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A Rich Life

The Old Ideas on Saving & Investing Don't Work -- Here's What Does

  • "Valuation-Informed Indexing Is the Same Song We Sing. Glad You Belong to the Same Choir We Do."





    Carolyn McClanahan, Director of Financial Planning
    for Life Planning Partners, Inc.

  • "Retirees Now Frequently Base Their Retirement Decisions on the Portfolio Success Rates Found in Research Such as the Trinity Study.... This Is Not the Information They Need for Making Their Withdrawal Rate Decisions."




    Wade Pfau, Academic Researcher

  • "The P/E10 Tool Could Drastically Change
    How the Entire Investment Industry
    Operates and Measures Risk."





    Larry, A PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "The Your Money or Your Life Book
    for a New Generation."





    Beatrix Fernandex, Book Reviewer
    for Dollar Stretcher Site

  • "A Newer School of Thought Believes That the Safe Withdrawal Rate Depends on How Stocks Are Priced at the Time You Begin Making Withdrawals."





    Scott Burns, Dallas Morning News Finance Columnist

  • "A Fascinating Retirement Calculator."







    Michael Kitces, Maryland Financial Planner

  • "The Evidence is Pretty Incontrovertible. Valuation-Informed Indexing...Is Everywhere Superior to Buy-and-Hold Over Ten-Year Periods."




    Norbert Schenkler,
    Co-Owner of Financial WebRing Forum

  • "Every Detail Shows Rob's Respect
    for His Information and His Reader."






    Audrey Owen, Owner of Writer's Helper Site

  • "You’ve Accomplished Something Radical
    With Your Idea of Passion Saving."





    Mark Michael Lewis,
    Money, Mission & Meaning Talk Show Host

  • "Big Moves Out of Stocks Should Not Be Done at All. But Strategic Asset Allocation Can Be Done At Very Rare Times, Maybe Six Times in an Investor’s Lifetime, Three Times When the Market Is Stupidly High and Three Times When Stupidly Low."



    John Bogle, Founder of Vanguard Funds

  • "Valuation-Informed Investing and Passive Investing
    Share More of a Common Ancestry
    Than It Might Appear at First."





    Jacob Irwin, Owner of Passive Investing Blog Carnival

  • "It Is Great to See a Finance Journalist Who Understands That Valuations Matter. Efficient Market Zealotry Is Rampant in the Journalism Community. I Just Love Your Valuation-Based Return Calculator."




    Rich Toscano, Pacific Capital Associates

  • "There Is Always An Unlimited Supply of Complainers Against Any Good Idea."






    Mr. Money Mustache Blogger

  • "Rob: This Has Been One of the Most Insightful and Helpful Comments I Think Anyone Has Ever Posted. Thank You for This Lesson and for Sharing Your Knowledge on This Subject!"




    My Money Design Blogger

  • "There Is An Extensive Literature About the Predictability of Long-Term Stock Returns. There Is an Extensive Literature About Short-Term Market Timing. My Question Is About Long-Term Market Timing. The Literature Seems Slim."



    Wade Pfau, Retirement Income Professor
    at The American College

  • "Your Ideas Are Sound."







    Rob Arnott, Financial Analysts Journal Editor

  • "For Years, the Investment Industry Has
    Tried to Scare Clients Into Staying Fully Invested
    in the Stock Market at All Times, No Matter
    How High Stocks Go. It's Hooey.
    They're Leaving Out More Than Half the Story."



    Brett Arends, The Wall Street Journal

  • "There Are Time-Periods Where Stocks Are a Terrible Addition to That Portfolio. Yet Inexplicably, We As Planners STILL tend to Suggest That It Is 'Risky' to Not Own Stocks When in Reality the Only Risk Is to Our Business."




    Michael Kitces, Maryland Financial Planner

  • "Valuation-Informed Indexing Provides More Wealth for 102 of 110 of the Rolling 30-Year Time-Periods While Buy-and-Hold Did Better in Eight of the Periods."






    Wade Pfau, Academic Researcher

  • "There Is a Growing Behavioral Economics Movement, But It So Far Has Had Limited Impact. Economists Are Not Fond of the Softness and Imprecision of Psychology. These Notions Are Considered Vaguely Unprofessional and Flaky."



    Robert Shiller, Yale University Economic Professor

  • "I Would Occasionally Get a Response Post
    Saying I Was 'the Best Since Rob Bennett
    Challenged Us to Think.'"




    A Popular Bogleheads Forum Poster Named "Retired at 48" Who Was Banned for Challenging Buy-and-Hold

  • "New Research by Rob Bennett Shows That
    Even a 4% Withdrawal Rate Could Cause Failure
    If You Start Retirement When
    Stock Market Valuations Are High.”




    Bernard Kelly, Consultant

  • "FuhGedDaBouDit!"




    William Bernstein, Author of
    The Four Pillars of Investing
    (When Asked Whether We Can Use the Old School Safe Withdrawal Rate Studies to Plan Our Retirements)

  • "This [The Stock-Return Predictor]
    Is a Very Handy Little Tool."






    Felix Salmon, Market Movers Blog

  • "A Much Simpler Way to Bring
    the Valuation Issue to Focus."
    (Referring to The Stock-Return Predictor)





    Karteek Narayanaswarmy, Blogger

  • "It's Informative, It's Based on Solid Data and It Provides Useful Results." (Referring to The Stock-Return Predictor)






    Political Calculations Blog

  • "Meet Three Couples Who Left the Corporate World to Do the Kinds of Work That Satisfied Them."






    Liz Pulliam Weston, MSN Money Columnist

  • "I Like Rob's Fresh Views and Tips
    on the Subject of Saving Money."






    The Digerati Life Blog

  • "A Very Solid Approach to Investing."







    Michael Harr, Founder of Walden Advisors

  • "Rob Bennett Has Been on a Tear With One Outstanding RobCast After Another."





    John Walter Russell, Owner of
    Early-Retirement-Planning-Insights.com Site

  • "It’s Time for a Different Way to Look at Investing, and Rob Is Onto Something Here."






    Kevin Mercadante, Owner of Out of Your Rut Blog

  • "My Afternoon Train Reading."
    (Referring to Rob's Article titled
    Why Buy-and-Hold Investing Can Never Work)





    Barry Ritholtz, Owner of The Big Picture Blog

  • "What Is It With Guys Named Rob?
    Longtime Index Agitator Rob Arnott Has Now
    Been Joined on These Pages by a
    Vanguard Diehard Agitator Named Rob Bennett."




    Jim Wiandt, IndexUniverse.com Publisher

  • "He Offers a Fresh New Perspective
    that Will Motivate You to Get on Track
    With a Solid Savings Plan."





    Lynn Terry, Click Newz Blog

  • "While Browsing at www.PassionSaving.com the Other Day, I Discovered an Article Featuring Ten Unconventional Money-Saving Tips. Each of These Offers a New Way to See Money."




    J.D. Roth, Owner of Get Rich Slowly Site

  • "Rob Has Ideas About Investing That Many Bloggers Find 'Interesting.' His Posts Are Often Controversial and Always Thought Provoking."





    Miranda Marquit, Planting Money Seeds Blog

  • "Is There a Way to Turn Saving Into Something Fun? If There Was, I Bet a Lot More of Us Would Do a Lot More Saving. I Found a Website Where This Basic Premise Is Explored in Great Depth."




    The Great WeiszGuy Blog

  • "I Have Much More Confidence in My Ability to Understand What Is Happening....I Thank You for Your Public Service, and, In Another Dimension, for the Personal Courage It Took to Make It Happen."




    Elizabeth, A PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "I Was Hooked on the Idea of [Passive] Index Indexing, But Something Inside Made Me Wonder "Too Good to Be True?" and "What's the Downside?" I Happened on to Your Site and Valuation-Informed Indexing Seems to Make Sense."



    Coleen, PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "Reads Like a Casual Conversation
    with a Likable Guy Who Wants Nothing More
    Than to Help Others Experience the Same Joy
    and Happiness He Has Found."




    Kara, Reader of Rob's Book

  • "Your 'Secrets' Are Exactly Like Magic Tricks: Once Revealed, They Look So Simple, Yet You Need Somebody to Show You How It Works."





    Kramerizio, Secrets of Retiring Early Reader

  • "Rob's Da Man! Never in the History of the Diehards Forum Has One Poster, Always Making Civil and Well Thought-Out Posts, Managed to Irritate So Many Without Anyone Being Able to Articulate a Good Reason As to Why."




    Mephistopheles, Bogleheads Forum Poster

  • "I’ve Been Surprised at How Controversial This Idea Is, but If Most People Are Buying and Holding, They Are Emotionally Invested in This Strategy."





    Jennifer Barry, Live Richly Blogger

  • "The Findings for [Long-Term] Market Timing Are So Robust That It Hardly Matters How We Do It."






    Wade Pfau, Asociate Professor of Economics

  • "The Elegant Simplicity of His Ideas Throughout Warms the Heart and Startles the Brain."






    Tom Gardner, Co-Founder of the Motley Fool Site

  • "Mr. Bennett Evidences an Unusual Skill....
    You'll Have to Buy a Copy....Extraordinary....
    A Massive Heap of Crap."




    John Greaney,
    Owner of the Retire Early Home Page Site

  • "By Reading All the Information on Your Website I Was Able to Develop a Part of Me I Didn't Know I Would Be Able to Become."





    Javier, PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "Innovative Financial Thinking."







    No Limits, Ladies Blog

  • "Knowledgeable."







    Hope to Prosper Blog

  • "Holy Toledo! This Is Great Stuff!"






    Bill Schultheis, Author of
    The New Coffeehouse Portfolio

  • ""He Offers Down-to-Earth But
    Nevertheless Eye-Opening Insights About
    the Why and the How of Early Retirement."





    Secrets of Retiring Early Reader

  • "Challenges Unfounded Assumptions."







    Bill Sholar, Founder of the Early Retirement Forum

  • "Seminal."






    John Greaney, Owner of Retire Early Home Page Site
    (Pre-May 13, 2002 Version)

  • "It’s Always Good to Read Something New That Challenges Your Way of Thinking."






    Invest It Wisely Blog

  • "Rob, Thanks for All of Your Articulate, Well-Written and Well-Reasoned Commentary."






    Elle, a Poster at the Joe Taxpayer Blog

  • "Although Rob and I Don’t See Eye to Eye
    on Every Detail, His Site Is a
    Valuable Resource for Research."





    Ken Faulkenberry, Portfolio Manager

  • "Thanks, Rob. I Love Seeing So Many
    Personal Finance Bloggers Who Offer Such
    High Quality Content on Their Own Sites Come Here
    to Weigh In [on Your Ideas]."




    Married With Debt Blogger

  • "A Ton of Tremendously Useful Content."







    Network Abundance Radio

  • "Your Enthusiasm Is Infectious."







    Ruth, a PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "I Woke Up at 4:00 am and Stared at the Wall for 20 Minutes....Thank You for Doing What You Do."






    Tasha, A PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "It Might Just Give You
    a New Way of Looking at Saving."






    Kevin Surbaugh, Owner of Debt Free 4Ever Blog

  • "'Staying Too Long in a Job Where You Don’t Feel Relevant Takes a Toll,' Said Rob Bennett, Who Worked for Years in a Well-Paying Corporate Communications Job Where He Didn’t Have Enough to Do."




    The New York Times

  • "You Have Started One of the Most Interesting
    and Stimulating Discussions This Board has Seen
    in a Long Time."





    Poster at Motley Fool Site

  • "A Respected Author and Commentator, Mr. Bennett has Dedicated Himself to Educating Average Investors to Avoid the Most Common Errors."





    Liberty Watch Site

  • "I've Gone from Shattered Dreams of Early Retirement to Glimpses of Hope to Reassurance from Quantitative Research."





    Patricia, A PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "Some of the Most Helpful and Insightful Market Discussions on the Web Take Place on These Pages."





    A Poster at the Safe WithDrawal Rate Research Group
    (Founded by Rob)

  • "Rob is the Only Person I Know (If Only via Message Board) Who has Completely Opted Out of Participation in the Stock Bubble. And You Know What? He Has Benefited Immensely from Doing So."




    Poster at Motley Fool

  • "Makes the Subject of Saving Edgy and Fresh."







    Maxine, A Reader of Rob's Book

  • "Rob Bennett, the Author of a Book Called Passion Saving, Thinks the Saving Problem Is Partly One of Packaging. So He Prefers to Couch it in the Language of Freedom."





    The Wall Street Journal

  • "This Tip Comes from Rob Bennett
    of the Finance Site PassionSaving.com."






    Lifehacker.com

  • "I LOVE This Article and
    Am Proud to be Publishing It!"




    Chuck Yanikoski, Executive Director of
    The Association of Integrative Financial
    and Life Planning

  • "Rob Bennett: Some People Disagree With Him, and He Rubs a Lot of People the Wrong Way. But He Has Interesting Ideas About Valuation-Informed Indexing, and He Delves Into a Lot of What Makes a Successful Investing Strategy."



    Miranda Marquit, Planting Money Seeds Blog

  • "Rob….Wow…..Your Response Sent Shivers
    Up the Ol’ Pilgrim Spine."






    Neal Frankie, Owner of the Wealth Pilgrim Blog

  • "I Have Counseled My Clients to Allocate a Percentage to Equities Based Upon Market Valuations....I Feel Like I've Found a Kindred Spirit. Fascinating Web Site."





    Tom Behlmer, Financial Planner

  • “A Simple Age-Based Asset Allocation Formula Is Not Appropriate, and Any Sensible Asset-Allocation Formula Should Combine Both Age/Investment Horizon and Market Valuation Levels.”




    RationalInvestor.biz

  • "Had a Guest Post This Week from Rob Bennett, Where He Discusses the Benefits of Value-Informed Indexing, Which I Find Very Intriguing."





    Sustainable Personal Finance Blog

  • "I Can Appreciate Rob's Comments.... Buy-and-Hold?
    For the Most Part, a Long Obsolete Theory."






    Neal Deutsch, Certified Financial Planner

  • "Utterly Brilliant!"







    Secrets of Retiring Early Reader

  • "Your Website Is So Enjoyable That It Is Keeping Me From My Research As I Am So Excited That I Have Found Such a Valuable Resource."





    Stuart, a PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "What We're Talking About Here Really
    ...Is Empowerment."






    Motley Fool Poster

  • "The Return Predictor Is Based upon the Principle that Over the Long Term, Stock Market Prices Will Reflect the Ten-Years Earnings Growth of the Underlying Companies. Prices Return to a Common Growth Pattern."




    Links.com Review of The Stock-Return Predictor

  • "Rob’s Arguments in Favor of Value Investing Actually Make a Lot of Sense In a Way That Should Make Any Rational Buy-and-Holder Uncomfortable."





    Pop Economics Blog

  • "What I Don't Understand Is How Rob Can Correspond in Such a Sweet and Polite Way
    -- Yet He Irritates Me to No End!"





    Financial WebRing Forum Poster

  • "You Go About It in a Manner that is Catastrophically Unproductive by Adding Missionary Zeal that Inflates Your Importance and Demeans Others. The Whole Idea That There is a New School of Safe Withdrawal Rates Reeks of Personal Aggrandizement."



    Scott Burns, Dallas Morning News

  • "Inflammatory."







    Morningstar.com Site Administrator

  • “What Warren Buffett Did Was Essentially Quite Close to What Rob Bennett Has Written. Buffett Has in Fact Been Cleverly Incorporating Long-Term Market Timing Based on Valuation of the Market in His Allocation of Money to Stocks.”



    Investor Notes Blog

  • "This Report Offers A Fresh Perspective That Is Rarely Found In Other Financial Literature."






    Secrets of Retiring Early Reader

  • "Rob Bennett Says That Market Timing Based on Aggregate P/E Ratios Can Be a Far More Effective Strategy. This Claim Is Consistent With Shiller's Analysis and I Can See How It Might Be So."




    Rajiv Sethi, Economics Professor at Columbia Univeristy

  • "Retiring Early Was A Concept I Did Not Entertain. I Was Going to Retire at 65 After Putting in 40 Years. Now I Am Glad To Say That All That Has Changed."





    Secrets of Retiring Early Reader

  • "In a Couple of Days, I Had
    Devoured the Entire Book."






    Reader of Rob's Book

  • "FIRECalc May Not Be the Last Word
    on Safe Withdrawal Rates."






    Jonathan Clements, Wall Street Journal

  • "It Seems to Me That Some on This Board Feel Threatened by the Arrival of Rob and His Ideas. They Feel a Threat to Their Perceived Elite Status."





    Motley Fool Poster

  • "You've Got to Say One Thing for Rob. He Has NEVER Lowered Himself to Ad Hominen Attacks -- Subliminal or Otherwise -- on Any Other Person on This Board. Not Once. Ever. At Least Give Him Credit for That."




    Motley Fool Poster

  • "I Have Never Seen Rob Show Incivility. No Matter What. Truly Amazing. Either He Is Really the Output of an Artificial Intelligence Program, or the Man's on the Way to Becoming a Saint!"




    Early Retirement Forum Poster

  • "You're the Politest Guy on the Internet.
    Such a Soft Touch!"






    Jonathan Lewis

  • "Props for Keeping Your Cool in the Married with Debt Article. Best of Luck Combating Buy-and-Hold."






    Money Mamba Blogger

  • "I Caught Up [at the Financial Bloggers Conference] With a Fairly Controversial Financial Blogger
    Named Rob Bennett, Who Struck Me As the
    Nicest Guy Around. There -- I Said It!"




    Digerati Life Blogger

  • "In Rob Bennett's Case, He Was Banned for No Known Listed Forum Policy. Except His Viewpoint Was Different From Other Bogleheads and [He Was Perceived As] a Threat."




    Investor Junkie Blog

  • "Mr. Bennett, You Are Spot on About Integrating Some Type of Valuation Filter to One's Stock Allocation. Astute Investors Have Incorporated Some Type of 'Valuation Timing' Into Their Investment Decisions Since the Beginning of Time."



    Poster at the Psy Fi Blog

  • "His Insights Into What Is Really Going On In The Stock Market Are Quite Compelling."






    Future Storm Blog

  • "It Was an Epiphany...Valuation-Informed Indexing Beats Buy-and-Hold Over Most Long-Term Holding Periods at Much Lower Volatility."





    Sam, a PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "I Am Intrigued By Your Ideas."







    Adam Butler, Portfolio Manager

  • "I Read the Book and I Loved It.
    The Philosophy Resonated with Me.
    I Am a Believer in Your Concept."





    Dr. Peter Weiss, Author of More Health, Less Care

  • "If Your Investment Ideas Can Do for Investing
    What Weston Price’s Ideas Did for Food,
    You’ve Got Our Attention."





    End Times Hoax Blog

  • "I Have Looked at His Website and Reviewed His Research and Find It Both Compelling and Completely Logical and Common-Sense-Based."





    Poster at Free Money Finance Blog

  • "If Investors Paid More Attention to Valuations, We Would Have Fewer Boom-and-Bust Cycles. The Investing Institutions Are Definitely Going to Avoid It Because It Affects Their Income."




    Hope to Prosper Blog

  • "The Calculators on Your Site Are Great Resources. It Amazes Me How So Many People Can Say 'Valuations Matter' Yet, in the Next Breath, They'll Say That We Should Ignore Valuations."




    John Marlowe, Logistics Analyst at Hess Corporation

  • "Must Read As Per My Viewpoint
    For All Value Seekers."






    Ajit Vakil, Value Investing Congress

  • "His Approach Is Both Mathematically Rigorous
    and Easy to Understand."






    Online Investing AI Blog

  • "There Is Nothing More Doubtful of Success Than a New System. The Initiator Has the Enmity of All Who Profit By Preservation of the Old Institution and Merely Lukewarm Defenders in Those Who Gain By the New One."




    Machiavelli

  • "Difficult Subjects Can Be Explained to the Most Slow-Witted Man If He Has Not Formed Any Idea of Them. But the Simplest Thing Cannot Be Made Clear to the Most Intelligent Man If He Believes He Knows Already What Is Laid Before Him."



    Tolstoy

  • "I Am Not Afraid. I Was Born to Do This."







    Joan of Arc

  • "I Certainly Have Seen the Academic Profession Squelching Unfashionable ideas and Have Often Been on the Wrong Side of It. Kuhn Shows How Most Pathbreaking Scientific Ideas Are Rejected at First, Usually for Decades.”




    Carol Osler, Brandeis International Business School

  • "First They Ignore You, Then They Ridicule You, Then They Fight You, Then You Win."






    Ghandi

  • "We Cannot Assume the Existence of Predictability Just Because There Are No Studies That Fully Reject It."






    Valeriy Zakamulin, Economics Professor

  • "I Am Also Extremely Grateful to Rob Bennett for Motivating This Topic and Contributing His Experience and Encouragement."





    Wade Pfau, Academic Researcher

  • "Rob Bennett Was an Early Pioneer in 3rd Generation Modeling by Advocating (Through Various Online Forums) that Withdrawal Rates Must Be Adjusted for Market Valuations Consistent with Research by Campbell and Shiller."



    Todd Tresidder, Financial Mentor Blog

  • "I Am Fascinated by the Growing Body of Research that Revolves Around the P/E10 Ratio by Robert Shiller, Doug Short, Wade Pfau, Michael Kitces, John Hussman, Crestmont Research, Jim Otar, Mike Philbrick, Adam Butler & Rob Bennett."



    Kay Conheady in Advisor Perspectives

  • "Rob Is an Enigma in the Personal Finance World. He Has Interesting Theories on Investing Based on Market Valuations. But He Weaves a Tale Which Makes the Stories of Alexander Litvinenko & Gareth Williams Seem Tame by Comparison."



    Don't Quit Your Day Job Blog

  • "In Recent Years, the 4 Percent Rule
    Has Been Thrown Into Doubt."






    The Wall Street Journal

  • "A Safe Withdrawal Rate Is Very Dependent
    on the Valuation of the Stockmarket
    at the Retirement Date."





    Economist Magazine

  • "I Have Read Everything I Can About Valuation-Informed Indexing. Buy-and-Hold Is Extremely Problematic. I Respect the Passion, Hard Work and Research That You Have Put Into This Very Important Issue. Your Work Has Huge Value."



    Carl Richards, Owner of Clearwater Asset Management

  • "The World of Personal Finance Blogging Needs More Rob Bennetts. He’s Passionate. He’s Intelligent. He’s Writing Things That Go Against the Grain."





