace and not need to worry about the sorts of Internet Sewer Rats who have put up posts in “defense” of Lindauer and Greaney putting forward threats to destroy your career and all this sort of thing.
Please continue thinking through the implications of where your research leads. It takes time for it all to sink in. My sense is that you understand that your work is of great significance but that you do not today come close to appreciating just how revolutionary it truly is. That is going to come with time. You have caught a very large tiger by the tale, my good friend. I’m sure of it!
Do not hesitate to let me know if I say anything in the blog post or in the comments that follow that concerns you. I don’t think that is going to happen. But in the event that it does, I obviously want to do everything I can possibly do to keep things on a positive and constructive and life-affirming track.
Please take care.
Rob
Haha, ‘power and influence’. My gosh what a loon!
We disagree, What.
The Goons today possess a veto power over what can be said on the internet about stock investing.
I reported on the morning of May 13, 2002, that the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies get the numbers wildly wrong. Thousands of community members expressed a desire to be able to discuss that topic. The Lindauerheads and the Greaney Goons said “no” and discussion of the topic was banned at 15 of the biggest boards and blogs. Today all of the experts acknowledge what we learned but were not able to talk about 10 years ago.
Thousands of our fellow community members are in the process of suffering failed retirements today as a result. That’s power. That’s influence.
It’s a negative power and a negative influence. But it is power and influence all the same.
Please take good care.
Rob
The Lindauerheads and the Greaney Goons said “no” and discussion of the topic was banned at 15 of the biggest boards and blogs.
The only thing that was banned was one particular abusive poster, Rob “hocus” Bennett.
Good point, Evidence.
Rob
Is it thousands of failed retirements or millions? Billions? Any reason why we haven’t seen any posts from these hundreds of billions of people with failed retirements? Maybe none of them can afford the Internet. So its hundreds of billions of people all out there somewhere…doing…something with failed retirements and no Internet.
How do they have this dark ‘veto’ power? Its a worldwide consipiracy organized by a shadowy group working to keep Rob Bennett from the hundreds of millions of dollars he deserves?
Maybe you should switch from your failed Internet blogging psuedo-job and go into Hollywood script writing.
Any reason why we haven’t seen any posts from these hundreds of billions of people with failed retirements?
Of course there is a reason, What.
As you know from long experience, I am 100 percent happy to share with you my thoughts as to the reason.
As I know from long experience, you are not too hot with the idea of listening to what I have to say and to learning something from it.
Can you please try to work on that? We would make a whole big bunch more progress in a whole big bunch less time if you would direct a wee bit of your energies inward instead of outward.
All of the mysteries can be explained.
But you need to be willing to hear some things you don’t particularly want to hear to be able to understand the explanations. I can write up the explanations. I cannot change your will to make you able to hear them. That’s an inside job, my old friend.
I extend my best wishes to you in any event.
Rob
You wrote a lot of words but you didn’t write the reason.
That’s correct, What.
Please take good care.
Rob
So, can you please produce the reason in this comment section?
I’ve addressed that up above, What.
Rob
What, Rob has many strengths, answering direct questions is not one of them.
Thanks for the kind part of that, Evidence.
Rob
How is it possible that you admit to not stating the reason and yet also say you have stated it?
Has your grip really slipped that far?
I’ve tried to help you, What.
I need some effort on your part to get the job done.
Please take care.
Rob
Maybe you can point out what reason there is for hundreds of trillions of people with failed retirements for not saying anything about it?
That would probably take less words than your previous useless post.
It’s not hundreds of trillions, What.
You feel that you stand no chance of prevailing in this discussion unless you engage in wild deceptions.
Why?
Answer that question honestly and you will come to possess an important clue to the answer of your other question.
I’ve told you the answer to this one hundreds of times, What. It will stick when you genuinely care about knowing the answer. Right now you just want to smash anyone who gives voice to the realities of stock investing.
I can help you. But first you must be willing to devote a little effort to helping yourself.
I wish you all good things, my emotionally struggling friend.
Rob