Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent to Dan Riehl, author of the Riehl World View blog, on December 22, 2009.
Dan:
My name is Rob Bennett. I write the “A Rich Life” blog. I was encouraged by your recent blog entry entitled “Despite Vote, Last Night Left Me Very Optimistic” and wanted to let you know about a project that I have been working on for a long time that I believe could bear very good fruit if a populist uprising became a reality.
The primary cause of the economic crisis was the reckless promotion of the Buy-and-Hold approach to investing by The Stock-Selling Industry for 28 years after the academic research showed that valuations affect long-term returns and that Buy-and-Hold can thus never work for the long-term investor. The links below show that numerous investing experts know that Buy-and-Hold has failed. The problem is that The Stock-Selling Industry does not see it as being in its interest to let middle-class investors know this (all industries would obviously like to have people always buy their product regardless of price).
I have tried to get the word out about this at numerous discussion boards and blogs and the usual result is that discussion of it is banned. Bans are today in effect at Motley Fool, Morningstar.com, Bogleheads.org and IndexUniverse.com, as well as at a number of personal finance blogs. This is not purely an investing topic anymore, in my assessment.
It has become a political topic given the devastating effect of the economic crisis, the effect that that crisis has had in souring political debates and the bans on what middle-class investors can learn about how to invest effectively (many people have expressed to me a desire to be able to learn more).
Here is a link to an article providing background that is entitled “The True Cause of the Current Financial Crisis Is Buy-and-Hold Investing”:
Here is a link to an article that provides links to 20 articles in which leading figures in the field decry the financial harm that has been done to us through the reckless promotion of Buy-and-Hold and the failure of “experts” in the field to take action for so long now (It’s entitled “Buy-and-Hold Investing Doesn’t Work — These Links Prove It!):
Here is a link to an article giving brief snippets of 101 comments of my fellow community members expressing a desire that the smear campaigns that have been employed to block reasoned discussion of this matter be stopped and that honest posting be permitted (It’s entitled “Investing Discussion Boards Ban Honest Posting on Valuations!”):
“Boo, Baby!” to Ban on Honest Posting
If you want to check out my credibility, please go to the home page of the “A RIch Life” blog and scroll down to the section marked “People Are Talking” on the left-hand side of the page. There are a number of extremely kind comments about me and my work posted there along with links to the places where the comments were made. Some of the comments were made by ordinary people. Some were made by authorities in the field.
I hope that you will contact me in the event that you have questions and would like to learn more. I of course wish you the best of luck with your blog in any event.
Rob
http://arichlife.passionsaving.com
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