    Financial Uproar Blog

  • "Beyond Awesome."







    Larry, a PassionSaving.com Site Visitor

  • "The Wealth Management Industry Seems Intent on Containing This Discussion for Fear Clients Might Discover that the Emperor Has No Clothes."





    Adam Butler, Portfolio Manager

  • "Recommended Reading."







    Jesse's Cafe Americain Blog

  • “All Who Are Still Holding Equities at Present Levels Because Their Financial Adviser Insists that Timing Market Cycles Is Impossible to Do -- Read This!"





    Juggling Dynamite Blog

  • "The Fact that Aggressive and Short-Term Market Timing Was Unproductive Did Not Mean That There Were Never Times When It Would Be Wealth-Maximizing to Get Out of the Market."



    Scott Burris,Director of the Center for
    Health Law, Policy and Practice

  • "The Amount of Return You Can Expect From a Diversified Equity Portfolio Is Inversely Correlated to the Market Valuation at the Start of the Holding Period. It Is One of the Most Robust Statistical Relationships in Modern Finance."




    Todd Tresidder, Financial Mentor Blog

  • "Why Would Your Job Be Jeopardized
    By Such a Sensible Claim?"





    Marcelle Chauvet, Econmics Professor
    at University of California

  • "Received Worrisome E-Mail from Rob Bennett. Warns of Risk with Buy-and-Hold Investing
    -- I Have No Clue."





    Vivek Wadhaw, Business Week Columnist

  • "As Attorney, Tax Expert and Financial Writer Rob Bennett Told Us, the Problem Is That, By the Time Shiller Published His Research, Many Big Names Had Already Endorsed Buy-and-Hold."




    ZeroHedge.com

  • "This Seems to Me to Be a Fundamental Challenge to Some of the Most Basic Tenets of the Boglehead Paradigm."






    Bogleheads Forum Poster

  • "You Want to be Very, Very Wary of Anything Connected with Rob Bennett, the Most Infamous Troll in the History of Investing Forums on the Internet."





    Alex Fract, Owner of Bogleheads Forum

  • “I’ve Had My Fill of Those Long-Winded Posts that Include Distortions, Unsubstantiated Claims, Misquotes and Comments Taken Out of Context.”




    Mel Lindauer, Co-Author of
    The Bogleheads Guide to Investing

  • "Haven't You Noticed Yet That NO ONE Discusses Your Ideas, NO ONE Mentions Your Name, NO ONE Goes To Your Web Site."





    One of the Greaney Goons

  • "I've Had Similar Experiences. I Know of Two Young Professors Who Wanted to Do Research on Fundamental Index and Reported to Me That Their Colleagues Advised Them That This Line of Research Could Derail Their Career Prospects."



    Rob Arnott, Financial Analysts Journal Editor

  • "As with Drug Studies Funded by Drug Companies, It Would Be Churlish to Suppose that the Chicago School of Business Was in the Bag. But It Would Also Be Idealistic to Assume That There Was No Funding Bias at All."




    Bogleheads Poster

  • "This Sort of Intimidation Is Not Acceptable. The Cigarette and Pharmaceutical Industries Found Research Supporting Their Products By Funding It. But That Was Big Money Supporting Outcomes, Not Dissuading Others."




    Lyn Graham, 25-Year CPA

  • "Financial Economists Gave Little Warning to the Public About the Fragility of Their Models. There Is No Ethical Code for Professional Economic Scientists. There Should Be One."



    Paper Titled The Financial Crisis and
    the Systemic Failure of Academic Economics

  • "The Situation [Referring to the Intimidation Tactics Used to Silence Academic Researcher Wade Pfau's Reporting of the Dangers of Buy-and-Hold Investing Strategies] Seems Well Below Any Professional and Academic Acceptable Standards."



    Albert Sanchez Graells, Law Lecturer

  • Many Academics Can Become Quite Strident When Their Views Are Challenged. Academia Is Often Subject to Self-Serving Bias That Obliterates Ethical Bounds."





    Ted Sichelman, Law Professor

  • "I Don't Like Too Much the Conspiracy Idea. I Am Not Pressured By Anyone in My Research."






    Roberto Reno, Economics Professor

  • "This Is What Investing Should Be -- Calculated, Deliberate, Confident, Informed and Simple."






    Aaron Friday, Owner of Aaron's Blob Blog

  • "It Is Obvious that Rob, in Attempting to Identify New Safe Withdrawal Rate Strategies...Is Goring Your Ox. If Rob Improves on [the] Safe Withdrawal Rate Methodology, the Implication Is Clear: You Are All, Metaphorically, Out of Business."



    Bogleheads Poster

  • "I Applaud His Effort to Inject Another Piece of Objectivity Into a Very Complex, Highly Subjective Topic -- Making Money in the Market."





    Bogleheads Poster

  • "Naturally, I Am Finding That Valuation-Informed Indexing Can Allow You to Reach a Wealth Target With a Lower Saving Rate and to Use a Higher Withdrawal Rate in Retirement Than You Could With a Fixed Allocation."



    Wade Pfau, Professor of Retirement Income
    at The American College

  • "A Careful Examination of Past Returns Can Establish Some Probabilities About the Prospective Parameters of Return, Offering Intelligent Investors a Basis for Rational Expectations About Future Returns."




    Jack Bogle, Founder of Vanguard Funds

  • "The Ability to Estimate the Long-Term Future Returns of the Major Asset Classes Is Perhaps the Most Important Investment Skill That An Indivisual Can Possess."




    William Bernstein, Author of The Four Pillars of Investing

  • "The Stock Market Resembles Roulette. In Both Cases, the Accuracy of Sensible Forecasts Rises Over Time."






    Andrew Smithers, Co-Author of Valuing Wall Street

  • "Returns Are for the Most Part a Matter of Simple Arithmetic...Much of Our Industry Seems Fearful of Basic Arithmetic of This Sort."





    Rob Arnott, Financial Analysts Journal Editor

  • "How Can It Be That One-Year Returns Are So Apparantly Random and Yet Ten-Year Returns Are Mostly Forecastable? In Looking at One-Year Returns, One Sees a Lot of Noise. But Over Longer Time Intervals the Noise Effectively Averages Out and Is Less Important."




    Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller

  • "The Notion That Rich Valuations Will Not Be Followed By Sub-Par Long-Term Returns Is a Speculative Idea That Runs Counter to All Historical Evidence. It Is an Iron Law of Finance That Valuations Drive Long-Term Returns."




    John Hussman

  • "It's January and the Temperature Is Below Freezing. If You Asked Me Whether It Will be Warmer or Cooler Next Tuesday, I Would Be Unable to Say. However, If You Asked Me What Temperature to Expect on April 9, I Could Predict "Warmer Than Today" and Almost Surely Be Right."



    Michael Alexanfer, Author of Stock Cycles

  • "If the Response Is "Who Knew?", It Won't Be Much Comfort for Retirees in the Employment Line at Wal-Mart. This is Especially True Since a Rational Understanding of History and the Drivers of Longer-Term Stock Returns Can Help Retirees To Avoid That Surprise."




    Ed Easterling, Author of Unexpected Returns

  • "New of the Demise of the Random Walk Has Only Very Slowly Spread, In Part Because Its Overthrow Came as a Shock. If the Random Walk Hypothesis Were Correct, the Most Likely Return Would Be the Historic Average Return. The Evidence, However, Is Strongly Against This."



    Andrew Smithers, Co-Author of Valuing Wall Street

  • "I Don't Think We Can Debate the Merits of This Type of Forecasting [Referring to the Numbers Generated by The Stock-Return Predictor] Unless We Believe 'This Time It's Different.'"



    Poster at Bogleheads Forum
    (Before the Ban on Honest Posting Was Adopted There)

  • "I've Seen Absolutely Nothing From You That I Can Use in a Tangible Fashion to Formulate an Investment Plan. Your Ideas Are So Mushy That It's a Complete Waste of Time to Even Consider Them."




    Bogleheads Forum Poster

  • "Do You Really Think Your Tool
    [The Stock-Return Predictor]
    Is 'Wiser' Than the Market?
    If It Was That Easy,
    Everybody Would Be Doing It."



    Bogleheads Forum Poster

  • "The Expected Return of Stocks [As Reported By The Stock-Return Predictor] Needs To Be At Least the Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) Rate for Stock Investing To Make Sense."




    Bogleheads Forum Poster

  • "I Have Used Valuations to Adjust My Asset Allocation For Many Years With Very Favorable Results."





    Poster at Bogleheads Forum
    (Prior to the Ban on Honest Posting)

  • "I Don't Care If You Do or Don't Believe That the Market Will Behave Similarly in the Future As It Has in the Past. Either Way, This [The Stock-Return Predictor] Is an Excellent Way to Understand What the Market Has Done In the Past."


    Poster at Bogleheads Forum
    [Prior to the Ban on Honest Posting]

  • "My Role Is To Give People Who Don't Like What the Historical Stock-Return Data Says About the Effect of Valuations on Long-Term Returns Somebody To Yell At On Internet Discussion Boards."



    Rob Bennett at Bogleheads Forum
    (Prior to the Ban on Honest Posting)

  • "It Really Is a Shame and Indefensible That So Many Feel the Need to Jump Into It With No Interest of Posting on the Topic But Just to Disrupt. Are You That Insecure? Some on the Forum Have an Interest in This Topic. If You Don't, Stay Out!"



    Poster at Bogleheads Forum
    [Prior to the Ban on Honest Posting]

  • "Irrational Behavior Does Follow Patterns. But How Many Experts in Behavioral Finance Believe That Such Knowledge Can Be Used to Predict Markets? Basically, None. Your Model Cannot Attain the Level of Predictive Value You Claim."



    Poster at Bogleheads Forum
    [Prior to the Ban on Honest Posting]

  • "The Safe Withdrawal Rate Studies Are Based on History. This [The Retirement Risk Evaluator] Shows, Based on the Same History, What the Probabilities Are for the Future at Various Starting Points. If the First Has Value, Then Surely This Does Too."



    Poster at Bogleheads Forum

  • "There Are Hundreds of People Who Contributed to This. This Calculator [The Stock-Return Predictor] Demonstrates in a Compelling Way the Power of This New Internet Discussion-Board Communications Medium."




    Rob Bennett at the Bogleheads Forum
    (Prior to the Ban on Honest Posting)

  • "A P/E10 of'26' Is Bad. Now Look at the 30-Year Return Predicted by the Calculator -- 5.4 Percent Real. That's Not Bad. There Are All Sorts of Strategic Implications That Follow From Understanding That Stocks Provide Different Sorts of Returns Over Different Sorts of Time-Periods."




    Rob Bennett

  • "I Would Never Invest in Anything Without Having Any Idea What the Expected Return Is. For Instance, I Would Not Walk Into a Bank And Say "I'll Take One Certificate of Deposit, Please" WIthout Asking What Rate They Are Offering."



    Poster at Bogleheads Forum
    [Prior to the Ban on Honest Posting]

  • "I've Seen Things Said on Investing Boards That I Have Never Heard Said in Discussions of Any Non-Investing Topic. The Question of Whether Valuations Affect Long-Term Returns Is a Topic That Causes People More Emotional Angst Than Does Abortion or Impeachment Proceedings or the War in Iraq."



    Rob Bennett at the Bogleheads Forum

  • "It's Not Possible For Those Who Have Come to Believe That Stocks Are Always Best to Accept that Valuations Matter. The Two Beliefs Are Mutually Exclusive. If Valuations Matter, There Is Obviously Some Valuation Level At Which Stocks Are Not Best. The Two Paradigms Cannot Be Reconciled."


    Rob Bennett

  • "The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Is Over. Rob Bennett Has Won.The Technical Evidence Supporting This Assertion Is Rock Solid."




    John Walter Russell,
    Owner of the Early Retirement Planning Insights Site
    [This Statement Was Put Forward on August 3, 2003.]

  • "I Am Afraid that the Emperor SWR [for "Safe Withdrawal Rate"] Has No Clothes."





    A Poster at the Early Retirement Forum
    [This Statement Was Put Forward on October 8, 2003.]

  • "I Cite You and John Walter Russell in My Paper as the Earliest and Strongest Advocates of This Approach [New School Safe Withdrawal Rate Research]."




    Wade Pfau, Professor of Retirement Income
    at The American College

  • "Dear Rob -- I Just Became Aware of Your Past Research in September. Since Then, I've Read Archives From Many Discussion Boards and Websites, and I Always Find Your Writing to Be Very Interesting and Intriguing."



    Wade Pfau, Professor of Retirement Income
    at The American College

  • "I Think Rob Bennett Did Provide An Important Contribution in Terms of Describing a Way for P/E10 to Guide Asset Allocation for Long-Term Conservative Investors. I Also Think He Was Right on the Issue of Safe Withdrawal Rates."


    Wade Pfau, Professor of Retirement Income
    at The American College

  • "What Studies Show This [That Long-Term Timing Doesn't Work]? In Particular, Are There Some Academic Studies That I Haven't Found Yet? That's All I Want to Know."




    Academic Researcher Wade Pfau at the Bogleheads Forum After His Own Search of the Literature Turned Up Not a Single Such Study

  • "Because the Precise Timing of This Mean Reversion Is Not Known in Advance, Expecting the Result to Happen in the Short-Term Will Not Be Possible. But Long-Term Investors Who Can Be Patient Can Wait for This Mean Reversion and Will Eventually Come Out Ahead."




    Academic Researcher Wade Pfau

  • "Your Work Is at Odds with the Ethos of the Board -- Here the Theme is John Bogle's Philosophy, Which Eschews Market Timing. This Board Came Into Existence to ESCAPE One Individual, the Very Individual With Whom You Have Openly Aligned Yourself."




    A Lindaurhead (to Researcher Wade Pfau)

  • "The Problem With Long-Term Market Timing Is That It Takes Too Long to Find Out If You Are Right or Wrong."






    A Poster at the Bogleheads Forum

  • "Why Is It Such an Odious Violation of the Tenets of Bogleheadism to Explore Whether Someone Who Has Enough Patience Might Be Able to Benefit from the Transitory Nature of Speculative Returns (the Idea That the P/E Ratio Eventually Ends Up Where It Started)?"




    A Poster at the Bogleheads Forum

  • "Let Me Explain Why I Posted About This Here. Valuation-Informed Indexing Has Had Critics for Years. But Until Norbert Did It In 2008, Nobody Seemed to Have Provided a Serious Investigation of It. I Couldn't Understand Why. That Bothered Me."



    Researcher Wade Pfau at the Bogleheads Forum
    (Prior to the Ban on Honest Posting)

  • "If You Really Don't Like Market Timing in Any and All Forms, You May Not See Any Point in an Empirical Investigation. You View Me as One of a Long Line of Hucksters Trying to Sell You Some Snake Oil. I Don't Want to Be Such a Person."



    Researcher Wade Pfau at the Bogleheads Forum
    (Prior to the Ban on Honest Posting)

  • "Having a Completely Ineleastic Demand for Equities Is a Bit Bonkers. No One Acts That Way with Life's Other Important Commodities. Campbell Advocates a Linear Valuations-Based Strategy so That You Wouldn't Be Making Big Changes. This Would Be Like Rebalancing But More Flexible."



    A Poster at the Bogleheads Forum

  • "The Whole Idea of Valuation-Informed Indexing Belongs to You. Do You Mind if I call the Paper 'Valuation-Informed Indexing'? I Would Give You Credit. I Have Been Toying With the Idea of Sending the Paper to the Journal of Finance, Which Is the Most Prestigious Journal in Academic Finance."


    Academic Researcher Wade Pfau, in an E-Mail to Rob

  • "I Definitely Need to Cite You as the Founder of Valuation-Informed Indexing, As I Have Not Found Anyone Else Who Can Lay Claim to That. Shiller Pointed Out the Predictive Power of P/E10 But Never Discussed How to Incorporate It Into Asset Allocation, As Far As I Know."




    Academic Researcher Wade Pfau

  • "I Tested a Wide Variety of Assumptions About Asset Allocation, Valuation-Based Decision Rules, Whether the Period Is 10, 20, 30 or 40 Years, and Lump-Sum vs. Dollar-Cost Averaging To Show That the Results Are Quite Robust to Changes In Any of These Assumptions."




    Academic Researcher Wade Pfau

  • "Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing Works!"




    Academic Researcher Wade Pfau
    (Wade Holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton.)
    (The Buy-and-Hold Mafia Threatened to Get Wade Fired From His Job When He Reported His Findings.)

  • "I Wrote Up the Programs to Test Your Valuation-Informed Indexing Strategies Against Buy-and-Hold and I Am Quite Excited. You Say in the RobCast That VII Should Beat Buy-and-Hold About 90 Percent of the Time. I Am Getting Results That Support This."




    Academic Researcher Wade Pfau

  • "Never Underestimate the Power of a Dominant Academic Idea to Choke Off Competing Ideas, and Never Underestimate the Unwillingness of Academics to Change Their Views in the Face of Evidence. They Have Decades of Their Research and Academic Standing to Defend."




    Jeremy Grantham

  • "There's So Much That's False and Nutty
    in Modern Investing Practice."






    Warren Buffett

  • "Following Conventional Wisdom Has Led a Generation of Investors Down the Road to Ruin."






    Steve Hanke

  • "It Is Sad That the Idea That Price Doesn't Matter...Should Ever Have Been Seriously Considered".






    Andrew Smithers, Co-Author of Valuing Wall Street

  • "The Conventional Wisdom of Modern Investing Is Largely Myth and Urban Legend."





    Rob Arnott, Former Editor of
    Fianncial Analysts Journal

  • "Economics Is a Dog's Breakfast of Theoretical Ideas and Alleged Causal Relationships That Are At All Times Unproven and In Dispute."





    Terence Corcoran, Editor of National Post

  • "Since They Did Not Diagnose the Disease, There Is Little Popular Confidence That They Know the Cure. What If Economics Is, Actually, At the Same Level as Medicine Was When Doctors Still Believed in the Application of Leeches?"




    Gideon Rachman, Financial Times

  • "One of the Most Remarkable Errors
    in the History of Economics."



    Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller
    (Referring to the Logical Leap from the Finding That Short-Term Price Changes Are Unpredictable to the Conclusion That the Market Sets Prices Properly)

  • "Everything Has Fallen Apart."






    Peter Bernstein, Author of Against the Gods
    (Referring to Old Views About How Markets Work)

  • "We Wonder Why Funds and Banks, Full of the Best and Brightest, Have Made Such a Mess of Things. Part of the Reason Is That We Have Taught Economic Nonsense to Two Generations of Students."




    John Mauldin, Thoughts From the Frontline

  • "Perhaps Most Scandalously, the Theory [Behind Buy-and-Hold] Remained Received Wisdom Long After Empirical and Theoretical Arguments Had Demolished It Within the Academic Community."




    John Authers, Financial Times

  • "I Love the Humans Dearly (the Title of the Book I Am Writing Is Investing for Humans: How to Get What Works on Paper to Work in Real Life) But They Can Be a Trial at Times. Hey! Helping the Humans Learn What It Takes to Invest Effectively Is Not All That Different From Being Married!



    Rob Bennett

  • "We Are Going to See Hearts Melt Following the Next Crash. I Will Be Working Side-By-Side With All of My Many Buy-and-Hold Friends to Rebuild Our Broken Economy."





    Rob Bennett

  • "Wow, I Did Not Realize You Had Achieved This Much Success and Had Many Devoted Believers/Followers. That’s Great, Then Ignore the Opposition. It Is Great to Have Opposition: That Means You Are Doing Something Right."




    Robert Savickas, Associate Finance Professor
    at George Washington University

  • "I Do NOT Believe I Know It All. I Believe That Shiller Discovered Something Very Important and It Appalls Me That More People Are Not Exploring the Implications of His Findings. My Aim Is To Launch a National Debate."




    Rob Bennett

  • "I Can See How Many Readers Would Be Put Off by the Somewhat Sensational/Scandalist Tone and Would Not Persevere to Read, Thinking You Are Losing Your Mind."




    Robert Savickas, Associate Finance Professor
    at George Washington University

  • "I LOVE Everything About Buy-and-Hold Other Than the Failure to Encourage Investors to Take Price Into Consideration When Setting Their Stock Allocations. That's a Mistake That Was Made Because Shiller’s Research Was Not Available at the Time The Strategy Was Being Developed."



    Rob Bennett

  • "Valuation-Informed Indexing Sounds Like a Real Thing. If It Is and I Can Thoroughly Understand It, Then It Will End Up In My Classrooms and in My Students' Minds (Of Course, With References to You and Wade)."




    Robert Savickas, Associate Finance Professor
    at George Washington University

  • "I Can Confirm Wade Pfau's Experience. Whenever I Send My Papers to the Financial Analysts Journal or Similar Traditional Journals, I Get Rejected."





    Joachim Klement, CIO at Wellershoff & Partners

  • "As a Fan of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I Know That Progress Can Be Frustratingly Slow and What Is Typically Needed Is Either a Crisis or the Ascent of a New Generation of Scientists Who Did Not Build Their Careers on the Old Models and Theories."




    Joachim Klement, CIO at Wellershoff & Partners

  • "We Trace the Deeper Roots [of the Financial Crisis] to the Economics' Profession's Insistence on Constructing Models That, By Design, Disregard the Key Elements Driving Outcomes in Real World Markets."




    Knowledge@Wharton

  • "Rob Gets Himself So Worked Up Over What Someone Else Is Doing With Their Own Money and Not Bothering Rob in the Least. As Long As They Aren't Knocking on Your Basement Door, What Do You Care? They Are Happy and Content. Leave Well Enough Alone and Focus on Your Own Account."


    Dab, One of the Greaney Goons

  • "I've Been on Forum Since the BBS Days and I Think Rob is Special. He Could Be an Internet Meme If He Put Some Effort Into It. Someday, He Will Realize That the Only Thing He's Good At Is Being an Epic Loser. He Just Needs to Embrace That Idea and Run With It. Watch Out, LOLCats, Here Comes Pathetic Guy!"


    Wabmaster, One of the Greaney Goons

  • "Your Lies Are Not Even in the Realm of the Possible, Much Less Actually Credible, Much Less Actually True."






    Drip Guy, One of the Greaney Goons

  • "I'm Your Friend. I Am Not a Boil on Your Ass."






