Set fort below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Rob any idea how articles like this are able to avoid the massive conspiracy to suppress information on valuation based investing?
http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-real-reasons-you-should-worry-about-stocks-1413558915
I haven’t read the article because it is behind a paywall.
However, I don’t need to read the article to see that the author is Brett Arends. Brett is a total stud. He is up there with Rob Arnott in his willingness to bluntly call the Buy-and-Holders out on their b.s. So, without reading the article, I am able to say that I am virtually sure that it goes a long ways toward doing what needs to be done.
I don’t know in particular what Arends says in this particular article. In an earlier article, he said that the Buy-and-Holders are “leaving out half the story.” That’s not very different from what I say here on a daily basis. To say that people giving investing advice are “leaving out half the story” is another way of saying that they are engaging in financial fraud and that they are going to end up in prison following the next price crash, is it not? That’s how I say it. Brett says it only slightly differently. I think it would be fair to say that we are close enough in our way of saying it that we are soul brothers.
Still, Brett’s way of saying it does not go far enough.
In ordinary circumstances, I would say that Arends is saying things perfectly. And, if you check out how I said things in earlier times, you will find that there was a time when I didn’t use phrases like “financial fraud” and “prison sentences.” So, in ordinary circumstances, I would go along with your suggestion that Brett has not been influenced in any way by the intimidation tactics of the Buy-and-Hold Mafia.
However, given the circumstances that apply in this case, I say that he obviously HAS been influenced.
There’s one problem with what Brett says. It doesn’t get the job done.
I wrote a column about the article in which he said that the Buy-and-Holders are leaving out half the story. There are lots of bloggers who have told their readers that Buy-and-Hold can work and the Wall Street Journal was saying otherwise. This was potentially a very big deal. So I watched to see how many bloggers reported on what Arends said and apologized to their readers for participating in this massive act of financial fraud.
No one wrote about the article, Anonymous. There were no corrections. There were no apologies. There were no court proceedings.
Huh?
That’s the answer to your question.
Arends and all other journalists who write about investing should be concerned about their readers — the people who invest. The fact that bloggers and other journalists learned that there is a massive act of financial fraud going on and elected not to write about it is a huge story. Why didn’t they do that?
And why didn’t Arends follow up on his story by pointing out the reaction to it and how that reaction reveals the massive act of financial fraud? The investing advice field has become 100 percent corrupt in the Buy-and-Hold Era. Arends’ article pointing out that the Buy-and-Holders are “leaving out half the story” makes that reality clear. But his behavior in failing to follow up with articles encouraging the filing of civil and criminal legal actions cuts the other way. If all these people are practicing financial fraud, shouldn’t we all be doing something about it?
I think we should be doing something about it.
We will have no choice but to do something about it following the next price crash, right? There is now 33 years of peer-reviewed research showing that there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy can ever work for even a single long-term investor. We have millions of middle-class people trying to provide for their retirements. And most of the people who work in this field are more concerned with making a quick, smelly buck than they are with helping to warn their readers of the trickery being practiced by the Buy-and-Holders. That’s obviously going to come out when people have lost most of their retirement money and are angry about it, right? It is going to cause a massive loss of confidence in our system of government when people learn what has been done to them.
Do you see any benefit in delaying the day when we open the internet to honest posting re these matters? I sure don’t.
I’m not sure what your point is. It seems to be that there is nothing weird going on because there is one guy at the Wall Street Journal trying to tell people the truth. But there IS something weird. Every other journalist alive should be writing about what Arends has been saying for a good number of years. Arends is reporting on a massive act of financial fraud, the massive act of financial fraud that caused our economic crisis. It’s great that Arends is telling the truth. BUT WE NEED TO HAVE EVERYONE TELLNG THR TRUTH, NOT JUST ARENDS.
We need to do what it takes to bring the massive act of financial fraud to a close.
No?
Rob
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