    Rob Bennett, In a Response Comment
    to One of the Greaney Goons

  • "You Guys [the Greaney Goons] Are the Same Jokers Who Have Done This Before, Sparring with Rob Over Nonsensical Issues On This Site and Others, Leveling Personal Attacks, and You Don't Even Use Real Names! Rob Is Entitled to His Opinion, But the Fact That You Challenge Every Jot and Tittle of What He Says Makes It Clear You Have An Unholy Agenda. Please Take It Elsehwere."

    Kevin Mercadante,
    Owner of the Out of Your Rut Site

  • "Rob, Take This As Friendly Advice. You're a Smart and Articulate Guy and You Could Be Making Valuable Contributions to This Discussion. I've Dealt with the Mentally Ill Before and I've Found That They Sometimes Can Be Reasonable If Gently Redirected."



    Goon Poster

  • "Always Remember Others May Hate You, But Those Who Hate You Don't Win Unless You Hate Them, and Then You Destroy Yourself."





    Richard Nixon

  • "I’m a Numbers Guy. And I Believe I Understand Rob’s Thesis, that Future Returns, Over the Next Decade, Have a Tight Inverse Correlation to the PE10 for the Starting Point. Remember, Correlation Doesn’t Need to be 100%, Only That There’s a Bell Curve of Potential Outcomes that Shift Meaningfully Based on the Input."


    Owner of Joe Taxpayer Blog

  • "What a Difference a Threat to Get the Father of Two Small Children Fired From His Job Has on an Investing Discussion, Eh? Long Live Buy-and-Hold! It’s Science! With a Marketing Twist!"




    Rob, Referring to the Wade Pfau Matter

  • "I Respect Rob and His Analysis. He's Bright, Energetic and Passionate. [The Goon Stuff] Is Really Nonsense. I Enjoy a Thought-Provoking Conversation With People I Respect."





    Owner of Joe Taxpayer Blog

  • "The Fact that Shiller is a Proponent of the Approach Takes it from a Fringe View to Mainstream, in my Opinion."






    Owner of Joe Taxpayer Blog

  • "I Have had Academic Researchers Tell Me That They Dream of the Day When They Will be Able to do Honest Research Once Again. I Have had Investment Advisors Tell me That They Dream of the Day When They Will be Able to Give Honest Investing Advice Again."



    Rob Bennett

  • "Let’s Call a Spade a Spade, Shall We? Wade Pfau Stole Your Research and Put His Name on it, Throwing You Just a Tiny Crumb of Acknowledgement to Ward Off a Lawsuit. He’s Profiting Handsomely By His Theft, Leading a Charmed Life, Widely Published, Widely Respected. While Rob Bennett Continues to Toil in Total Obscurity. It’s So Incredibly Unfair, I Think If It Happened to Me, It Could Actually Drive Me Insane."

    One of the Greaney Goons

Navigation Menu 
  • About Us
    • Rob’s Bio
    • Rob’s Bio
    • Contact Rob
    • Rob’s Book
    • Don’t Sue Me!
  • Blog
  • Passion Saving
    • 20 Dangerous Money Myths — They Think We’re Stupid!
    • 10 Unconventional Money Saving Tips
    • Why Your Money or Your Life Rocked the World
    • This Book Saves Marriages — The Complete Tightwad Gazette
    • How to Start Saving Money
  • Valuation-Informed Indexing
    • Why Buy-and-Hold Investing Can Never WorkThe Buy-and-Holders are not evil people. They are smart and good people. They made a mistake. They were so excited about their early findings that they experienced cognitive dissonance when the mistake was revealed. They painted themselves into a corner and now don’t know how to get out. This article explains how the mistake was made and how we came to find ourselves in the trap we are in today.
    • About Valuation-Informed IndexingBackground, Basics and Links to Materials Giving More In-Depth Information
    • The Stock-Return PredictorStocks are NOT always worth buying. That’s a Wall Street lie! This calculator performs a regression analysis on the 140 years of historical stock-return data to reveal the most likely annualized 10-year return for stocks starting from any valuation level. It essentially tells you the price tag for stocks so that you can know whether they are worth buying or not.
    • The Retirement Risk EvaluatorRob pointed out the errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies in May 2002. That post kicked off the biggest controversy in the history of the internet. Today, The Wall Street Journal, Smart Money and The Economist all acknowledge that Rob had it right all along. But they still don’t provide calculators that give the right numbers! The safe withdrawal rate is not a constant number but VARIES with changes in the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. This calculator provides all the details you need for effective planning.
    • The Investor’s Scenario SurferI have run this calculator hundreds of time. it is in my assessment the most powerful tool for learning how stock investing works available today. You have the option of choosing a new stock allocation in each year of a realistic 30-year sequence of returns. You can compare your results with what you would have achieved with a Buy-and-Hold strategy. You will find that Valuation-Informed Indexing strategies yield larger portfolios in 90 percent of your tests of the concept. What matters is what happens in the long term! This tool tells you what strategies give the best results in the long term.
    • The Investment Strategy TesterIf you are worried about losses you have suffered in recent years, you can use this tool to learn what you need to do to get back on the track to early financial freedom. The Strategy Tester lets you design a strategy you want to check out. Then it runs the hundreds of Scenario Surfer tests to see how the strategy compares with other possibilities you identify. The color-coded graphic gives you a good idea of what the odds are of good and bad outcomes for up to four investing strategies at a time.
    • The Returns Sequence Reality CheckerWe all root for price gains in the stock market. Should we? This calculator says “no!” Today’s price increase lowers tomorrow’s price increase. This has been so for the entire history of the market. So the question is whether you should want to pay more for stocks now or later. You are far better off paying more later because that means you get to acquire more gain-producing goodness earlier in life and thus you will enjoy more compounding return magic. This one will blow your mind. It’s a very simple concept but a highly counter-intutive one and one that will someday soon change how we all think about stock investing.
    • Nine Valuation-Informed-Indexing Portfolio Allocation StrategiesThis is the most popular of the 200 hour-long RobCasts that I provide at the site. It explores the nuts-and-bolts aspects of Valuation-Informed Indexing — How often do you change your allocation and by how much?
  • The Buy-and-Hold Crisis
    • Academic Researcher Silenced by Threats to Get Him Fired From His Job After Showing Dangers of Buy-and-Hold Investing StrategiesMy aim is to get this story reported on the front page of the New York Times. On the day that happens, all the nastiness will stop. We will all be working together to bring the economic crisis to an end and to enter the greatest period of economic growth in our history.
    • Academic Researcher Silenced By Threats to Get Him Fired From His Job After Showing Dangers of Buy-and-Hold Investing Strategies — Teaser VersionThis is a briefer version of the same article, the article that I believe is the most important one that I have written in my 30-year journalism career. I believe that the story told at this web site is the most important economic and political story of any of our lifetimes and this article sums up the key points in one little package of dynamite. If Buy-and-Hold were a legitimate strategy, every Buy-and-Holder would be ashamed to learn that even one academic researcher was threatened. We cannot move forward so long as the intimidation tactics of the Buy-and-Holders dominate all discussions of what works in stock investing. I use this short version of the article in my e-mail campaigns aimed at getting researcher and stock advisors and bloggers and journalists and policymakers involved in our effort to open the internet up to honest posting on ALL investing topics. Please help get others involved if you can. We are all in this together!
    • Corruption in the Investing Advice Field — The Wade Pfau StoryThis article provides links to all of my reports on my 16 months of correspondence with Academic Researcher Wade Pfau, the collaboration that produced the research we co-authored that shows millions of middle-class investors how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent (Ssshh! The Wall Street Con Men don’t want this one getting out!) If you retain doubts re whether Valuation-Informed Indexing is a real thing, looking over the materials available at this page and then reading a few of the reports that strike you as particularly important will dispel them. I believe that Wade will someday win a Nobel prize for the work he did here. The reports show his own skepticism and his transformed into excited BELIEVER in the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept.
    • The Bennett/Pfau Research Showing Middle-Class Investors How to Reduce the Risk of Stock Investing by 70 PercentYou do not have to take on a large amount of risk to obtain good returns. Why should you? When you buy an index fund, you are buying a tin share in the productivity of the U.S. economy. The U.S. economy has been sufficiently productive to support an average annual stock return of 6.5 percent real for 140 years now. So that’s what you can expect if you invest in a sensible way. But you are not being sensible if you follow a Buy-and-Hold strategy. You MUST consider price when buying stocks just as much as you must consider price when buying anything else. This is the most important investing research published in 30 years. It frees all of us from dependence on Wall Street “experts.”
    • Buy-and-Hold Caused the Economic CrisisThe first step to curing an illness is coming up with a correct diagnosis. What we have been hearing thus far about what caused the economic crisis is Democrats yelling at Republicans and Republicans yelling at Democrats. This political attack-game gibberish will not cut it. We borrowed huge amounts of money from our future selves to finance the insane bull of the late 1990s. Now we are our future selves! Now we are paying the price! It hurts to know we caused this. Buy you know what? We never have to suffer through something like this again once we acknowledge the realities.
    • The True Cause of the Current Financial Crisis — Questions and AnswersYale Economics Professor Robert Shiller predicted the economic crisis in his book “Irrational Exuberance,” published in March 2000. How did he know? Shiller knows how stock investing works. He knows that the Pretend Money created during times of overvaluation ALWAYS disappears over the course of 10 years or so. When that money disappears from our portfolios, we cannot afford to spend as much. So tens of thousands of businesses fail and millions lose their jobs. We avoid economic crises by avoiding out-of-control bull markets. We avoid out-of-control bull markets by letting investors know the truth — When stocks are selling at insanely inflated prices, they offer a very poor long-term value proposition. The lies that Wall Street tells about stocks are destroying out free-market economic system.
    • Investing Discussion Boards Ban Honest Posting on ValuationsLots of people hate me. There was a time when I was receiving fresh death threats in my e-mail inbox on an almost daily basis. But lots of people love me too. Thousands of my fellow community members have told me that I am the first person who ever described how stock investing works in a way that truly hangs together. This article offers 101 comments of my fellow community members asking the Buy-and-Holders to knock off the funny business and permit civil and reasoned discussion of the last 30 years of peer-reviewed academic research. This article reveals the emotionalism of the Buy-and-Holders and it is the fact that Buy-and-Hold causes such emotionalism that tells me that it can never work in the long run.
    • Wall Street Journal Calls Buy-and-Hold a “Myth,” Endorses Valuation-Informed IndexingLot of smart people know that Buy-and-Hold is a big pile of smelly garbage. They are afraid to speak out today because they know what will happen to them if they do. But they try to position themselves for the post-next-crash period, when “Buy-and-Hold” will be an obscene phrase. Bret Arends tells us that the Wall Street Con Men “are leaving out half the story.” Precisely so. The purpose of this web site is to let you in on the half of the story that the Wall Street Con Men have been keeping from you for 32 years now.

“I Like Rob’s Fresh Views and Tips on the Subject of Saving”

June 30, 2009 By Rob

The Digerati Life blog recently ran a blog entry examining the unconventional money saving tips explored in my recent interview with ABC News Now. It’s called Money Saving Advice from an Expert Money Saver.

Juicy Excerpt: I like Rob’s fresh views and tips on the subject of saving money…. The “magic” here is that by using this rule, you’ll figure out what it takes to fund something for life. Once you’ve saved up for something in this manner, it can be quite liberating to realize that you’ll never have to worry about affording that particular budget (spending) category ever again.

Lots of good comments.

Juicy Excerpt: Maybe I’m still too young to be able to budget the cost of each thing for my entire life:) – it’s simpler to work towards one little savings goal at a time.

Related Posts

  • My Interview with ABC News re “Ten Unconventional Money Saving Tips”My Interview with ABC News re “Ten Unconventional Money Saving Tips”
  • “<i>Passion Saving</i> Seems to Advise<br> That You Can Never Have Enough”“Passion Saving Seems to Advise
    That You Can Never Have Enough”
  • A Five-Part Series on <i>Passion Saving</i>:<br> “It Is a Great Book”A Five-Part Series on Passion Saving:
    “It Is a Great Book”
  • Thinking Like an EmployeeThinking Like an Employee
  • “If You Can Change Your Mindset<br> to See Saving as Buying You a Little Bit of Freedom…”“If You Can Change Your Mindset
    to See Saving as Buying You a Little Bit of Freedom…”
  • Greaney on <i>Passion Saving</i>:<br>“You’ll Have to Buy a Copy…Extraordinary!”Greaney on Passion Saving:
    “You’ll Have to Buy a Copy…Extraordinary!”

Filed Under: Rob Bennett Tagged With: Passion Saving, unconventional money saving tips

Comments

  1. John Walter Russell says

    June 30, 2009 at 11:13 am

    Rob,

    This is very good news. Keep up the good work.

    Have fun.

    John Walter Russell

  2. Rob says

    June 30, 2009 at 11:29 am

    The Digerati Life is a high quality blog. I’ve been checking in on it for a long time. I was of course thrilled when she elected to write up my interview and the ten tips. That came as a total happy surprise.

    Rob

  3. John Walter Russell says

    June 30, 2009 at 12:08 pm

    Rob,

    As a side comment related to Today’s Passion: notice the new definition of risk.

    You always have to be careful when talking about probability and statistics.

    I prefer a definition which specifies a dollar amount at a specific year, not an annualized percentage increase over an indefinite time frame.

    If you look at the likelihood of reaching $1.0 million starting from some specified amount (or using dollar cost averaging), good things eventually do happen.

    If you demand an 8% or 9% annualized return, you can continue to have difficulties.

    Have fun.

    John Walter Russell

Browse Rob Bennett

  • "My Wife Is 100 Percent Confident That I Have Achieved Huge Advances in This Field. She Needs to Tell Herself That I Had Something to Do With the Bad Stuff or She Would Lose Her Faith in Humanity. I Think That She Is Pretty Darn Representative of How Other People Think About These Matters. We Have Never Seen This Level of Corruption in Any Field of Human Endeavor in the United States." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: To you this is an open-and-shut case. To everyone else, it’s madness. Yes, literally everyone else, including Mrs. Bennett. Does it ever occur to you that you might (gasp!) be wrong? In the early days, I thought it was possible that I was wrong. On the morning of May 13, 2002, my confidence level was 90 percent. That’s a high confidence level. But it…

  • "Investing Matters. Saving Matters Too, Maybe More. But in the Final Analysis, Investing Matters as Well." 14 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Did you know that only 4.7% of American’s have saved at least $1 million and only 1.8% have $2 million?  The REAL crisis is that people do not have enough money in their savings/investment accounts (just like you).  Let’s talk about what the REAL error is. From May 1999 through May 2002, I posted only about saving strategies. I was a highly popular poster.…

  • "My Aim Is to Set Up a New Version of Every Investing Discussion Board and Blog on the Internet. A New, HONEST Version, One That Permits Discussion of the Last 39 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research in This Field." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Why don’t you start up your own version of the Bogleheads forum for your own followers instead of expecting other people to change for you? My aim is to set up a new version of every investing discussion board and blog on the internet, Anonymous. A new, HONEST version, one that permits discussion of the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. Why…

  • "I Am Not the One Who Is Alone. If I Were Alone, I Would Pose No Threat to You Goons. It Is Precisely Because There Are So Many Millions Seeking to Understand for the First Time How Stock Investing Really Works That You Hate Me With Such a Burning and All-Consuming Hate." 21 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Rob, you seem to be alone in this VII crusade. Haven’t you ever considered that you might be wrong about this?I have considered whether I might be wrong and looked for evidence to support that view every day of the past 12 years of my life, Sensible.I am not alone. My work is rooted in the research of Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller. Shiller was awarded the Nobel prize in…

  • "What I Add Is That I Say Things Clearly and Simply and Firmly and Boldly. Everything That I Say Is Rooted in Shiller’s “Revolutionary” Nobel-Prize-Winning Research Finding That Valuations Affect Long-Term Returns. But, Yes, I Say Things Differently." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: "Robert Shiller is the one who published peer-reviewed research in 1981 showing that valuations affect long-term returns. If Shiller’s research is legitimate (he was awarded a Nobel prize), then the market is not efficient and Buy-and-Hold (which is rooted in a belief in an efficient market) is indeed a lie. Shiller doesn’t say it that way.” Schiller…

  • "I Was Not Banned At Just One or Two Places. I Was Banned At Lots of Places." 8 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: All the people that are on the sites that you are banned on have all seen your opinions on Greaney.  If you regain access and post the same things they have already seen, they won’t change their mind.  I think you know this as well and that is why you gave up posting anywhere else on the internet, such as Reddit. That's not too far off the mark. I was not…

  • "I Expect to Earn Millions As a Result of the 13 Years of Work Effort That I Have Put Into the Project of Developing and Promoting the Shiller Model. Learning What It Means to Say "Valuations Affect Long-Term Returns" Is a Liberating Experience for All of Us. Our System Provides That the People Who Lead Such Revolutions Profit Handsomely From Doing So. Good for Our System!" 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted in the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: And here are more of your comments on how you will get your quick fix (taken from your website): "Gee, I hope I don’t go broke with all the offers to pay millions for this site that I will be receiving on a daily basis. And I hope I don’t get too tired handling the thousands of invitations to speak at conferences that will be coming my way. How will I…

  • "When I Am Told By a Doctor That My Time Is Close to Being Up, I Want the Feeling That Comes From Knowing That I Was on the Right Side re This Matter and Not on the Wrong Side. That’s a Form of Payment in My Eyes. A Very, Very, Very Big Form of Payment." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “I guess I will just have to struggle on somehow now that the one in a million shot has come through for me. How has this come through for you? I missed any posts that indicated that you were paid. Instead, I have only seen your recent updates indicating that you have to return back to work. These two updates seem to be in conflict. It depends on how one…

  • "Didn't Jesus Say That a Man Must Lose His Life in Order to Gain It? Maybe I Took That One a Little Too Literally." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Sadly,you have lost everything and learned nothing. Good one, Anonymous. Didn't Jesus say that a man must lose his life in order to gain it? Maybe I took that one a little too…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "What Circumstance Would Finally Lead You to Conclude That You in Fact Are Wrong?" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: Then under what circumstance would finally lead you to conclude that you, in fact, are wrong? If (as I suspect) you can't answer that, then saying "it's possible that I am wrong" is nothing but false humility. I would need to see peer-reviewed research supporting the idea that there is no need for investors to practice price discipline when buying stocks.…

  • "I Do Not Think That I Am Wrong to Talk About Financial Fraud and Prison Sentences. But, If I Am Handling Things Improperly Even in Some Small Way, I Want to Know About It. Reflecting on the Words “Criticize Not One Bit” May or May Not Help Me Go About the Job That I Have Been Elected by Circumstances to Perform." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: I am not following. Do you go to AA meetings to talk about the addictions of millions of people other than yourself? This seems very absurd and you should stop Wasting their valuable time. They have far more important topics to cover and real people to help. What a disgrace. It is my job to heal the wounds that you Goons have ripped open in our…

  • "A Very Solid Approach to Investing" 1 Comment

    Michael Harr, founder of Walden Advisors, endorsed the Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy in recent comments at the Wealth Uncomplicated blog. Juicy Excerpt: I'd like to introduce you to a very solid approach to investing from Rob Bennett.... The principles are sound, and, over the long run, it will serve to reduce overall risk in your portfolio while providing more than adequate returns. The comments came as preface to a Guest Blog Entry that I wrote for the blog entitled A Better…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "What Friends? No One Talks to You." 16 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: What friends?  No one talks to…

  • "There Are Three Things Necessary for a Message to Have Great Financial Value to the Person Delivering the Message: (1) It Must Be Powerfully Important Content; (2) There Must Be Strong Interest in Hearing the Message; and (3) the Message Must Be in Short Supply." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion  thread for another blog entry at this site: Are you saying that if you were not banned at the various financial boards, you would be making millions by now? Obviously. Now, there’s another way of looking at it. What if Bogle had given his “I Was Wrong” speech on the day after he learned about Shiller’s “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) research findings? Then would I have made millions…

  • "I Have Asked Myself From Time to Time Whether I Would Put Up That Fateful Post of the Morning of May 13, 2002, All Over Again If I Had a Chance To Go Back and Do It Over. The Pain on the Process Side Makes Me Think That It Would Be Crazy to Choose That Path Again. But the Amazing Stuff on the Substance Side Makes Me Think That There Is No Way on God’s Green Earth That I Could Ever Elect to Choose a Different Path." 26 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Don’t you wish you could say the same thing. Yes and no, Anonymous. There have been two sides to these discussions, a substance side and a process side. The process side has been the most horrible nightmare that I have ever encountered. The substance side has been the most wonderful dream that I have ever experienced. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the hundreds of…

  • "I Believe That I Learn Some Little Thing Every Day About a Very Important Subject. I Wouldn't Have Been Able to Write the Book That I Am Writing Today in April 2002." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You are not helping anyone, let alone your claim about helping millions.  You have been wasting your time with the same repetitive posts that are worthless. I don't agree, Anonymous. I believe that I learn some little thing every day about a very important subject. I wouldn't have been able to write the book that I am writing today in April 2002. Working up the…

  • "I Am Indeed Slow to Act. Some Interpret That As a Lack of Courage. My Take Is That It Is Better Understood As a Situational Kind of Courage. I Need to Be Very Sure Before I Become Unbending." 17 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Goon Central board: He's all talk and no action.   He never does anything. I am slow to act, GW. For good or for ill. If I were asked to give one word to describe my personality, it would be "methodical." I like to be sure. That's why I was the first one to go public about the errors in the studies. I had noticed them years before. My guess is that lots of other people noticed them. I didn't shoot my mouth off.…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "People Will Surely Challenge Your Views on Investing But You Should Not Fear Challenges. Iron Sharpens Iron, Right?" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: People will surely challenge your views on investing but you should not fear challenges. Iron sharpens iron, right? I sure hope that this one turns out to be…

  • "I Am Not Ashamed of My Behavior From May 13, 2002, Forward. I Am Proud of It. It Would Be Fair to Say That I Am Somewhat Ashamed of My Behavior Prior to May 13, 2002." 16 Comments

    Set forth below is a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Unbelievable. This is it? You have been lying about death threats all this time. You should be ashamed of your behavior. I am not ashamed of my behavior from May 13, 2002, forward, Anonymous. I am proud of it. It would be fair to say that I am somewhat ashamed of my behavior prior to May 13, 2002. Not entirely so. Given what we have seen from May 13, 2002, forward, most…

  • "It's About 500 Times Better Than Betraying My Friends and Then Not Knowing How I Am Going to Be Able to Sleep at Night. I Had Posted With a Good Number of People at the Motley Fool Board for Three Years and Had Gotten to Know Them and to Care About What Happened to Them." 10 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “I’ll do what I can to get along.” Not really a plan when you are in your 60’s. It’s now to late to say you will wait to see how it will all turn out. We see how it played out. It failed. It's about 500 times better than betraying my friends and then not knowing how I am going to be able to sleep at night, Anonymous. I had posted with a good number of…

  • "I Have a Chapter in My Book Called 'My Mother Speaks From the Grave Against Buy-and-Hold.' My Mother Was Born in 1917. So She Was 12 Years Old When the Crash of 1929 Hit. She Had to Leave School in Eighth Grade to Work in a Factory to Put Food on the Table for Her Family. My Mother Loved School and Was Denied an Education Because of the Buy-and-Hold 'Idea' of Not Practicing Price Discipline When Buying Stocks. So This Is Personal for Me." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You already said you depleted your assets. Why would you even wait to get even near that point. Why are you selling out your family? My family has to live in this country, Anonymous. I obviously want to take care of my family. But part of taking care of my family is taking care of my country. I need to do both. I cannot throw either one overboard and still live…

  • "Have You Written a Book on the Transition From Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing? Has Anyone Else? " 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: "One, I can finish writing my book." Talking about finishing your book, and actually finishing your book are two different things. The evidence suggests that you are much better at talking about finishing your book than actually finishing your book. What is your current estimate for finishing your book? What was your first estimate for finishing your…

  • "You Measure Success By How Many Dollar Bills Are Coming In. I Measure Success By How Much Value I Am Contributing to the World. It Is By Adding Value That We Create the Wealth That Permits Us to Be Paid Large Sums." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “Einstein’s definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Says the guy who’s been blogging on the same topic for 15 years. Precisely so. But you overlook the fact that Bogle has been saying the same thing for 45 years. That’s three times as long! And I have been learning amazing things in just…

  • "There Are No Other Learning and Teaching Opportunities with 1/500th of the Potential of This One Available Today in This World." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Other than a few critics, everyone avoids and / or ignores you, yet you don’t want to accept the realities of why this is the case. Instead, you try and cope with a fake story line. I don’t want to be ignored and I don’t want any of the others (about 10 percent of the population) who believe that the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in the investment…

  • Goon Poster to Rob: "Rob, When Do You Think Is the Last Time That a Non-Goon Read Anything You Wrote?" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Rob, when do you think the last time a non-goon read anything you wrote? I don’t know the answer, Anonymous. I occasionally have people who sign up as subscribers to the site. They must read some of the stuff and like it. There aren’t a lot of them. But they exist. So the number is greater than zero. Sam Parler is an old friend (he was co-developer of one of the calculators). He…

  • "I Like Rob’s Fresh Views and Tips on the Subject of Saving" 3 Comments

    The Digerati Life blog recently ran a blog entry examining the unconventional money saving tips explored in my recent interview with ABC News Now. It's called Money Saving Advice from an Expert Money Saver. Juicy Excerpt: I like Rob's fresh views and tips on the subject of saving money.... The “magic” here is that by using this rule, you’ll figure out what it takes to fund something for life. Once you’ve saved up for something in this manner, it can be quite liberating to realize…

  • "If I Had Showed Investors How to Reduce Investing Risk by 10 Percent, I Would Be on the Cover of Time Magazine. The Problem With Showing Them How to Reduce Risk by 70 Percent Is That It Makes the Buy-and-Holders Look Bad. That's the Only "Problem" With What I Have Done, I showed the Way to Too Big an Advance in Our Understanding of the Realities. What a Bad, Bad Boy, You Know?" 8 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: Seriously, Rob. It is like saying you look forward to joining Lebron James in winning an NBA championship. Your life is just an internet fantasy. You're entitled to your opinion, Sammy. But I would by lying to you if I told you that I share it. I have had many big names tell me how important my work has been to them. Wade told me that he learned many…

  • "My Behavior Is 'Anti-Social' If You Define the Word as 'Upsetting Large Numbers of People In a Serious Way.' But They Wouldn't Be Upset AT ALL If They Could Appreciate the Full Story. How Do We Get to That Place? We Don't Get There By Me Shutting Up." 8 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: And yet you became, as you proudly proclaim, “the most hated man on the internet”. One doesn’t gain such a title without generous amounts of antisocial behavior, no? My stuff causes great pain to large numbers of people, Anonymous. That is a stone cold fact. I am a journalist. The job as a journalist is to tell the truth, not to be popular. Woodward and Bernstein are recognized…

  • Goon Poster to Rob: "The Difference Is That Todd Tresidder States His Opinions and They Are Just That. The Rest of Us Have Opinions As Well. With You, There Is a Strong Agenda and You Want to Be the Center of Attention, Have Everyone Agree With You and Then Be Considered Some Kind of Financial Expert to the Level of Someone Like Bill, Jack, Etc." 46 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that one of the Goons recently posted to another blog entry at this site: The difference is that Todd states his opinions and they are just that. The rest of us have opinions as well. With you, there is a strong agenda and you want to be the center of attention, have everyone agree with you and then to be considered some kind of financial expert to the level of someone like Bill, Jack, etc. the fact remains that you have been proven wrong time and…

  • "Things Certainly Did Not Play Out As I Expected They Would." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: So what you are saying is that YOU WERE WRONG when you made the prediction about 2015. Things certainly did not play out as I expected they would. I said at the time I made the prediction that that often happens, that, while risk is increased when valuations are high, it is not possible to say precisely when price shifts will take…

  • "The Scary Thing Is That Rob Is An Optimist" 2 Comments

    Jennifer at the Live Richly blog offered some fine comments re The Troubles in a recent post of hers titled Will You Retire on Your Stocks? Juicy Excerpt #1: I started reading some guest posts by Rob Bennett of Passion Saving, and found out that his stance on buying when stocks are cheap and not when they are expensive is a controversial one. To me, this just seems like common sense, but apparently many advocates of buy-and-hold won’t even let Rob give his point of view. Juicy Excerpt…

  • "As Of Today, I Honestly Do Not Feel That I Have Ever Been Unfairly Harsh in My Dealings With You Goons. But I Also Think That It Is Possible That There Are Things That I Just Cannot See Because of My Human Limitations. I May Look Through Some Earlier Discussions and See If I Can Identify Places Where I Have Been Unfair or Unkind. If I Can, I Hope That I Will Have the Courage to Own Up to Them Publicly." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Hey Rob. When can we expect to hear all the stories of your great successes at FinCon? I’m at the conference now, Question. I brought my computer this year. I have indeed had some great successes. I have had some great frustrations too. I always do. That’s been the story for 13 years now — great successes combined with great frustrations. I organized a community event that was a…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "You Believe That You Personally Have It Within Your Power to Affect Whether Or Not We Experience the Biggest Social Catastrophe in U.S. History. Which Makes You a Nut." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Uh huh. None of those names you just dropped will correspond with you. Not a one. Some of them used to. But not anymore. Why do you think that is? Before your knee jerk reaction (Goon intimidation) I’ll tell you the real reason: “we are going to experience the biggest social catastrophe in U.S. history.” You believe you personally have it within your power…

  • "The Moment in Which I Pushed the “Send” Button on That Famous Post of the Morning of May 13, 2002, Was My Finest Moment in the 62 Years in Which I Have Been Walking Planet Earth. All of the Learning Experiences That We Have Enjoyed Together Over the Past 17 Years Had Their Origins in That Single Moment of Personal Courage and Honesty and Good Will Toward My Fellow Community Members." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted in response to another blog entry at this site: I guess Shiller is going to prison as well, right? We will decide as a society who goes to prison and who does not. I doubt very much that Shiller will be in the group that will be going to prison. But I am highly confident that Shiller will be expressing regret that he did not speak up re lots of critically important investment-related topics in a clear and firm and simple…

  • " I Take Bogle’s Ideas and Update Them to Reflect Shiller’s Research. And I Take Shiller’s Theory and Give It Practical Significance By Addressing All the How-To Aspects of the Question That Shiller Ignores." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “But why do you put so much focus on where I rank? ” There are so many out there with opinions. Shouldn’t we give more credence to those that are more expert than others? Absolutely. This is why I became a Buy-and-Holder. When I was putting together my binders to plan my early retirement, I became exasperated that there seemed be as many opinions about…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "This Absurd Claim (That Lots of People Agree That the 15-Year Cover-Up of the Errors in the Buy-and-Hold Retirement Studies Is the Biggest Case of Financial Fraud in U.S. History But Are Afraid to Say So Publicly) Lets You Say Any Crazy Old Thing You Want, on Any Topic, With No Evidence At All." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “Lots of people agree and are afraid to say so publicly” An earlier comment mentioned bottom lines. This is your bottom line. This absurd claim lets you say any crazy old thing you want, on any topic, with no evidence at all. And keep saying it forever. It’s how you justify 15 years of sitting on your butt, instead of working. There really are people who…

  • "I Had a Discussion About This With My Mother Shortly Before She Died. She Said That Maybe All That I Am Trying to Teach People Is Going To Become Widely Accepted After My Death. Oh, Great!....I Pray That I Have the Courage to Accept God's Plan Here Without Too Much Whining." 54 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to a discussion of a blog entry at this site: hopefully for your sake you have more of a plan than praying. God helps those who help themselves, What. So I certainly need to work it myself in addition to saying my prayers. But it is in God’s hands, not mine. If God doesn’t mean for this to happen, it’s not going to happen, no matter how hard I work it. I had a discussion about this with my mother shortly before…

  • "I Only Feel Competent to Address One Question. Are Stock Prices Determined By Rational Assessments or By Emotional Inclinations? There Are Lots of Smart People Around Who Address Themselves to All of the Hundreds of Other Important Issues That Arise in Discussions of Stock Investing. That Said, I Believe That the Valuations/Emotions Question Is BY FAR the Most Important Investing Question. And I Not So Humbly Submit That I Am the World’s Leading Expert on That One Important Question." 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: If someone came to you today and said they wanted to invest their life savings of $5 million by following the VII strategy, what specific investments and percentage allocations would you give them as a recommendation? I like that question. It seems down-to-earth and real. I only feel competent to address one question, Anonymous. Are stock prices determined by…

  • "I Am Like That Fellow in the Movie 'Yesterday' Who Was the Only One on the Planet Who Remembered All the Beatles Songs. For 18 Years I Have Been Able to Write About Hundreds of Different Aspects of the Stock Investing Project From an Entirely Fresh Perspective and From One That Is Rooted in Peer-Reviewed Research That Won the Fellow Who Did It a Nobel Prize. That's a Pretty Darn Amazing Opportunity That I Had Fall Into My Lap." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: The primary cause of the crash? Really? You continue to take your old tired themes and then spin it with the topic of the day. You never cease to amaze me as to how delusional you really are. I would think by now you would have learned your lesson. Back in 2002, you laid out for all to see a retirement/financial plan based on your VII strategy based on your…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: " I Am Willing to Give Anything a Shot for a Period of Time (1-3 Years). But Spending 16 Years of My Time With $0 Earnings Is Beyond Any Level of Reason." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: I am willing to give anything a shot for a period of time (1-3 years). But spending 16 years of my time with $0 earnings is beyond any level of reason. I was rereading yesterday’s posts this morning and I saw this one and I thought that I should make a point that I did not bring out in my original response. In an objective sense I agree with this point. If you…

  • "I Developed the Ideas Tested in the Study That I Co-Authored with Wade Pfau. Wade Did Great Work Testing Them and Proving Their Legitimacy. He Never Tried to Hog Full Credit for the Study. He Said Many Times That He Considered Me the Lead Person Behind the Development of the Valuation-Informed Indexing Concept and That He Believed That the Shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing Is the Biggest Advance That We Have Seen in the Investing Field in Many, Many Years." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted in the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: Tempted to lie???? You lie constantly. Look at your latest post. You repeat the lie that you authored a study with Wade Pfau. That is a lie. You are merely mentioned in the credits along with other people and you are not listed as an author. Your retirement plan was a well documented failure. You now try to cover that up by blaming other people and also…

  • "That Part Is Hard to Write. It Involves Being Somewhat Critical of My Readers. Generally Not a Great Promotional Strategy." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Do you plan to use any ink to comment about Internet Goon Squads? Certainly I need to address the phenomenon. And certainly I need to take care to be fair-minded in what I say. This is the aspect of the thing that makes it difficult to write about. The Goon part of the story is the relatively unimportant part of the story. Sure, there was a lot of abusive stuff…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "You Are the Only One Widely Banned. I Don't Know of Anyone Else in a Similar Circumstance." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “When my right to post honestly is recognized, EVERYONE’s right to post honestly will be recognized.” You are the only one widely banned. I don’t know of anyone else in a similar circumstance. I am the only one who played it the way that I played it, Anonymous. I took a position of “I am going to post with complete honesty regardless of any…

  • "I Think That I Have Accomplished More Good for the World in the Past 17 Years Than I Could Have Reasonably Expected to Have Accomplished in 50 Full Lifetimes. If Big Mistakes Are Made in Retirement Studies That Are Not Corrected for a Significant Length of Time, That Causes Not Only Economic Problems But Also Political Problems — People Lose Confidence in the Political System Under Which They Live When That System Cannot Find Some Means to Provide Access to Honest and Accurate Retirement Planning Numbers." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Wasted 17 years of your life is the correct assessment. Okay, Yip. I don’t think so. I think that I have accomplished more good for the world in the past 17 years than I could have reasonably expected to have accomplished in 50 full lifetimes. Getting the numbers right in retirement studies is a very, very, very big deal. And if big mistakes are made in…

  • Question Asked at the Quora Forum: "Why Is Rob Bennett Opposed to the Buy-and-Hold Strategy for Investing in Equities?" 11 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of the response that I offered at the Quora forum to the question "Why Is Rob Bennett Opposed to the Buy-and-Hold Strategy for Investing in Equities?": Finally a question re which I can feel confident that I possess the expertise needed to rise to the task of venturing forward with a response! The backstory here is that I was a Buy-and-Holder myself until the evening of August 27, 2002. The Buy-and-Holders did something very important that had never been done…

  • "I Couldn't Be Happier. I Am Humbled to Have Played an Important Role in the Process by Which We All Are Discovering How Stock Investing Works in the Real World." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: Almost any investing strategy has given better results than what you have had, Rob. To use your words, has it been a "purely rational experience" to stop woking a job at the age of 43 and then to put all of your financial hopes on some fantasy that you will get an imaginary $500 million windfall. Yes, it has been a 100 percent rational experience and a 100…

  • "Have You Ever Had an Academic Researcher Who Was So Impressed By Your Stuff That He Elected to Devote 16 Months of His Life to Researching It in Depth and Then Concluded That It All Checked Out? On the Morning of May 13, 2002, I Would Have Told You That Such a Thing Was Impossible. But Here We Are." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “ 10 percent of the American public loves my stuff. I have had more effusive praise directed at me over the past 22 years than any other poster in any of our communities that I can think of.” None of that is real. You live in an imaginary world. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever had an academic researcher who was so impressed by your stuff that he elected to…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "Which Means That You Are the Most Important Person in the History of Personal Finance. What Else Could Justify the Many Years of Pain, Abuse and Deprivation?" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Which means that you are the most important person in the history of personal finance. Of course, you’re too modest to say so yourself. But what else could justify your many years of pain, abuse and deprivation? Can’t decide though which of these is correct: a) Rob Bennett is as important as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. b) Rob Bennett is MORE important than…

  • "Let’s Say That the Next 20 Years Are the Same As the Past 20 Years in That No One Believes Your Story, No Crash Happens, You Are Still Broke, Etc. Will You Then Admit You Wasted All Your Time?" 36 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Let’s say that the next 20 years are the same as the past 20 years in that no one believes your story, no crash happens, you are still broke, etc.  Will you then admit you wasted all your time? That alone would not do it. It would cause me to experience doubts. I would explore those doubts and see what people I respected were saying about the matter. If there…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "I Don't See Anything in Shiller's Book That Says He Could Help Save Us From an Economic Collapse." Rob's Response: "You Can Count on Seeing Those Words in My Book." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: I don’t see anything in Shiller's book that says that he could help save us from an economic collapse. You can count on seeing those words in my book, Anonymous. My best and warmest wishes to you. Plain-Speaking…

  • "The Dollar Bills You Dangle in Front of Me to Entice Me to Join the Get Rich Quick Gravy Train Smell Bad. I Cannot Take That Smell, Man, You Know?" 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Goon Central board: for a smart guy, you sure are poor. Money isn't my god, Dab.I like money. I have hopes of making many millions of dollars as we transition from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing. Full truth be told, I have hopes of making hundreds of millions. That's serious money for a boy who got his start at old St. Timothy's in Northeast, Philadelphia.But money has never been the driver for me. If…

  • "I Have Done a Lot to Make Sure That I Am Not Being Influenced By Delusions. I Write This Column, for One Thing. If I Get Something Wrong Here, Some Smart Buy-and-Holder Is Going to See It and Let Me Know. I Wrote to 30,000 Academic Researchers to Elicit Their Feedback. Nearly All of Those Who Responded Had Only Positive Things to Say. My Work Has Been Endorsed by Some of the Biggest Names in the Field, People Like Rob Arnott and Wade Pfau." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Delusions don't pay the bills. You might want to start that job search earlier, rather than later. I believe that the transition from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing will prove to be the biggest advance in the history of personal finance, Sammy. And I believe that those who put their necks on the line and serve as the pioneers will be compensated…

  • "I Expect to Be One of the Richest People in the United States When This Is Over. I Also Expect to Be One of the Most Applauded. I Have Taken Buy-and-Hold and Corrected the One Big Mistake In It To Make It A Workable Strategy in the Real World. That Changes History." 30 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Admit it, this all about you seeking some sort of glory and acclaim and not at all about errors in withdrawal rate studies or investing strategies. I expect to be one of the richest people in the United States when this is over, Trebor. I also expect to be one of the most applauded. I have taken Buy-and-Hold and corrected the one big mistake in it to make it a workable strategy in the real…

  • "What Matters to Me Is the Journalism Question -- Permitting People to Have the Discussions They Want to Have -- and the Human Psychology Question -- the Incredible Ability We Humans Possess to Engage in Self-Deception, Even When It Does Us Great Financial Harm." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “ The reaction we have seen from people who have been exposed to my thinking says a lot.” Yep. It is dead silence. No one is interested. Even your ex-wife didn’t agree with your thinking. That is why she is your ex. If the reaction had been dead silence, you Goons would never have advanced a single abusive post. It was the strong positive reaction to…

  • "Most People Who Agree With Shiller Hold Back From Exploring All the Implications of His Ideas Publicly. That's Why Valuation-Informed Indexing Has Only Won Over 20 Percent of the Population in 34 Years. I Want It to Win Over 100 Percent of the Population. So I Say Things in the Way in Which They Must Be Said for Us to Get to 100 Percent." 7 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: "Except that it's not one single person." There is only one person (you) that is saying that all these experts are wrong and that you are right. There is one else that is saying there have been death threats (other than the threat you made). There is no one else saying that the people you call goons (as well as a number of financial experts and other board…

  • Rob on the Hot Seat 0 Comments

    I mentioned on a thread at the Early Retirement Extreme forum that J.D. Roth at the Get Rich Quickly blog once sent an e-mail to all readers of his forum asking that they not respond to my posts. A community member named "Alex" said: "Rob -- I have to ask...What do you say that's so controversial?" Good question! The response that I provided over there is set forth below: You're going to be sorry you asked, Alex! I want to answer your question. But I don't want to hijack the thread. If…

  • All the Time. The Majority of People Who Hear My Case Do NOT LIke the Way I Present It."" target="_blank">"People Make the Point Made by Rob Arnott About My "Stridency" All the Time. The Majority of People Who Hear My Case Do NOT LIke the Way I Present It." 0 Comments

    One of the Goons recently characterized Rob Arnott's observation (directed at me) that "your stridency is unhelpful to your cause," as "the understatment of the year." He asked: "From how many sources have you heard some variation of this advice and have chosen to ignore it?" My response, initially set forth in the comments section of a blog entry from last week, is set forth below (my aim in posting the words as a separate blog entry is to highlight them so that they reach the attention of…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "You Are a Quintessential Don Quixote." Rob's Response: "This Nation Is a Don Quixote Nation. People Tell Us Good Things That We Are Trying to Do Are Impossible and we Go Ahead and Do Them Anyway." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You are a quintessential Don Quixote. This nation is a Don Quixote nation, Laugh. People tell us that good things that we are trying to do are impossible and we go ahead and do them anyway. Call us all…

  • "I Wouldn’t Have Been Able to Develop the Retire Early Board into the Most Successful Discussion Board at the Motley Fool Site Had I Stayed at My Corporate Job. I Wouldn’t Have Been Able to Write 'Passion Saving.' I Never Would Have Been Put in Circumstances in Which I Had to Work Up the Courage to Stand Up to Greaney. I Never Would Have Met John Walter Russell or Wade Pfau or Rob Arnott or Any of the Others. I Never Would Have Developed the Five Calculators at This Site or Have Written the Hundreds of Columns or Have Recorded the Hundreds of RobCasts." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Do you regret quitting your job? I do not, Anonymous. That’s not a decision that I made lightly. In Chapter 12 of my book (Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work), I examine the possibility that worse could come to worse and that I would not be able to provide for my family. I say that, in those unlikely circumstances, one has…

  • "I Never Experienced a Moment's Doubt re the General Ending Point After I Saw the Russell Sensitivity Analysis Way Back in May 2002. I Believe in Research. I Believe in Numbers. I Believe in Objective Truth. I Believe in Science." 12 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: I’ve known that I was holding a winning hand going back to Day Six, the day that John Walter Russell posted his sensitivity analysis of the Greaney retirement study. I never thought it would take this long. You guys got me re that one. You got me one-hundred times over re that one. But I knew how it would end going back to the first week of our discussions. I never experienced a…

  • "There Is an Unspoken Code in the Finance Industry That You Don't Call Out a Fellow Investing Advisor Who Is Talking Nonsense" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of an answer that I posted to the Quora site to the question "Why do so many people trust stock analysts, investment banks or big audit firms when their conflicts of interest are obvious and they're involved in fruad scandals all the time?": Twelve reasons: 1) Even the worst of these people mix in lots of true stuff with the false stuff and people are fooled by the true stuff into thinking they are dealing straight with them; 2) The best of these people (a…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "You Must Deal With the Consequences, Just Like Anyone Else That Does Not Behave in a Proper Way." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “I offer zero apologies for my behavior, Anonymous. ” Then you must deal with the consequences, just like anyone else that does not behave in a proper way. If someone has a drinking problem or a drug problem, but won’t seek treatment, we don’t just give them a pass. Neither should you get a pass. We all have crosses that we have to carry in this…

  • Jackie, Owner of the The Debt Myth Blog, to Rob: "When the Methods You've Been Using for a Long Time Continue Not to Work, Why Keep Using Them? I Think It Comes Down to 'Do You Want to Be Right?' or "Do You Actually Want to Get Your Message Out and Have It Read By the People Who Could Benefit From Reading It?" 4 Comments

    Set forth below are the text of a series of e-mails sent to me on October 15, 2014, by Jackie, owner of the The Debt Myth blog, followed by my responses: But first you have to get people to actually read those words. Rhetorical question: When the methods you've been using for a long time continue not to work, why keep using them? You really have nothing to lose by changing. I think it comes down to "do you want to be right?" or "do you actually want to get your message out and have it read…

  • Poster at Sub-Reddit on Financial Independence: "Let's Bring Hocus Here for an 'Ask Me Anything'" 6 Comments

    A community member named "Curious Carl" put up a comment here on September 3, 2017, saying: "Your name was brought up over on a reddit board for FIRE-minded folks and it ignited quite the firestorm! Some people were wondering if you’d be willing to go over there for an AMA (Ask Me Anything). Are you familiar with that format? The board is located here: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ I responded that I would be thrilled to participate in an "Ask Me Anything" session at…

  • "I Reported on the Errors in the Buy-and-Hold Retirement Studies on the Morning of May 13, 2002. Neither Shiller Nor Bogle Has Reported on the Errors in Those Studies TO THIS DAY. So There Obviously Are Some Things That I Am Seeing That Those Two (and Lots and Lots of Other Good and Smart People) Are Not Yet Seeing." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Are you saying: A) You know more than Shiller B) Shiller is just wrong in his analysis C) Shiller is purposely giving the wrong answer to appease the goons D) All of the above I’m saying that I know more than Shiller re some aspects of the question. Shiller also knows more than me re some aspects of the question. Bogle knows more than me re some aspects of…

  • "If Things Hadn't Been So Nasty, There Are Thousands of Good and Smart People Who Would Have Developed These Insights Long Before I Came on the Scene. Your Nasty Stuff Cleared the Field of Competitors and Left It to Me to Pick Up All the Prizes. Um -- Thanks, Man!" 13 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: How will you be rich? You already told us that our significant net worth’s are all “cotton-candy nothingness” and that it will go away in the next crash. If your fantasy is correct, how will you collect money from anyone if they don’t have anything left? It is your goonishness that is causing all the problems you have understanding what the research says, Anonymous. You exaggerate…

  • "I Expect to Set Up a System Whereby Internet Communities Concerned With Personal Finance Issues Help the Public to Identify the Good Guys, a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval Sort of Thing. Lots of People in This Field Want to Do Good Work But Feel Pressured to Engage in Unethical Activities. They Need a Respected Authority Site to Identify Them as Honest and Holistic in Their Approach." 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Rob, The crisis has come. The Wall Street Con Men ™ have of course, rumaged their lapels, and pooled together to provide 1 BILLION untraceable, untaxable U.S. dollars to you, to ensure a quick settlement. It is already in your bank account. The sun rises over 160 N Hatcher. You roll over, wipe the sleep from your eyes, and the day begins. Rob, please describe for us the typical day of a…

  • "I Would Put Myself in the Same Class as Bogle and Shiller." 12 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: "I wouldn’t put yo Goons in the same class as Bogle or Shiller” Would you put yourself in the same category as Bogle and Shiller? Perhaps you would put yourself at a level above them? I would put myself in the same class as Bogle and Shiller. Bogle laid the foundation. Bogle got everything but valuations right (according to the peer-reviewed research…

  • "People Won't Tell You to Your Face That You Are an Ass. You Admit That You Have Been Doing This for 11 Years. Do You Notice That Your Message Is Not Going Anywhere? Wake Up, Rob! 25 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the discussion of a blog entry posted at this site: Rob, Even us unicorns know that people won’t tell you to your face that you are an ass. People, on the whole, will be polite in face to face discussions. There is no evidence of a vast conspiracy. You have been banned from so many sites because of your actions and demeanor. It is clear you are wrong and you made that more evident when you called Wade a liar. Additionally,…

  • "I've Done Amazing Work. I Have Been Told So By Many Big-Name Experts and Also By Many Ordinary Investors. I'll Get Compensated for It Down the Road. People Earn Big Incomes When They Add Significant Value With Their Work. I Have Done That. So I Will Wait for the Compensation." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: Funny how you avoid talking about your failed retirement plan. Like always, you change the topic by repeating previous lies, that have all been addressed before. Maybe you should spend your time on your job search. I've done amazing work, Sammy. I have been told so by many big-name experts and also by many ordinary investors. I'll get compensated for it…

  • " I Am a Whistleblower. I Have Been Made to Pay the Price That Whistleblowers Are Made to Pay. I Blew the Whistle on Buy-and-Hold." 12 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: You were the one to quit your job, right? Have you actively searched for a job since that time? It appears that you have not really taken steps to get a new job. Thus, we can conclude that you only have yourself to blame. Expecting someone to pay you for your internet rantings is laughable. It's not laughable if it turns out that I was right about what…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "Your Assumption Is That, If You Could Post Whatever You Wanted at Any Board, the Stock Market Would Behave Much Differently." 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “Your abusive and even criminal posting behavior has blocked access to the information that those of us who want to buy stocks to support our old-age retirements need to perform the job that we need to perform for the market to do its job of setting prices properly. ” You are referring to your banning at the various financial boards, correct? Therefore, your…

  • "What You Want Is for All the Sites in the World To Be Open To Your Posts So That You Can Increase Your Popularity. Your Ambition Is To Be One of the Leading, If Not the Top, Investment Experts in the World. With This Fame, You Thought You Would Become Rich By Becoming a Sought After Speaker and Perhaps Selling Books and Other Materials." 12 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Just tell people what you really want. What you want is for all the sites in the world to be open to your posts so that you can increase your popularity. Your ambition is to be one of the leading, if not the top, investment experts in the world. With this fame, you thought you would become rich by becoming a sought after speaker and perhaps selling books and other…

  • "The Delay Is Because of the Social Isolation. It Is an Extremely Painful Experience. No One Else Has Written This Book. Why Do You Think That Is? Shiller's Nobel Prize-Winning Research Has Been Publicly Available for 41 Years and No One (Including Shiller Himself) Has Written a Full Exploration of the Far-Reaching Implications of His Nobel-Prize-Winning Work." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Since you ignored the question, obviously your book is nowhere near completion, and you will miss yet another self-imposed deadline. That book would be done by now if you had put in just five minutes of serious work every day. Clearly any amount of serious work on anything is too much to expect from you. I'll probably miss the June 30 self-imposed deadline. But…

  • "My Father Loved His Country. He Knew That Those Who Resort to Those Sorts of Tactics Thereby Tear the Social Fabric of His Country Apart. He Understood That Those Sorts of Tactics Are Not Within the Scope of the Tactics by Which Disputes Are Resolved When His Country Is Working in Tune With Its Foundational Beliefs." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Rob, you have only to look at your father and to me for two immediate counterexamples that totally disprove your claim. My father experienced the Great Depression (caused by a widespread belief in the core Buy-and-Hold “idea” that consideration of price is not necessary when buying stocks that developed during the 1920) not as an investor but as a child. It left a mark. He…

  • "We Need Affirmation From Other Humans That We Are Good People Doing Useful Work. But the Amount of Affirmation That I Get From Other Humans Comes Perilously Close to Zero." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Rob, Do you have a group of people around you that give you constant feedback and wise council or do you just wing it? That’s a good question. I do not have a group of people around me that give me constant feedback and wise counsel. I wish I did. I need that. We all need affirmation from others to maintain the strength required to fight life’s battles. I…

  • "How Long Have You Been Seeing a Therapist? Has it Been Helping?" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: How long have you been seeing a therapist?  Has it been helping? It's been a bit less than two years. I've been seeing the current person (who I like a lot) since October 2023. I was seeing someone else for about three months before that. The pace of progress on the book has picked up a small bit over the past three months. But I am nowhere close to finishing…

  • "There’s an Emotional Toll That Has to Be Paid for Telling People What the Last 36 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research Tells Us About How Stock Investing Works in the Real World. Do You See Anybody Else Doing It? Can You Point to Anyone Else Who Has Done As Much Of It As I Did in Earlier Years? There’s a Reason Why No One Else Goes There. It’s Hard Work. Taking Constant Emotional Hits Is the Hardest Kind of Work There Is." 30 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Yes, you’re great at imagining. Not so great at actually doing. When is the last time you posted at any other blog? I don’t recall. It’s been a long time. But I certainly expect to be doing so in future days. After the next crash, I am certain that I will be posting at lots of places. It will be a lot easier then. Emotions will have turned. I will not…

  • "On the Content Side, I Have Achieved a Level of Success 500 Times Greater Than the Highest Level That I Ever Thought That I Could Achieve If Everything in My Life Worked Out in the Best Way Possible. On the Process Side, It Has Been the Biggest and Most Catastrophic Failure That I Have Ever Encountered or Even Imagined." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “To continue my efforts to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.” And how is that working out for you? Time for plan C? On the content side, I have achieved a level of success 500 times greater than the highest level that I ever…

  • "I Have Attended Two Years of the Financial Bloggers Conference, Letting All My Fellow Bloggers Know How Important It Is That We All Work to Bring the Campaign of Terror to a Full and Complete Stop. I Have a Funny Feeling That I Am Covered re This One." 9 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to a discussion thread at this blog: Rob, Take a look at this: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-internet-harassment-laws.htm It looks like this describes what you are doing. Here’s an article where I report on the Campaign of Terror of which Wade and I and many other good people have been victims: http://www.passionsaving.com/internet-harassment.html I have contacted my congressman, Sparky. I have contacted…

  • "Anyone Who Has Any Doubts As to Whether I Would Have Earned Far In Excess of $500 Million from the Valuation-Informed Indexing Concept Needs Only to Look to the Reactions That Wade Pfau Had When He Learned for the First Time How Stock Investing Really Works. Wade Holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton. He Was AMAZED at What He Learned." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site: Having a great idea does not mean money just shows up on your doorstep. You have offered nothing that anyone is willing to pay any money for. The way that it works is that a determination is made as to how much money I would have made from the idea had it not been for the death threats and the board bannings and the tens of thousands of acts of defamation and the threats to get academic…

  • "The Crime Is Ongoing. Greaney’s Study Has Not Been Corrected to This Day. The Bans Remain in Place. The Abusive Posting Continues. Wade Pfau Remains Afraid to Work with Me to Promote Our Research Because of the Threats You Made." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: "The entire purpose of my plan was to shift to a form of work that I would find more fulfilling and that would in the long run produce more income than the corporate employment that I left behind.” No, your historical posts show you had only counted on a small amount of side income. You never had a substantial business income. To win anything, you would need to…

  • "I Have Paid a Financial Price for My Honesty. But Now I Feel Good About Myself As a Person. And I Believe That I Will See Big Financial Rewards Too Down the Road a Piece." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: I would hate to not have much left of a nest egg, versus having a large nest egg that might have to weather a short term loss. Speaking just of the nest egg, I would agree with you. The issue here has been whether I am willing to tell my friends things about stock investing that I do not believe in order to appease you Goons or whether I am willing to pay the…

  • A Five-Part Series on Passion Saving:
    "It Is a Great Book"
    0 Comments

    The author of the No Limits Ladies blog recently ran a five-part series on my book Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work. She says: "Unfortunately, most people will not pick up this book based on the title alone. The S word no one likes. The people who truly value the innovative financial thinking it holds will walk on by. It is a shame because it is a great book, a great return on the cover price." She's probably already married or else would object to the…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "Respectful Behavior Is What Is Required, Rob." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: Respectful behavior is what is required, Rob. I have the greatest respect possible for the PEOPLE who advocate Buy-and-Hold, Sammy. I sing their praises all the time. Every Buy-and-Holder whom I have ever met is smart and it appears to me that just about all of them are top-notch people in a more general sense too. The Buy-and-Holders have made huge…

  • Goon Poster to Rob: "You Have Your Agenda and Want To Spread It On Every Thread, Even When It Is Not the Subject Being Discussed. You Think That Your Points Are More Important Than What Anyone Else Has to Say, Yet Give No Consideration to the Opinion of Others. If It Doesn't Mesh With Your Line of Thinking, You Say That People Are Lying or Afraid and That Is Just a Bunch of Bull." 21 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: A contributing factor of you getting kicked off all those sites is the factbthat also don’t listen. You have your agenda and want to spread it on every thread, even when it is not the subject being discussed. You think that your points are more important than what anyone else has to say, yet give no consideration to the opinion of others. If it doesn’t mesh with your line of thinking, you…

  • "No One Enjoys Suffering. But Say That You Were a Soldier and You Were Sent on a Mission That Put Your Life at Risk. Would You Say "I Won't Go Because It Will Hurt My Family If I Get Killed?" Sometimes There Are Bigger Things at Stake Than One's Own Family." 38 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Do you think your wife and kids enjoyed suffering because of you? My ex certainly did not. That one is easy. My older boy told me that he never wished that he had a different dad. He was not even a tiny bit happy about the divorce. But he believes that I am right about stock investing and he admires me for having stood up for what is right. He just would like to…

  • "Either Because I Am a Very Lucky Individual or Because I Am a Very Unlucky Individual, I See These Issues With Great Clarity." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Wasting 15 years locked on one tiny investing metric would be mind-bogglingly stupid. But toiling for 15 years in the basic struggle of good versus evil is a noble sacrifice. Which is why you frame everything in terms of morality. For me, this is very simple, X. I was a popular poster at the Motley Fool Retire Early board. I made lots of friends there. My aim was to help my friends. So…

  • "I Don’t Think That I Suffer From a Delusion. I Think That I Suffer From Holding a Minority View on an Issue That Is a Highly Sensitive One for the People Holding the Other Point of View." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “So you say, Anonymous. But I am not convinced.” That’s the issue. Other people have to see value in what you say or do. Otherwise, it is a waste of time. You don’t have that support, but delusionally think you do. I don’t think that I suffer from a delusion. I think that I suffer from holding a minority view on an issue that is a highly sensitive…

  • "I Will Be Spending the Remaining Years of My Life Teaching Valuation-Informed Indexing to Millions of Investors. This Site Is the Launching Pad." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site: Why would anyone pay for the idea when all the information is available for free from your website? There are thousands of web sites that promote Buy-and-Hold that make plenty of money, Evidence. Buy-and-Hold is not a new idea. It continues to make money because people want to see the idea explored from lots of different angles. We are now in the process of moving from Buy-and-Hold to…

  • "There Is a Reason No One Else Has Written a Book Like You Describe. It Is Because It Is a Bunch of Hocomania. No One Wants to Waste Their Time Like You Do." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: There is a reason no one else has written a book like you describe.  It is because it is a bunch of hocomania.  No one wants to waste their time like you do. Okay, Anonymous. I wish you all good things, in any…

  • "I See It As My Job to See to It That Every Citizen of This Country Feels 100 Percent Free to Post Honestly re the Last 36 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research At Every Investing Discussion Board and Blog on the Internet. No Exceptions. Not One. Not Ever. Not Anywhere. It Would Be Cruel of Me to Understate the Level of My Conviction re How Things Are Going to End Up." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You have the right to behave as you wish on your board, but you do not have the right to misbehave on someone else’s board. I see it as my job to see to it that every citizen of this country feels 100 percent free to post honestly re the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research at every investing discussion board and blog on the internet. No exceptions. Not one.…

  • Goon Poster to Rob: "Even If You Did Not Violate Specific Rules of These Boards, You Made Them So Absolutely Unbearable That the Moderators Had to Ban You or Else Everyone Else Would Simply Stop Coming to the Board." 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Even if you did not violate specific rules of these boards you made them so absolutely unbearable the mods had to ban you or else everyone else would simply stop coming to the board. You just respond to other peoples question by rambling off topic about what YOU want to talk about. I would love to be a fly on a way and see you interact in real life with someone. I would be curious to see if…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "What You Call Research Is Your Opinion of What One Guy Said. You Even Stated That Shiller Doesn’t Say What You Say. 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: What you call research is your opinion of what one guy said.  You even stated that Shiller doesn’t say what you say. I am not aware of Shiller ever having put forward the words "The safe withdrawal rate is not the same number at all times." So he doesn't say precisely what I say. That's true of anyone who has ever said anything. The standard Buy-and-Hold…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "It Is Not What YOU Think You Have Done. Instead, It Is What Others Say You Have Done." 14 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: It is not what YOU think you have done. Instead, it is what others say you have done. Otherwise, your words are meaningless. A) Academic Researcher Wade Pfau’s Statements Showing Interest In and Confidence in Rob Bennett’s Work 1) “I do cite you and John Walter Russell in my paper as the earliest and strongest advocates of this approach [New School…

  • "Rob's Investment Web Site, PassionSaving.com, Hasn't Taken Off the Way He'd Hoped" 13 Comments

    Liz Pulliam Weston has written an update to the profile of me she wrote for her MSN Money column several years back entitled Retired at 50: Where Are They Now? Juicy Excerpt #1: The stock market crash didn't affect Rob and Mary Bennett at all. That's because Rob, who handles the family's investments, got out of stocks entirely in the mid-1990s. Juicy Excerpt #2: Rob's investment Web site, Passionsaving.com, hasn't taken off the way he'd hoped. That's a problem, because the Bennetts had…

  • "What Will Happen Once We Have Opened Every Discussion Board and Blog on the Internet to Honest Posting re the Last 42 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research, Without a Single Exception? Will There Be Even One Person in This Field NOT Talking to Me Then?" 25 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Does Scott Burns talk to you now? Nope. Does Wade Pfau talk to you now? Nope. Does anyone else from the investment community talk to you now? Nope. No, we are not in this together. No, there is no one that supports you. What will happen once we have opened every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 42 years of peer-reviewed…

  • We Need a Tim Russert in InvestoWorld 1 Comment

    When Tim Russert died recently, lots of people came forward to tell us what made him so special. He asked tough questions in a polite way. That's pretty much it. But that's a lot. When someone asks tough questions in a polite way, we learn stuff. That makes us a better people. Tim Russert made us a better people. You cannot ask much more of a guy than that, can you? We need a Tim Russert in Investoworld. We need that really, really, really, really badly. My background is in…

  • We Were Web 2.0 Before Web 2.0 Was Cool 0 Comments

    Reading a book is a learning experience. Sitting around shooting the breeze is not. True? Not true. Often we read books not to learn but to comfort ourselves that things we already believe are in fact so. In those cases, we read books not for the insights they offer, but for the emotional support they offer. In those cases, we are getting from books what we tend to think we get from talking things over with friends. It works the other way around too. Sometimes talking things over…

  • "Michael Kitces and I Are Friends. You Are Right, Though, That He Keeps His Distance From Me. I Am 'Controversial.' I Shouldn't Be. Everything That I Say Just Follows Naturally From Shiller's 1981 Finding That Valuations Affect Long-Term Returns. If Shiller Is Right, 90 Percent of the Investing Advice That People Have Heard in Recent Years Is Wrong." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I put to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: I am sure you will write more articles from this in which you explain how this expert, like all other experts are wrong and how you are right. It goes along with how you say Michael, like the other experts, "pull their punches" as you have this unique ability to read their minds. Just to note, it is interest how Michael, like many other experts, no longer speak with…

  • Financial Odyssey Blog Posts "Interview with Rob Bennett" 0 Comments

    The Financial Odyssey blog has posted its Interview with Rob Bennett, from A Rich Life. Juicy Excerpt #1: You need to become friends with the big bloggers. Then they promote you and that’s how you move up. I feel great respect and affection for most of the big money bloggers. But I am not able to endorse Buy-and-Hold! I bill myself as the world’s leading critic of this investing strategy. That has unfortunately caused strained relations between me and a number of the big bloggers in this…

  • "It Was About Six Days After I Advanced My Famous Post of May 13, 2002, That John Walter Russell Started a Thread About How “Rob Is Really On to Something” and Most of the Retire Early Community at Motley Fool Responded With Great Excitement About the Discussion That I Had Launched. Had the Published Rules of the Site Been Enforced, We Would Have As a Community Corrected the Error in the Buy-and-Hold Retirement Studies in Not Too Long a Time and I Would Have Been on My Way to a Hugely Successful Career in This Field. It Didn’t Happen Then for the Same Reason That Wade Pfau and Robert Shiller Are Not Going to Recommend My Book Today and Make It Happen Now." 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You don’t really need a crash. Just get Wade Pfau and Robert Shiller to recommend your book and then you are all set. You’re right, Anonymous. By all the rules that ordinarily apply in our society, I am all set. In fact, I was all set a long, long time ago. It was about six days after I advanced my famous post of May 13, 2002, that John Walter Russell started a…

  • "I Am the Most Knowledgeable Person Today on the Subject of How Average Middle-Class People Should Invest in Stocks Not Because I Spent 20 Years in School or Possess a Genius Level I.Q. It Is Because I am Honest. That Gives Me a Huge Edge in a Field that Is 100 Percent Corrupt." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the blog at this site: I think millions would disagree with your level of knowledge versus those you have listed. Millions would disagree with what I say about my level of knowledge TODAY, Pink. We agree re that one. How about tomorrow? What happens tomorrow matters. Bogle does not believe that he can respond effectively to my questions about Buy-and-Hold, Pink. We know that beyond any reasonable doubt. I announced…

  • "Buy-and-Hold Is Not Just a Bad Investing Strategy. It Is a Threat to the Survival of Our Free-Market Economic System. I Love My Country. I Want My Two Boys to Be Able to Grow Up in the Same Sort of Country That I Grew Up In." 12 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Rob, serious question here: do you think you’re obsessing about this topic? I agree with the idea that you believe in: buy and hold isn’t the best way to invest. Seriously, though, you must’ve thought to yourself, at least a few times…..that “perhaps I could broaden the range of topics beyond the one idea I talk about daily….that buy and hold is not the best way to…

  • "For So Long As I Believe Those Two Things, I Would Be Committing a Felony (Financial Fraud) By Leading People to Believe That It Is My View That They Don’t Matter." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: How long should we wait for things to play out? You can wait as long as you please, Anonymous. Or you can not wait at all if that’s your preference. You decide for you. No? I am going to wait for so long as I believe that the Greaney retirement study (and other Buy-and-Hold retirement studies) lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "The Market Has Concluded That You Are Irrelevant." Rob's Response: "You Nailed It." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: The folks who set prices have massive amounts of information including Shillers work. They can also read or have their computers ingest your awful website. The market concludes you are irrelevant. The market has concluded that I am irrelevant. As of today, it would be fair to say that the market has indeed concluded that. All that you have to do to understand…

  • "I Have Come to Believe That God Put Me on Earth to Do This Work" 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the response that I wrote to a question put to me at my Beyond Buy-and-Hold column by Kathryn C at the Kathryn's Conversations blog: Rob, do you mean “middle class” or just the average investor? I think you mean the average investor, not middle class. (we’re talking about how sophisticated an investor is here right, not if they are middle or upper class?) Thanks much for stopping by, Kathyrn. I understand your question. I use that “middle-class” phrase all…

  • "It’s the Most Important Discovery in the History of Personal Finance." 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “I DID something of great importance on the morning of May 13, 2002, when I pointed out the error in the retirement study posted at John Greany’s site.” While I, and others, don’t think you did anything important on that day and also think you are the one in error, let’s set that aside for the moment. THAT WAS 18 YEARS AGO. Get the point? What have you…

  • "I Only Have Two Choices. I Can Participate in the Cover-Up Myself. Or I Can Tell. I Am Telling." 10 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Rob, grand conspiracy theories are an indicator of mental illness, nothing more. I pointed out the errors in the Old School SWR studies in a post dated May 13, 2002, Anonymous. Today’s date is April 21, 2014. Not one of the studies has yet been corrected. That tells the tale. I don’t call it a “grand conspiracy.” I think it would be reasonable to call it a “conspiracy…

  • "It's a Painful Experience to Tell the Truth About Stock Investing. That's Why So Few Do It." 8 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You said you were unable to finish your book and get a job due to emotions.  I guess that means you don’t like what the research really says. What has affected me is the feeling of being an outcast. It's a very painful thing. What Shiller showed is just common sense. OF COURSE valuations affect long-term returns! How else could it be. But Shiller merited…

  • Goon Poster at Value Walk Site: "All One Needs to Do Is Read Your Posts and See That the Vast Majority of Your Posts Include Complaints About What You Think of Shiller, Bogle, Pfau and Others. You Want to Talk About Taking People Down, Down, Down. Just Read Your Own Posts." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I posted in the discussion thread for a recent entry at my weekly column at the Value Walk site: Rob, My comments are based on the truth and supported by facts. All one needs to do is read your posts and see that the vast majority of your posts include complaints about what you think Shiller, Bogle, Pfau and others. You want to talk about taking people Down, Down, Down? Just read your own posts. Tell us again about people going to prison, or…

  • Seven Things You Didn't Know About Rob Bennett 2 Comments

    The fellow who writes the My Life ROI blog "tagged" me the other day (this is my first time, so I'm a little nervous). These are the rules that I need to follow in responding to the tag: "7 Things You Didn’t Know About Me” Meme Rules 1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post. 2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post. 3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs. 4. Let them know they’ve…

  • "Do You Think It Would Have Been Better If I Had Kept It Zipped re the Error in the Greaney Retirement Study?" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: <i>When is the last time you actually spoke to these “friends”?</i> There were not personal friends. They were internet friends. I haven't spoken to them since I left the board. Do you think it would have been better if i had kept it zipped re the error in the Greaney retirement study? Do you think it would be a good idea to say that I now…

  • "This Stuff Is HARD. Not Intellectually. It's Hard EMOTIONALLY Saying Things That Millions of People Very, Very, Very Much Do Not want to Hear." 8 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Are you referring to the book that you said would be out 12 years ago? That's the one! It will be a humdinger when it is ready for public consumption, I promise you that muvh. Whenever I feel a little discouraged, I read the first three Parts (the first 27 chapters) and that gives me a confidence rush. Those first three Parts are perfectly polished today. Part…

  • Frugal Dad Blog] Can Make a Difference for Millions of Middle-Class Investors"" target="_blank">"You [the Owner of the Frugal Dad Blog] Can Make a Difference for Millions of Middle-Class Investors" 0 Comments

    I posted a plea yesterday at the Frugal Dad blog asking that he permit me to write a series of guest blogs explaining the Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy to his readers. Juicy Excerpt: Please (I am begging) give the idea a little bit of thought. You are positioned to make an awful big difference in the lives of millions of middle-class investors. I sincerely believe that, if we could get the word out on these findings (which have been endorsed by a good number of big-name experts as…

  • "If I Had a Cure for Cancer That Had Passed Peer Review, Would It Be Irresponsible for Me to Tell People About It? I Say 'No.' I Think That It Is 100 Percent Imperative That We Get the Word Out to Everyone on the Planet." 10 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Don’t you think it is irresponsible for you to try and trick people into your market timing scheme, when it has never worked for even one single person, including you? If I had a cure for cancer that had passed peer review, would it be irresponsible for me to tell people about it? I say “no.” If there were some people who elected not to make use of the cure,…

  • "There Is No Other Blogger on the Internet Who Has Won Even a Tiny Percentage of the Positive Comments from Big-Name Experts That I Have Won. A Person Isn't Given that Kind of Endorsement. A Person EARNS It with Hard Work and a Hard-Won Reputation for Integrity." 28 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site: It is funny what you call an endorsement. Many of those comments ate not very positive. I included some Goon comments so that people can see what we are up against. And I included some comments by skeptical Normals. Because there are lots of good and smart people who possess a sincere skepticism and their views obviously need to be heard. But the vast majority of the comments are…

  • "The Comedian Is the Person Who Questions Whether Saving Millions of People from Suffering Failed Retirements Has Earned Compensation of a Very Big Multiple of $500 Million. If It Were Only One Million Retirements Saved, That Would Be $500 per Saved Retirement. There’s Not One Person on the Planet Who Wouldn’t Be Willing to Pay Far in Excess of $500 to Avoid Suffering a Failed Retirement." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You missed your calling as a stand up comedian. Getting the numbers wrong in a retirement study is a pretty darn big deal, Anonymous. It’s not just that Greaney destroyed the lives of thousands of people at the Motley Fool board who believed that his study was legitimate. Wade Pfau and I intended to get our research featured on the front page of the New York…

  • "I Will Acknowledge That These Views Are Extreme If You Go By the Continuum of Viewpoints Held Today. But It Is Not Right for Me Not to Express My Sincere Views. If Everyone Who Holds This View Says to Himself 'I'll Keep It Zipped Until Lots of Others Are Saying This.' The View Will Never Be Publicly Expressed. Someone Has to Be the First to Say These Things." 8 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted at another blog entry at this site: From today’s post by you on this exact topic, which you agree can’t be proven one way or the other: I am telling you what I believe, Anonymous. I stand by those words. If I said anything different, I would be telling you a lie. I am not able to imagine any circumstance in which the promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies would not cause an economic crisis. Once you tell people that…

  • "When Millions of People See 50 Percent of Their Retirement Savings Disappear Into Thin Air for No Good Reason, I Have a Funny Feeling That They Are Going to Know That SOMEONE Is Lying About How This Stock Investing Stuff Works. I Have a Further Funny Feeling That They Are Going To Be Able To Figure Out That It Isn’t Me." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “If I post a link to Shiller’s book, will that one count? ” Just like your website, it doesn’t provide a direct link to any death threats or job threats. It’s not hard, Rob. If the threats exist, then you just provide the links. When you don’t, people know you are lying. When millions of people see 50 percent of their retirement savings disappear…

  • "A Seven-Year-Old Understands That You Cannot Calculate the Safe Withdrawal Rate Without Taking Valuations Into Account. I Made a Point That Was Obviously True and That Was Very Hurtful to Lots of People." 8 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: <i>What specific information is missing from the internet? Answer: none</i> There is lots of information missing from the internet. All of the discussions of why Buy-and-Hold is such a dangerous investing strategy, all of the discussions of why market timing is the key to long-term investing success are mssing. I put forward my famous post…

  • Wade Pfau: "If You Read Rob Bennett’s Stuff Carefully, I Think He Did Provide an Important Contribution in Terms of Describing a Way for PE10 to Guide Asset Allocation for Long-Term Conservative Investors. I Also Think He Was Right on the Issue of Safe Withdrawal Rates." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “I have made an amazing contribution to the field, there’s no question about that.“ Wrong. There not a single person alive that has said those words, other than you. Spare us the B.S. about how you think people have given you praise. A) Academic Researcher Wade Pfau’s Statements Showing Interest In and Confidence in Rob Bennett’s Work 1) “I do…

  • "I Care About the People Who Read My Stuff. I Am Incapable of Lying to Them." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: So that list shows what SHOULD have happened. But we know what HAS happened. The scoreboard is showing a massive, epic blowout. If you took the field today against the Patriots, all by yourself, the final score would be closer than your competition with the Goons. And yet, you see nothing wrong with your game plan. I am not happy with the results that we have seen…

  • "My Primary Project Today Is Writing the Book 'Investing for Humans: How to Get What Works on Paper to Work in Real Life.' I Expect to Finish That By the End of the Year. At That Time, My Intent Is to Seek Employment in the Corporate World. I Will Continue to Write My Weekly Column and to Respond to Blog Comments and to Contact Other Sites at Nights and on Weekends. I Can Continue Doing That Indefinitely Even If There Is Not Money Coming in From the Investing Work." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of several comments that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: If another 20 years passes and you don’t get your story in The New York Times and you don’t see a dime of the $500 million payout, will you come to the conclusion that you wasted your time? I think that another 20 years would just about do it, Anonymous. I am a stubborn cuss. But a person struggling to make his way through this mixed-up world of ours has…

  • Fear Strikes Out 0 Comments

    I once was afraid that I was losing my hair. I once was afraid that I would not be able to find another job that I liked as much as the one that I lost in the recession of the early 1990s. I once was afraid that my grades wouldn't be good enough to get me into law school. I once was afraid to call up a girl and ask for a date. I once was afraid to hand in my resignation from a high-paying job to become a freelance writer. I once was afraid that disco was never going to fade in…

  • "I Only Post About One Subject. But It Is a Very Important Subject and There Are Hundreds of Angles To It. So Posting About That One Subject Keeps Me Busy. The One Subject Is Long-Term Market Timing." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: How about posting something of value. You have repeated this same stuff over and over again. Try posting something new. While you are at it, why don’t you explain to readers as to why you won’t provide and proof (links) to your claims of job threats and death threats. I only post about one subject. But it is a very important subject and there are…

  • "If I Succeed in Opening Every Discussion Board and Blog on the Internet to Honest Posting re the Last 40 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research in This Field, I Will Have Accomplished 50 Times What I Thought As a a Young Man Was the Most that I Could Accomplish in a Single Lifetime." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “hundreds of thousands of businesses will go under. Millions of people will lose their jobs. Millions of retiremens will fail. Political frictions will worsen. ” We have already seen this with Covid. People that lack emergency savings will want to know how the government will bail them out (like they are doing right now) and those with resources will be picking…

  • "I Became Radicalized By Seeing How Hateful & Frightened Buy-and-Hold Can Make a Person" 0 Comments

    Friday's blog entry set forth the text of an e-mail that I received from Edwin at the Finantage blog. Set forth below is the text of my reply e-mail. Edwin: Thanks for your note. Reading it cheered my morning! I am excited to hear about your plans. I think you are handling this in a positive and constructive and life-affirming way. I would like to post the words of your e-mail at my blog. I like to expose my readers to the words of smart and good people who offer a different take…

  • "If You Asked My Father Whether Buy-and-Hold Worked for Him, He Would Answer "Yes!" I See That As a Misperception on His Part." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: It worked for me. It worked for my father, who has since passed on. If I am correct in what I have read from you (and I literally BEG you to correct me if I am in error) it worked for YOUR father, too Rob! So that’s three independent proofs that your nutty claim is wrong, from right off the top of my head, and of course I only needed one to do the job, anyway. End of argument. If you…

  • Goon Poster to Rob: "Everyone Else Is Lying and Only You Are Telling the Truth?" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Everyone else is lying and only you are telling the truth? I am the only one telling the truth re the financial fraud aspect of this, Anonymous. You yourself have acknowledged this on many occasions. Fama had good faith when he published his wonderful research in 1965. Fama didn’t distinguish between short-term timing and long-term timing because long-term timing was at the time not…

  • "What Are My Responsibilities When I See a Super Weird Situation Like This? I Sure Don't Want to See the People of This Country Having to Endure Yet Another Buy-and-Hold Crisis. Do You?" 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: No.  “Not working out” means that your retirement plan did not go as you said it would.  Do you think it is a good thing to have a depleted retirement account when you are 60’s?  Are you not responsible for that, just like everyone else is responsible for their own situations? I'm responsible for it. But no reasonable person could have anticipated that I…

  • "You Are Broke. You Are Divorced. You Got Everything Wrong. Take Responsibility and Stop Blaming Everyone Else." 18 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You are broke.  You are divorced.  You got everything wrong.  Take responsibility and stop blaming everyone else. And I was right about the Greaney retirement study lacking a valuation…

  • "I Have Attended Numerous Financial Blogger Conferences and At Each One That I Have Attended I Have Spoken to Financially Successful Bloggers Who Have Told Me That They Regretted the Abusiveness That Has Held Me Back and That They Hoped That Things Would Soon Change." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: My plan has been a huge success, presuming that Shiller's Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research, Sammy. I definitely have spent down my nest egg. That part of your comment is accurate. But that of course has nothing to do with the merit of the Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy. Had it not been for your abusiveness and the abusiveness of…

  • "It's the Cover-Up That Is Outrageous, Not My Reporting On It. The Only Way to Bring the Cover-Up to an End Is for People to Report on It. It Is Because Too Many Have Been Afraid to Report on It For So Long That We Are All In the Fix We Are in Today. I View My Reporting On the Cover-Up As a Beautiful and Brave Thing, Journalism At Its Best. I Am Honored and Humbled To Do This Important and Very Difficult Work and Very Proud of the Efforts That I Have Directed to Bringing This Cover-Up To an End." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: Actually, you only give one side of your deluded story in Valuewalk, yet make those outrageous statents on your own website on an almost daily basis. By the way, Jack is NOT your good friend. It is just another spin you give to your stories. When you were asked about this a look time ago, you stated you became his friend by reading his books. The "honest"…

  • "I Didn't Know That Anything Was Going On On the Morning of May 13, 2002. So Everything Written in the Book will Be Things That I LEARNED By Having the Courage to Say What I Believe and Then Watch the Reactions." 12 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “ And where would today’s CAPE value be? Probably precisely where it is.” Which means you wasted your time. What was that phrase that President Carter had when the helicopters went down in the desert? It's been "an incomplete success." One person can only do so much, Anonymous. A year from now, I will have a printed book in my hands with my name on it…

  • "My New Target Date for Completion of the Investing for Humans Book Is June 2022" 58 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Since that deranged non-response ignored my question about your book, we can assume it won't be finished by the end of this year.  Or any year. It won't be finished by the end of this year, as I had hoped. I can now see light at the end of the tunnel. Before, when I would rework a section, it would often cause changes in a number of places throughout the book. I…

  • "It's Different for Me Because I Have Seen the Entire Story Up Close and Personal for 21 Years Running Now. I Can Tell the Story Better Than Anyone Else. And It Is Very Important to Everyone Who Lives in the United States That This Story Be Told Clearly and Completely and Fairly." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: The fact that you allege there is an error and nobody else agrees has nothing to do with getting a job.  Normal and responsible American’s get a job and provide for themselves and family members so that they are not a burden.  This is even more critical when the overall topic is providing for a successful retirement as well.  Why should it be different for…

  • "The Valuation-Informed Indexers Have Been Placed in a Ghetto. It's a Ghetto in Which They Do Not Possess the Same Rights as the Buy-and-Holders. It's a Ghetto in Which They Keep Their Most Powerful Insights to Themselves. It's a Ghetto in Which They Do Not Say "Buy-and-Hold Is Dangerous" or "That Claim Is Wrong" or "Bogle Is Contradicting Himself." It Is a Gheto in Which They Watch Their Step and Are Careful Not to Offend Their Betters. Not This Boy." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Let’s play Jeopardy. Answer: the peer-reviewed research of the past 33 years needs to be discussed in every THREAD in which Buy-and-Hold “ideas” are advanced. Question: Why has Rob Bennett been banned from every major finance board? That's a super comment, X. You cut through a lot of b.s. and got straight to the heart of things with that comment. Good for you. I understand…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "You Constantly Present Yourself As the One Wise, Rational, Sensible Person in a World Where All the Rest of Us Are Frightened Little Rabbits." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “We want to get along with others. We want to have friends. We want to be popular. We want to see people praising us and linking to us.” Among the vast number of things that aren’t helping your cause, your smug, condescending attitude ranks right up there. You constantly present yourself as the one wise, rational, sensible person in a world where all the rest…

  • "But the Goons Couldn't Have Gotten Away With It Without the Complacency of a Lot of the Normals! There Was No Way That Any Reasonable Person Could Have Known in Advance That the Site Administrator of the Motley Fool Site Would Have Permitted Greaney to Continue to Post There After He Had Advanced Death Threats. That Is Just Too Crazy. And of Course We Have Seen Hundreds of Cases of Behavior Like That." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Do you attribute your failed retirement to a "get rich quick" attitude? I believe you were counting on writing income that never came, correct? No. The attitude that I directed to putting together my early retirement plan was the farthest thing from a Get Rich Quick attitude than one could possibly get. It was a belt-and-suspenders plan. I wanted to be sure that it…

  • "I Wrote Draft Seven, Which Is Largely Organized But Still Somewhat Scattered Thoughts Placed in Chapters (the Chapter Titles Are a Lock at This Point — Just Making Final Decisions on Chapter Titles Is a Big Organizational Advance) but Without Good Enough Narrative Flow, Earlier This Year. I Am Now Working on Draft Eight, Which Will Have the Proper Narrative Flow. I Am Getting Through Roughly a Chapter per Week." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Have you started your job search? I have not. I am working on what I consider the eighth draft of the book. I count the collection of the material that I put in the 30 binders that used to be in my basement as Draft One. I count the exploration of the ideas on internet discussion boards that I participated in after I put forward my famous post of May 13, 2002,…

  • "My Profession Is One in Which You Are Taught to Expose Cover-Ups. So I React Very Differently to Death Threats and Threats of Career Destruction Than Either Bogle or Shiller Do. They Worry That It Would Not Be “Professional” to Point Out That Financial Fraud is a Crime. I Put My Readers First. I Tell the Story." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “He is also a great man, one who has done more to advance our understanding of how stock investing works than any other human alive on the planet today. ” You mean he has done more than you???? Are you sure??? I’ve also done something of huge importance, Anonymous. It drives you out of your mind to contemplate that reality. But it is a reality all the…

  • "I Have Had Several College Professors Include Links to Material Posted at My Web Site as Part of the Required Reading for Their Courses Because They Felt That the Material Was So Important and Could Not Be Found Elsewhere. That Tells Me Something." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “I earned the $500 million, Anonymous.” Who says you earned this? I think I have earned $2 Billion for my work. Does that mean I will see it? I have the laws of the United States on my side. That tells me something. I have seen thousands of my fellow community members say that the debate that I launched was the most important debate that we ever saw on…

  • "I Am Trying to Make It Hard for Anyone to Earn a Buck Advocating Buy-and-Hold. Hence the Bans." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Why do you think they are banning you? At every place that I have been banned it has been for the same reason, Zippy. I say: “Buy-and-Hold is a big pile of smelly garbage” and then I explain why and cite the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. That’s it. That’s the distinction. Nobody else does that, at least not at sites where lots of Buy-and-Holders congregate.…

  • Ken Evoy, Owner of SiteSell, Inc.: "Rob, Awesome Post. I Suggest All Read It, Some Sharp, Creative Thinking. Trying to "Be There" Before the Gold Rush to a New Niche Is an Interesting Bet! You'll Be THE Name If It Happens. Heck, You Might Even Help MAKE It Happen!" 4 Comments

    ISet forth below is the text of a post that I put to the SiteSell (a web hosting company) forum, followed by the response of SiteSell Owner Ken Evoy: I believe that the path forward is to move away from the idea that there is one right way to build a successful site and to position SBI as a company that helps one-person shops build successful sites in a variety of ways.My site never fit the SBI model. I write about personal finance. That's a huge topic with a huge amount of competition,…

  • "We Are the First Generation of Investors Who Has Available to Them the Research Needed to Turn Stock Investing Into a High-Return, Virtually Risk-Free Endeavor" 5 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I put to the blog in response to a comment by one of the Greaney Goons that "there is no 'we," just 'you.'" Everyone in this field faces an important question today, Trebor. We are the first generation of investors who had available to them the research needed to turn stock investing into a high-return, virtually risk-free endeavor. No group of investors who came before us was so blessed. We can all live far richer lives than we ever dreamed…

  • "I Certainly Am Not Going to Demand Prison Sentences If Most Others Do Not See a Need for Them." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: The person named Laugh is correct. I half agree with both you and with Laugh, Reality. I posted Laugh’s comment as a blog entry because I think he is making an important point. Shiller’s book was a best-seller. It is available in most public libraries. He was awarded a Nobel prize for his “revolutionary” (his word) research. Shiller’s findings have been covered-up in an…

  • Greaney on Passion Saving:
    "You'll Have to Buy a Copy...Extraordinary!"
    0 Comments

    My old friend John Greaney, owner of the RetireEarlyHomePage.com web site, has finally (I only had to remind you about 10 times, you bad boy!) gotten around to writing a review of my book Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work. I hope you won't consider it bragging if I mention that Greaney kicks off his review by observing that "Mr. Bennett evidences an unusual skill." That's a kind thing to say. But we go back a long ways, fella. So what's with this "Mr.…

  • "My Wife Is Not a Goon. She Loves Me. So Her Negative Comment Counts for More Than the Negative Comments That I Hear From You Goons. People Need to Know That Even My Own Wife Holds Some Skepticism re My Claims. That's an Important Part of the Story." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: I’m not convinced that your wife meant her comment as a compliment My wife is not a Goon. She loves me. So her negative comment counts for more than the negative comments that I hear from you Goons. People need to know that even my own wife holds some skepticism re my claims. That’s an important part of the story. This reality doesn’t justify your goonishness. But it does add…

  • "I Think I Should be Paid Millions for Being a Professional Actor. Unfortunately, No One Wants to Pay Me for Being an Actor. As Such, I Found Work That I Could Do That People Said They Would Be Willing to Pay Me for Doing. You Need to Do the Same." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: I think I should be paid millions for being a professional actor.  Unfortunately, no one wants to pay me for being an actor.  As such, I found work that I could do that people said they would be willing to pay me for doing.  You need to do the same. The amount of interest that I have seen in Valuation-Informed Indexing during the first 23 years of discussion…

  • "If You Took a Poll of the American People and Described the Situation and Asked 'Has Rob Bennett Worked This Hard Enough?' I Am 100 Percent Confident That 90 Percent of the Population Would Say That I Have Worked It Too Hard and Too Long, Not Too Light and for Not a Long Enough Time. I Know That Because of What Friends and Family Members Tell Me. People Think That I Have Traveled Too Far From the Herd. That’s Virtually a Universal Opinion." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “ It’s definitely my job. It’s definitely your job too, Anonymous. And it’s definitely everyone else’s job.” No, it is only your job as we choose our jobs.  You chose your pathway, now it is your job to set people straight. My conscience is clear, Anonymous. I feel that I have done my part and then some more on top of that and then some more on top…

  • Realty Mogul Site Interviews Rob Bennett 4 Comments

    The Realty Mogul site recently interviewed me re Valuation-Informed Indexing and how it applies to real estate investing. The article is here. Juicy Excerpt: “Going along with conventional advice, I believe people should only invest in things they understand well. Real estate can be very appealing, but I recommend people chose the asset class they are going to focus on and study that to death as opposed to spreading yourself out thin and having a little bit of everything. I have not…

  • "There are Five Factors That Explain Why I Am Perceived Differently: (1) I Focus on the Findings of Peer-Reviewed Research Rather Than Express a Personal Opinion; (2) I Attack Buy-and-Hold As Well As Advocate Valuation-Informed Indexing; (3) I Make Expansive Claims That Strike Most People As Grandiose; (4) I Do Not Possess the Credentials That Would Make People Respect the Claims; and (5) I Seem to Be Questioning the Personal Integrity of People With Stellar Reputations." 9 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: There IS no such such Ban, as you well know. The only applicable ban is the one regarding a single mentally ill persistent troll, for his rotten BEHAVIOR, not for his bizarre beliefs. Shiller can post, Easterling can post, etc. Any of a host of perma-bears, timers, wave-speculators, kooks, cranks, swindlers, and nuts can post on pretty much any board out there. In fact, right up until his…

  • "I Think It Would Be Fair to Say That God or the Universe or Evolution or the Fates Understood That Someone Needed to Do This Extremely Important Work Before the Next Buy-and-Hold Crisis Hit and That I Was the One Elected to Do It. So I Am Not Happy With the Stuff That Caused Anguish but I Accept It as My Fate to Have That Awful Stuff Directed At Me as Part of a Bigger Story in Which Our Nation Achieves a Huge Economic Advance." 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: "A failed retirement is a serious life setback." "Yes, it is very, very, very painful that I am broke and divorced." Would you consider your current situation a failed retirement? No. My Retire Early plan worked like a dream. The plan is described in my book "Passion Saving; The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work." The idea was to save…

  • Goon Poster to Rob: "So An Old, Fat, White Male With an Inheritance Is Claiming Persecution" 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: So an old fat white male with an inheritance is claiming persecution. I am claiming that I have the right to post honestly re SWRs and scores of other critically important investment-related topics at any discussion board or blog on the internet at which I desire to do so. And that my good friend Jack Bogle possesses that same right. And my good friend Bill Bernstein too. And my…

  • Goon Poster to Rob: "Any Wife Would Be Saddened by a Husband Who Is Capable of Working But Hasn't 'Made a Dime in 13 Years.' Since You Acknowledge That Fact, To What Extent (If Any) Does It Bother You?" 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Any wife would be saddened by a husband who is capable of working but hasn’t “made a dime in 13 years”. Since you acknowledge that fact, to what extent (if any) does it bother you? It bothers me. But it doesn’t bother me enough to persuade me to betray my fellow community members and to betray my profession and to betray my country and, yes, to betray my family. Timothy is 15…

  • "I Knew That Greaney's Study Got the Numbers Wrong. And Yet I Encouraged My Friends to Use This Dangerous Study to Plan Their Retirements. I Was a Liar. I Wanted to Be Popular." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: Or to put it another way, all those experts are lying and only Rob Bennett is truthful, or it is just the opposite. Have you ever heard the term "cognitive dissoance," Sammy? It's a real thing. It would be helpful if you would use the term "cognitive dissonance" rather than the word "lying." It would greatly facilitate progress in these discussions if you…

  • "I Have Engaged in Hard Self-Evaluation Every Day for 10 Years Running Now. I Have Come to the Conclusion That It Is Possible That I Am Wrong." 26 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recent put to a discussion thread at this blog:  I agree in full with the first two points you make here and in part with the third, Sparky. I am 100 percent confident that many of the recipients of my e-mails find the e-mail campaign an odd way of spreading the word. How can I be so sure? I find it an odd way of proceeding MYSELF. If the person sending the e-mails finds it an odd way of proceeding, how could at least a significant…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "Valuation-Informed Indexing Failed. You Have Been Wrong. You Just Can't Bring Yourself to Ever Admit It Because Then You Would Have to Admit That the Last Two Decades of Your Life Have Been Wasted." 0 Comments

    Set forth below are the texts of two comments that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: VII failed. YOU have been wrong. You just can’t bring yourself to ever admit it because then you would have to admit that the last two decades of your life have been wasted. There is no way to put a positive spin on it. Okay, Anonymous. I do wish you all good things, in any event. Rob It’s probably a good idea for me to note that the fact that I…

  • "The Thing That I Loved About Buy-and-Hold In the Days When I Carried Around a Membership Card in My Wallet Was That Buy-and-Hold Was the Only Strategy Rooted in the Scientific Method and the Scientific Method Is All About Skepticism and About Rooting One's Beliefs in Evidence Rather Than Just Going By What Feels Right or What Sounds Plausible. The Buy-and-Holders Lost Me When They Became Too Dogmatic Even to Consider the Possibility That They Might Have Somewhere Along the Line Made a Mistake. Valuation-Informed Indexing Is What Buy-and-Hold Used to Be, What Buy-and-Hold Was Meant to Be, What Buy-and-Hold Should Be." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Does the 15 yr old realize how strange you are yet? Timothy is 16. Robert is 13. I was expressing skepticism about something at lunch the other day (it might have been a claim that someone made on an Amazon review about the battery life for a laptop computer) and Robert said: “Dad, you have trust issues.” That made me laugh. That has relevance to our…

  • "If This Situation Had Been Normal All Along, the Opportunity Wouldn’t Have Been Available to Me." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:  Then why haven’t you had the same level of success and acclaim as well as wealth, in comparison to Bogle and Shiller? I am on my way, Anonymous. It’s a process that is playing out before our eyes. It’s a drama that can only end one way. The trick is not to get scared when it looks like the bad guys are close to shutting it down. If it had been up to me,…

  • "The Book Is Not an Intellectually Difficult Project. It Is an EXTREMELY Difficult Emotional Project. That's Why No One Else Has Written This Book in the 41 Years Since Shiller Published His Amazing, Revolutionary, Nobel-Prize-Winning Research Findings. It Is an Emotionally Harrowing Experience to Tell Millions of People Something That They Very, Very, Very Much Do Not Want to Hear, That Their Stock Portfolio Is Not Worth Anything Close to What They Have Been led to believe It Is Worth." 25 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “ I’ve answered your question.” No you haven’t. You haven’t said why you can’t do both at the same time when there are plenty of hours in the day. You seem to have time to post here, on ValueWalk, Twitter, etc. you seem to have time for watching movies, baseball, etc. Yet you have chosen to put your wife and her concerns last when there is plenty of…

  • "Your Name Was Brought Up Over on a Reddit Board for FIRE-Minded Folks and It Ignited Quite the Firestorm! Some People Were Wondering If You’d Be Willing to Go Over There for an AMA (Ask Me Anything)." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Hey, Rob! Your name was brought up over on a reddit board for FIRE-minded folks and it ignited quite the firestorm! Some people were wondering if you’d be willing to go over there for an AMA (Ask Me Anything). Are you familiar with that format? The board is located here: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ I’d be thrilled to do an “Ask Me…

  • "We Are Seeing Jack Bogle's Dream Come True Before Our Eyes....I Certainly Don't Regret One Second of the Past 13 Years. This Is the Thing That I Will Point to When Trying to Explain to My Boys What It Means to Be a Man, to Live a Good Life That You Can Look Back at With Pride and Satisfaction." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: I guess the difference is that most people 1) actually try to adapt and change their approach I.e. Learn from failure and 2) define parameters and limits on the extent of their efforts I.e. Limit their exposure and depth of commitment. In the absence of these things you are likely to fail indefinitely with no recourse and look like a loon while persisting. I don’t see any failure here,…

  • "You Are Correct to Note That It Is a Personality Trait of Mine to Stick to a Routine. I Am a Cautious Person by Nature. I Think That Is One of the Reasons Why I Spent so Much Time Investigating the Safe Withdrawal Rate Concept During the Years When I Was Putting Together My Retire Early Plan. I Was Not Willing to Go by What Other People Said. When Some Aspect or Another of the Story Did Not Seem to Add Up, I Dug Deeper Until I Was Able to Make Better Sense of the Matter." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Oops. I don’t think you meant to post this today. You never do two posts in one day, let alone one of them to a ValueWalk that you just posted. One thing we can always count on you for is sticking to the routine. Unless you’re having a crisis/meltdown. Care to share? I intended to have that post appear on March 15 and I failed to change the month in which it…

  • Goon Poster to Rob: "Are We to Believe That Each and Every One of These Well-Respected People Are Lying and That Only Rob Bennett Is Telling the Truth?" 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: That is a flat out lie, Rob. It is funny you mention Wade Pfau. He is the person that said you have caused him more harm than those you refer to as goons. In fact, he told you to stop talking about him. He also pointed out how you are wrong on the SWR issue. He is the actual author of the paper that you claim to be an author. When you have been confronted…

  • "I Had Posted With a Good Number of People at the Motley Fool Board for Three Years and Had Gotten to Know Them and to Care About What Happened to Them." 20 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “I’ll do what I can to get along.” Not really a plan when you are in your 60’s. It’s now to late to say you will wait to see how it will all turn out. We see how it played out. It failed. It's about 500 times better than betraying my friends and then not knowing how I am going to be able to sleep at night, Anonymous. I had posted with a good number of…

  • "You Have Been Widely Banned. That Speaks Volumes. You Have Been Widely Ignored. That Speaks Volumes. You Are Broke. That Speaks Volumes. Your Wife Divorced You. That Speaks Volumes." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You have been widely banned.  That speaks volumes.  You have been widely ignored.  That speaks volumes.  You are broke.  That speaks volumes.  Your wife divorced you.  That speaks volumes. It says something. It says that we really, really, really life irrational exuberance. Our Get Rich Quick urge goes deep. But so does our desire for irrationality. We…

  • Goon Poster to Rob: "No One Has to Do a Thing to Please You. We Can't Help It If You Are Too Stupid to Understand Things." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted at another blog entry at this site: No one has to do a thing to please you. We can’t help it if you are too stupid to understand things. We have significant data and facts supporting a buy, hold and rebalance strategy and don’t need some market timing scheme. We are big boys and girls and can make our own judgements and have plenty of information to make up our own minds. You need to take responsibility for ourself and…

  • Pop Economics Pulls Back Promised Guest Blog on Big Fail of Buy-and-Hold (But Please Note Correction!) 2 Comments

    [Introductory Note: I was wrong! After I posted this blog entry, I sent an e-mail with a link to it to Pop. He wrote back saying that "I was just lazy and taking forever to 'popize' your image." Pop intends to get the Guest Blog Entry posted at his site within the next day or two. I look forward to seeing it there and getting a chance to talk over the points made in it with interested parties. I gave a quick thought to deleting this blog entry but decided that it may be useful in letting people…

  • "Let’s Say That Shiller Changes His Mind and Tells People That We Should Time the Market with CAPE and Then He Gets Rich from People Buying His Books With This New Message………..but Then You Are Still Ignored and You Don’t Earn a Single Dime From All This. Are You Okay With That Outcome?" 30 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Let’s say that Shiller changes his mind and tells people that we should time the market with CAPE and then he gets rich from people buying his books with this new message………..but then you are still ignored and you don’t earn a single dime from all this.  Are you okay with that outcome? I wouldn't be happy about it. But I could live with it. I see it as a…

  • "The Proper Way to Describe Me Would Be to Say That I Am Non-Stubborn in General But Very Stubborn When Conditions Apply That Make the Issue at Hand Appear in My Mind to Be One of Great Consequence. I Have Reasons Why I Feel a Need to Stand Firm re the Investing Matter. My Experience Is That Matters of This Nature Are Sometimes Resolved as the Result of Unexpected Developments. The Buy-and-Holders Made a Mistake in Taking Such a Hard Line and Regret That Mistake Today. I Believe That Someday There Will Be Circumstances That Will Cause Them to Ease Up Just a Notch." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: "But she doesn’t agree with my strategy for dealing with the problem." Your wife is a wise woman. I just hope she doesn’t expect you to change. I half agree with what you are saying here and I half do not, Evidence. I am not generally a non-yielding person AT ALL. When it comes to things like what movie to go see or what restaurant to eat at, I ALWAYS am the one who defers to the…

  • "The Old School Safe-Withdrawal-Rate Studies Did Not Contain Valuation Adjustments. Lots of People Either Did Notice It or Could Have Noticed It Had They Been Paying Attention. But I Am the One Who Noticed It and Went Public With What I Noticed and Then Didn’t Back Down. That's How Great Discoveries Are Made." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Do you think you should be awarded a Nobel prize? Should you be Time Magazines man of the year? Should you be on the front page of The New York Times? I think the work that I have done over the past 13 years is of huge importance, Anonymous. The work that I have done is built on the work of many others. As I have noted many times, there would be no Valuation-Informed Indexing today had…

  • "I Have Come to Have Doubts As To How Much a Technical Background Counts for in This Field Today" 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Value Walk site: I think your comment is super, Buzz. I am grateful to you for taking the time out of your day to share your thoughts with us.  Also, I just want to note that I do not possess any particular "technical experience" in this field. My training and experience is as a journalist. I learned in the late 1990s (from reading a book by John Bogle -- "Common Sense on Mutual Funds") that Reversion to the Mean…

  • "I Can Bring in a Higher Income (By a Factor of 500 or More) By Doing the Work That I Am Doing Today. I Have Spent Decades Developing the Abilities That I Employ to Do This Work. I Want to Put My Talents to Their Highest and Best Use. People Generate Wealth by Adding Value. Opening the Internet to Honest Posting on the Last 36 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research in This Field is the Biggest Value-Add That I Have Ever Come Across in My Lifetime." 16 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Please help us understand why you wouldn’t do everything in your power to relieve the stress on your wife by getting a job. Because I think that I can bring in a higher income (by a factor of 500 or more) by doing the work that I am doing today. I have spent decades developing the abilities that I employ to do this work. I want to put my talents to their highest…

  • "I Have Made Contributions That Neither Bogle Nor Shiller Have Made. I Give My Best Shot to Answering Every Question Put to Me. I Struggle Mightily to be Honest in the Face of Enormous Pressures to be Otherwise. But the Idea That I 'See All the Issues' Is Flat-Out Nuts." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: So Bogle, Shiller, the goons, etc., are either lying, misunderstood, don’t care, ignore and/or suffer from cognitive dissonance and only Rob Bennett has been able to clearly see all of the issues and has the only clear understanding as to how the market dies or should act. Have I got that right? Bogle has brought scores of critically important investing insights…

  • "When Two Sides in a Dispute Are Both 100 Percent Inflexible re the Key Point of Contention, the Only Thing to Do Is to Take a Step Back and See If Time Causes Circumstances to Change in Some Way. I Wish You All the Best That This Life Has to Offer a Person. I Believe That We Will Be Working Together Following the Crash." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: If you are waiting for a 65% crash, followed by your $500 million windfall and goons going to prison, then you will probably need to come visit me at the local cemetery as I will be long gone by that time. I am not planning on passing away anytime soon, but old age will eventually catch up to me in another 50 years or so. Fair enough? I guess. I don’t like this way of playing…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "When You Are Commonly Banned on the Boards, It Should Be a Wake-Up Call That You Are Doing Something Wrong." 5 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site: When you are commonly banned on the boards, it should be a wake up call that you are doing something wrong. Well, I've been banned at many places, Sammy. That one is beyond dispute. And this reality signifies something. We are in complete agreement re that one too. We differ on what it means. You say that it signifies that I am doing something…

  • "I Am Informal But I Am Hard-Working. I See Myself As an Advocate of the Average Middle-Class Person. My Writing Certainly Conveys Idealism. I Very Much Want to Convey Friendliness, Which Is Naturally a Part of My Persona. I Worry That the Conflict That Surrounds Discussions of Valuation-Informed Indexing Subtracts From the Feeling of Friendliness. But I See Myself As a Friendly REPORTER and I Feel That Reporters Cannot Be ONLY Friendly -- They Must Also Be Fighters and Have the Courage to Stand Up to Power." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent to Jaime Tardy, owner of the EventualMillionaire.com site, on October 25, 2013: Jaime: It's nice to hear from you. Yes, that makes sense. The average person believes that valuations matter. Almost everyone agrees with me on the principle. But the average person does not think it is even remotely possible that valuations matter as much as I say they do. My belief is that the reason why is that they have never run the numbers. I…

  • Jaime Tardy to Rob: "I Would Challenge You to Forget the Past on All This. Because Everything Comes Back to the Negativity and Talking About Your Story. I Don't Think We Should Focus on That at All. They Need to Know, Like and Trust YOU Before You Can Throw the Information at Them. Otherwise, They Distrust YOU Because Your View Is So Contrarian." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of an e-mail sent to me by Jaime Tardy, owner of the EventualMillionaire.com site, on November 4, 2013: This does provide a summary for sure :) Though most of them are from years ago - are the same goons still around doing things? Or have you given up going to other sites now since you are banned at others? I would challenge you to forget the past on all of this. Because everything comes back to the negativity and talking about your story. I don't think…

  • Greaney Goon to Rob: "Your Communication Is Often Abrasive and Your Behavior Is Horrible. You Make Outrageous Claims As to What You Have Accomplished Despite Contrary Evidence and Then Compare Yourself to Well-Known Historical Figures." 11 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that one of the Greaney Goons put to another blog entry at this site: Rob, Here are just a few reason why your website is not successful: You can’t back up your statements with facts (linking to your own comments are not facts) When faced with facts that are documented by others that you do not agree with, you ignore them or delete the posts. Your communication is often abrasive and your behavior is horrible. You make silly unfounded…

  • Where I'm Weak, Where I'm Strong 4 Comments

    Please don’t come to this site looking for advice on sophisticated investing transactions. I’ve got my hands full changing how the world thinks about the basics! In all seriousness, I do not study the sophisticated stuff. If there were more hours in the day, I would have a go at it. The basics matter to more people and I happened to discover that there are serious weaknesses in the basic investing advice being offered by most of the “experts” in this field. So that’s where I direct…

  • "I Write a Weekly Column on Valuation-Informed Indexing at the Value Walk Site. In 10 Years, That's Over 500 Columns. I Have Learned at Lot Over the Past 10 Years." 2 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “ Your retirement is not “fully funded” if more than half of the money in your account consists of irrational exuberance, Anonymous,” That’s what you said 10 years ago and look at how that worked out for you. Meanwhile, you are banking on a windfall with odds that are worse than playing the lottery. I say the same thing today that I said 10 years ago,…

  • "As the Rewards Grow Greater and Greater, My Ability to Be Honest Grows Stronger and Stronger. I Don’t Even Think About It Much Today, I Just Do It. My Decision to Write Honestly About the Last 35 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research in This Field Has Shocked a Lot of People But It Has Also Led Me to Some Amazing Places." 10 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: With all these people lying, are you the only honest person left? We have had thousands of people express a desire that honest posting be permitted at every investing discussion board and blog on the internet, Anonymous. I am confident that, following the next price crash, the thousands will become millions. Then we are off to the races. We all have a potential…

  • "Human Beings Are Social Animals. We Want To Be Liked. It Hurts To Be Rejected By Others. And Shiller’s Message Is a Message that Most People Very Much Want to Reject. I Am Telling People Who Have a $100,000 Stock Portfolio That They Really Have $50,000 of Lasting Value. How Do You Think That Makes Them Feel? And How Do You Think It Makes Me Feel When They Reject Me Out of Fear That What I Am Saying Might Really Be So?" 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters” You’re not sincere, and these matters are not important. If “opening every board and blog to honest posting” is so goll-durn important, why aren’t you doing anything about it? You haven’t even tried to post anywhere else in years. You’re still talking about 1999 as if it’s a current…

  • "Do You Think It Would Have Been Better If I Had Just Kept It Zipped re the Error in the Study?" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You have no businesses making the comma you do when you lack any education in this area and have a failed retirement. Do you think it would have been better if I had just kept it zipped re the error in the…

  • "When It Gets Into the Thousands, It Is Beyond Irritating. It Means People Have Seen It and Answered It So Many Times." 4 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “ The number is in the tens of thousands.” Thanks for finally admitting that your message is out there. Not only that, any normal person would tell you that have a couple hundred times, it has gotten excessive. When it gets into the thousands, it is beyond irritating. It means people have seen it and answered it so many times, they are sick of it. Further, if…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "Is It Irrational to Base Your Retirement Plan on the Hope of Getting a $500 Million Windfall?" 10 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog  entry at this site: Is it irrational to base your retirement plan on the hope of getting a $500 million windfall? Sure. When you've done the work to earn that $500 million. When you've pointed out an error in a retirement study that millions of people need to know about because lots of other retirement studies contain the same error and the study has remained uncorrected for 20…

  • "Robert Shiller Has Been Awarded a Freakin' Nobel Prize for His Work. And Yet Thousands of Investing Analysts and Academic Researchers Remain to This Day Too Afraid of What the Buy-and-Holders Will Do to Them to Be Willing to Direct Their Energies to Exploring the Implications of the Peer-Reviewed Research That Shiller Published 34 YEARS AGO. And I Am Supposed to Consider Moving On? Really? That's a Question You Feel a Need to Ask?" 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: Wade told you to move on three years ago. You simply can’t. Ever. That’s messed up. Why the heck would I ever want to move on, Stag? Are you joking? I write about personal finance. The shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing is the biggest advance ever achieved in the history of personal finance. It is bigger than all earlier advances all added together. And I am going…

  • "Once We Got the Greaney Study Corrected, It Was My Intention to Take the Discussion to Every Site on the Internet and Determine What It Is Within Us That Makes Us Want to Deceive Ourselves as to How Stock Investing Works." 8 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: And you have been told 10’s of thousands of times that there no error as the study did not require that. It is a retrospective study. It is surprising that any board owner would let you post the same thing hundreds of times. Thousands of times is abusive. 10’s of thousands is a whole new level of horrible behavior and there was obviously no choice but to…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "Here You Are, Over the Age of 60, Living in the Land of Make Believe With the Silly Stories on Death Threat, etc. Meanwhile, You Are Run Through Savings and Have Destroyed Your Social Security Benefits By Avoiding Work. You Have No Relevant Work Experience As You Haven't Had a Job in About 2 Decades, So Any Job Your Could Possibly Land Would Pay a Very Minimum Income. To Provide for Retirement, Your Plan Revolves Around Some Fantasy of a $500 Million Windfall. Yet Here You Are Preaching to Everyone About Investing for Retirement. Really????" 26 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Here you are, over the age of 60, living in the land of make believe with the silly stories on death threat, etc. Meanwhile, you are run through savings and have destroyed your social security benefits by avoiding work. You have no relevant work experience as you haven't had a job in about 2 decades, so any job your could possibly land would pay a very minimum income.…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "I Am Guessing Your Own Wife Agrees More With Me Versus You." 6 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: I am guessing your own wife agrees more with me versus you. I don't agree with that. She hates the Goon stuff. She has total contempt for it. The sense in which she agrees with you is that she believes that a husband and father needs to be bringing in money, that there's just no getting around that core reality. She doesn't understand the investing stuff well…

  • "I Don't Seek to Take Over Any Discussions. It Just Happens. The Reason Why It Happens Is That the Things I Say Make So Much Sense to Most People and Most People Have Never Before Heard Anyone Say These Things. So They Naturally Are Interested and Want to Learn More. So They Naturally Ask Lots of Questions. And the Next Thing You Know One of the Buy-and-Holders Feels Bad That I Have Yet Again 'Taken Over' a Discussion." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: What they take issue with is the way you seek to take over every discussion and make it about yourself and your views. I don’t seek to take over any discussions, Sensible. It just happens. The reason why it happens is that the things I say make so much sense to most people and most people have never before heard anybody say these things. So they naturally are interested and want to…

  • "It Is BECAUSE We Are on the Verge of the Greatest Advance in the History of Personal Finance That the Buy-and-Holders Are So Insanely Defensive. If the Peer-Reviewed Research That I Co-Authored With Wade Pfau Showed Us All How to Reduce the Risk of Stock Investing by 5 Percent, I Would Be the Toast of the Town. But I Committed the Terrible Crime of Showing How to Reduce Risk By 70 Percent. That Makes the Buy-and-Holders Look Bad." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site: You are wrong. They are both data driven fields. If investment advice is 100 corrupt, than you must distrust all advice, including your own comments. Show me one instance in the medical field in which someone of Bogle’s stature permitted his name to be used on a discussion board at which the sorts of individuals who have posted in “defense” of Mel Linduaer or John Greaney are…

  • "People Have Been Dropping Veiled Hints for 30 Years and There Are Still People Pushing Buy-and-Hold Today...We Need to Do the Wild Thing!" 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Goon Central board: it's just that not enough folks have yet been introduced to your insanity profound insights in order to create a tipping point which will make the Hocomania Wave unstoppable!   Yes, it's a Tipping Point thing. EVERYONE (including you, Yip!) knows that GRQ is garbage. That's close to universal. Virtually no one knew that Buy-and-Hold was GRQ garbage in 1974, when A Random Walk Down Wall…

  • "My Parents Gave Me My Inheritance With Certain Unspoken Expectations. They Had Values They Instilled In Me As a Boy That They Hoped I Would Follow As An Adult: Honesty, Caring About Others, and Doing Solid Work. If I Were to Post Dishonesty on Safe Withdrawal Rates, I Would Be Dishonoring My Parents." 6 Comments

    Set forth below are the texts of three comments that I recently posted to the Goon Central board: Not true, since most of what you have you inherited. > My father and mother worked very hard for a long number of years for the money I inherited from them, GW. My mother had to leave school after eighth grade to work in a factory so that her family had enough to eat in the Depression. They lived in the row-house they bought (mostly with checks he sent back to her while he was in…

  • "I Believe That the Buy-and-Holders Are Great People. I Like Them as Individuals. I Want To Be Friends With Them." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: If you were confident in your market timing scheme, you wouldn’t keep attacking the buy and holders.  If you were confident in your market timing scheme, you would keep making up death threat accusations.  If you were confident in your market timing scheme, you would keep banning posts at your website.  If you were confident in your market timing scheme, you…

  • Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: "My Posts Have Always Been Based on Truth. You Have Made Many False and Hurtful Allegations Against Very Good People. You Have Given Out Harmful Financial Advice, Despite Having No Training/Education in the Field. Most Importantly, You Have Failed to Adequately Provide for Your Family." 8 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: It was wrong of me to make posts that appeared to make fun of you. With that said, my posts have always been based on truth. You have made many false and hurtful allegations against very good people. You have given out harmful financial advice, despite having no training/education in the field. Most importantly, you have failed to adequately provide for your…

  • "Some People Try to Retire Early to Escape Work. I Wanted to Retire Early to Do More Meaningful Work. That Is What Motivated All of My Saving Efforts." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: So instead of an easy job that pays money, you took a hard job that pays nothing. For 15 years and counting. That sounds, now what’s the word? Dumb. Most people would call it dumb. I think it would be fair to say that that’s why you don’t see anybody else doing it. I do love my country, Anonymous. Some would call that dumb too. But I do love my country.…

  • "A Lot of People Want to Be Spoon-Fed. I See This All the Time. So I See the Benefit of a Product That Involves Spoon-Feeding. My Personal Belief, Though, Is That There Is Also a Need for Reinforcement of the Ideas Being Followed to Keep People on Track Long Enough for These Ideas to Pay Off." 0 Comments

    Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent to Ken Evoy, owner of the SiteSell.com web hosting company, on April 16, 2014: Ken: Thanks for your response. I certainly am interested. I will continue to follow the threads at the forum. As details become more clear, please just let me know if you have an interest in me being involved. If you have questions re what I am good at and re the amount of time that I can devote to this or anything else along those lines, I am of…

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  • “I Agree That You Can Today Spend the Portion of Your Retirement Account That Is Just Irrational Exuberance. I Do Not Agree That That Portion Should Be Viewed as Being the Same as the Portion That Is Not Irrational Exuberance.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: I have millions of dollars and they are real. They are in my account and I can spend it at any time. Your dollars are not real. They are not in your account and only exist in your head. You won’t see one cent of your fantasy $500 million windfall. How do you know? Because you have nothing to spend. These are important facts as it determines WHO has the problem. If I had a major issue come up (medical, repair to home, etc) I have the money to pay for it right now? Can you say the same? Of course not. You don’t have any money as you have admitted many times. I agree that you can today spend the portion of your retirement account that is just irrational exuberance. I do not agree that that portion should be viewed as being the same as the portion that is not irrational exuberance.. The research shows that the irrational exuberance amounts will disappear in time and cannot be relied on. Rob Related Posts“At the Very Bare Minimum, We Need to Make It a Practice to Tell Both Sides of the Story. Reasonable People Need to Absolutely Insist on That Much.”“Buy-and-Hold Numbers Are Fantasy, Pretend Numbers. Valuation-Informed Indexing Numbers Are Real Numbers. Millions of Words Have Been Spilled and It All Comes Down to This — Valuation-Informed Indexers Adjust for Valuations and Buy-and-Holders Do Not. It’s So Simple. One Model Gets the Numbers Right and the Other Does Not.”“You Don’t Know How Much You Have. You Don’t Subtract for Irrational Exuberance. How Could You Possibly Know?”“We Can All Enjoy Annual Returns of 6.5 Percent Real Without Permitting Any Irrational Exuberance Whatsoever.”“You Don’t Have a $4 Million Account That Will Be Earning a Return of 6.5 Percent Real for As Long As You Hold It. You Have a $4 Million Account That Will Be Earning Returns Far Below 6.5 Percent Real Until the Stated Value of the Account Comes to Reflect its Real Value (Which Is Half of Today’s Stated Value).”“I Learned That the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold Urge Is a Very Strong Thing. It Would Be Very Easy to Overcome It If Investors Were 100 Percent Rational, As Was Assumed By the People Who Concluded That There Is […]

    (2 Comments)

  • “My “Fantasy” Is That Someday the Same Laws That Apply in Every Field Other Than the Investment Advice Field Will Apply in the Investment Advice Field as Well.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: My money is a lot more real vs your money. I actually have it in my accounts. Your money is part of some fantasy that you are someday going to get a wild windfall. No, Rob. We are not on your side. Fix your own problems. My “fantasy” is that someday the same laws that apply in every field other than the investment advice field will apply in the investment advice field as well. I view that as an entirely realistic belief. I believe that the arc of history in the personal finance realm bends toward rationality. Rob   Related Posts“We Don’t Accept the Phony Numbers. We Fear the Emotional Pain We Experience When Our Longstanding Game of Let’s Pretend Is Exposed to Daylight. We Are ASHAMED.”“Shiller Showed Us That It Is Primarily INVESTOR EMOTION That Determines Stock Prices, Not Economic Developments. So We All Need to Make a Switch to Talking Primarily About Investor Emotion. We Should Be Looking for Signs of Emotion and Then Trying to Explain Them.”“I Have Raised the Possibility of an Amnesty for People Who Have Continued to Promote Buy-and-Hold Because They Once Truly Believed in it and Who Are Suffering Cognitive Dissonance re the Last 34 Years of Research Because It Is Just Too Hard for Them to Accept That They Got Something Wrong. But I Can’t Adopt an Amnesty By Myself. We Have to Get Congress Involved. We Need to Have a National Debate.”Passive Investing Has Already Failed“The Idea That We Suspend the Financial Market’s Equivalent of the Laws of Thermodynamics When We Show That Long-Term Timing Is Required Is Not Just Goon Talk. Millions Believe This. That’s a Good Thing. It Indicates the Massive Scope of the Opportunity Presented to Us.”“The Thing That Is Really Off in the Investment Advice Field Is That the Non-Experts — the People Who Will Be Suffering Huge Losses in the Event That the Stock Market Continues to Perform in the Future Somewhat As It Always Has in the Past — Tolerate the Cover-Up. That’s Nuts. But They’ve Got That Get Rich Quick Impulse Residing Within Them That Makes Them Like Buy-and-Hold, that Makes Them Think That This Might Be the First Time in History When It Doesn’t End in Tears for Everyone.”

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  • “How Much of the Money You Have Is Real and How Much of It Is Pretend? Do You Even Care to Know?”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: How hard is it to understand.  We have money.  You don’t.  That means we don’t have to do anything and you do.  Fix your own problems because we are not lifting a finger for you. How much of the money you have is real and how much of it is pretend? Do you even care to know? That’s not my problem. That’s your problem. Fixing that problem would not be lifting a finger for me, it would be lifting a finger for you. That’s what I believe, Anonymous. There are no two sides here. We are all on the same side. Rob Related Posts“At the Very Bare Minimum, We Need to Make It a Practice to Tell Both Sides of the Story. Reasonable People Need to Absolutely Insist on That Much.”“You Don’t Know How Much You Have. You Don’t Subtract for Irrational Exuberance. How Could You Possibly Know?”Goon Poster to Rob: “Why Do You Continue to Do What You Do? Clearly You Are Not Making Any Money.”“What I Am Doing In Demanding Recognition of Everyone’s Right to Post Honestly Is As Important As What Shiller Did in Publishing His Revolutionary Research. Shiller Got Us Where We Need to Go Intellectually. I Am Getting Us Where We Need to Go in the Practical Realm. Shiller Did Amazing Work. But Millions of Investors Are Today Completely in the Dark re the IMPLICATIONS of His Amazing Work.”Goon Poster to Rob: “Any Wife Would Be Saddened by a Husband Who Is Capable of Working But Hasn’t ‘Made a Dime in 13 Years.’ Since You Acknowledge That Fact, To What Extent (If Any) Does It Bother You?”Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: “Okay, Then We Don’t Need to Lift Any of the Bans on You, Greaney Can Keep Doing What He Is Doing, Wade Can Keep Ignoring You, Your Wife Doesn’t Need to Feel Guilty for Dumping You and the Bogleheads Don’t Need to Invite You to Any of Their Future Meetings. Thanks, Rob.”

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  • “When a Nation of People Suffers a Buy-and-Hold Crisis, No One Is Entirely Spared.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: That market timing strategy of making you go broke is working out so great for you, Rob.  Way to go.  I guess I will have to just be miserable with having millions of dollars. Today’s CAPE value signals an economic collapse that will cause an ocean of misery for millions of people. You certainly should be sad about that and about your role in making it a reality. And your millions won’t entirely protect you. When a nation of people suffers a Buy-and-Hold Crisis, no one is entirely spared. I’d like to see us move beyond all that. I believe that we will get on a better path in days to come. We’ll see. My best wishes to you. Rob Related Posts“We All Have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold Urge Residing Within Us. It’s Been Causing Bull Markets and Economic Collapses So Long As There Has Been a Stock Market.”“If It Is True That Valuations Affect Long-Term Returns, Then the Market Is Going to Collapse Whenever Large Numbers of Investors Come to Believe That a Buy-and-Hold Strategy Might Work. A Market in Which Large Numbers of Investors Fail to Practice Price Discipline Is a Dysfunctional Market.”“It Is the Collapse in Confidence in Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold That Causes Prices to Fall.”“I Don’t Agree Even a Tiny Bit That, If You Lower Your Stock Allocation a Bit and Then Prices Go Even Higher, You Have Somehow ‘Missed Out’ on Something. You ‘Missed Out’ on Having More Irrational Exuberance in Your Portfolio That’s a Good Thing!”“The Point That Needs to Be Examined Is Whether Gains That Cause the CAPE Value To Go Above 16 Are Real, Economic Gains, the Same As Gains Earned When the CAPE Is Below 16, or Whether Gains Achieved When the CAPE Is Above 16 Are Just Irrational Exuberance and Should Not Be Counted.”“If We Were All Thinking Clearly, We Would All Want to See the Acts of Intimidation Come to a Full and Complete Stop. Of Course, If We Were All Thinking Clearly, Today’s CAPE Value Would Not Be Anything Close to 30. It All Fits Together.”

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  • “We All Possess a Sincere Desire to Invest Effectively for the Long Run. But the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold Impulse That Resides Within All of Us Compromises Our Efforts. We Need Open Discussion of the Peer-Reviewed Research to Strengthen Our Resolve.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Buy and Holders, by definition, continue to buy regardless of the daily swings of the stock market.  The failures you describe are clearly market timers.  These are the people that make emotional responses to the daily fluctuations and THEIR perception of the stock market valuation.  This is why the top 10% continue to consolidate ownership of stock.  You are a market timer, Rob.  You are broke. Do Buy-and-Holders adjust their stock allocation in response to changes in valuations? That’s the question on the table, Anonymous. Do Buy-and-Holders Stay the Course in a meaningful way? Valuation-Informed Indexers do that. We engage in valuation-based market timing. That’s the only difference between Buy-and-Hold and Valuation-Informed Indexing. VII is Buy-and-Hold updated to reflect the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. It’s a big difference. As long as most investors are Staying the Course in a meaningful way, irrational exuberance, the cancer of the personal finance world, cannot get out of control. Stock prices are self-regulating so long as honest posting re the peer-reviewed research is permitted at every internet site. We all possess a sincere desire to invest effectively for the long run. But the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse that resides within all of us, compromises our efforts. We need open discussion of the peer-reviewed research to strengthen our resolve. My sincere take. Rob Related Posts“At the Very Bare Minimum, We Need to Make It a Practice to Tell Both Sides of the Story. Reasonable People Need to Absolutely Insist on That Much.”“Is There Any CAPE Level at Which Stocks No Longer Represent a Bargain According to Your Perspective on Things?”“You’re Not Adjusting for Irrational Exuberance. If You Adjust for Irrational Exuberance, You Get Very Different Numbers.”“You’re a Liar. I Might Just As Well Say That You Are a Human. It Comes With the Territory. The Question Is Whether You Want To Make Use of the Tools Now Available to All of Us Who Want to Be More Honest and Thus More Successful Stock Investors.”“The Idea Behind Valuation-Informed Indexing Is to Take the Emotion Out of the Stock Investing Project. All That We Need To Do To Stop the Horrible Losses Is To Stop the Insane Highs.”“Buy-and-Hold Is a Marketing Gimmick. People Would Be Better Off Being […]

    (2 Comments)

  • “It Is the Roller Coaster Ride Created By the Buy-and-Hold Mindset (No Price Discipline When Buying Stocks Now!) That Causes All the Crazy Ups and Downs. All of That Is Optional Today and Has Been for 44 Years Now, All We Need To Do At This Point Is To Get the Word Out.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: The sellers are market timers because they don’t have enough dry powder. Someone sitting there with only a few hundred thousands has no ability to hang on for the long term. They will always bail during any perceived time of risk. I have already shared some of my details. You probably remember that my portfolio generates $300K plus a year in interest and dividends. I also have other sources of income. I don’t need to sell and I just keep doing just like the rest of the top 10% in that I keep accumulating assets. It is fine if you don’t want to hold stock. People like me will continue to buy. Remember the old saying: “The are two types of people with McDonald’s. One type is the customer that buys the burgers. The other type is the guy that owns McDonald’s (stock). Pick which one you want to be. Valuation-Informed Indexers don’t count phony gains as real. So they don’t perceive risk in the disappearance of the phony gains. They are looking at the realities and the realities of stock investing are very reassuring — gains of 6.5 percent real annually. It is the roller coaster ride created by the Buy-and-Hold mindset (no price discipline when buying stocks now!) that causes all the crazy ups and downs. All of that is optional today and has been for 44 years now, All we need to do at this point is to get the word out. Irrational exuberance is the cancer of the personal finance world. Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is the cure for cancer. We should permit people to partake in the cure. Rob Related PostsValuation-Informed Indexing #264: Shiller’s Findings Revolutionize Our Understanding of How the Economy Works Too“Some People Have Been Waiting Since the Mid 90s for Stocks to Be Cheap Enough (in Their Opinion) to Buy.”“Those 29 Years Were Not Good Years for Stock Owners.”Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: “If Buy and Holders Did Not Have Confidence, They Would Have Done Something Different.”Valuation-Informed Indexing #596: Stock Prices Drift Upward Unless Most Investors Practice Market Timing“Shiller Showed Us That It Is Primarily INVESTOR EMOTION That Determines Stock Prices, Not Economic Developments. So We All Need to Make a Switch to Talking Primarily About Investor Emotion. We Should […]

    (36 Comments)

  • “The Idea Behind Valuation-Informed Indexing Is to Take the Emotion Out of the Stock Investing Project. All That We Need To Do To Stop the Horrible Losses Is To Stop the Insane Highs.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Yep. Market timers are selling there stock and just look at how everything has been consolidated at the top. Not surprising and it is not just stock. Take a look at real estate holdings and how that has changed over the years. You can decide if you want to follow those that have been successful or you can go with the 90% that struggle. The people who you are calling “market timers” are just Buy-and-Holders who have lost confidence in their strategy. Buy-and-Hold is a confidence game. Excessive confidence causes prices to go to crazy high levels and excessive pessimism causes prices to go to crazy low levels. The idea behind Valuation-Informed Indexing is to take the emotion out of the stock investing project. Those times of low prices are horror stories. We should all want to bring an end to them. To do that, we need to focus on what causes them. It’s high prices that cause the insane price drops. All that we need to do to stop the horrible losses is to stop the insane highs. That’s done with valuation-based market timing. Valuation-based market timing is the key to long-term investing success. Irrational exuberance is a snare and a delusion, Anonymous. It is not real. It hurt us. We should all work together to to keep it from getting out of control. We should all work to keep the CAPE level at a reasonable levels. My sincere take. Rob Related Posts“We Don’t Accept the Phony Numbers. We Fear the Emotional Pain We Experience When Our Longstanding Game of Let’s Pretend Is Exposed to Daylight. We Are ASHAMED.”“The Losses That We Need to Cover as a Result of the Continued Promotion of Buy-and-Hold ‘Strategies’ are $24 Trillion, $6 Trillion More Than the Entire Federal Debt of $18 Trillion, Constituting All the Annual Budget Deficits Going Back to the Days of George Washington Added Together. Buy-and-Hold Is Truly Bad Stuff.”“Market Timing Is the Thing That Permits the Market to Do its Core Job — Get Prices Right. It Is Market Timing That Keeps the Market Functional.”“Is There Any CAPE Level at Which Stocks No Longer Represent a Bargain According to Your Perspective on Things?”“Child Porn and Slave Trading and Murder for Hire Are Far, Far, […]

    (6 Comments)

  • “Say That the Alcoholic Beverage Industry Con Men Didn’t Want to Acknowledge Their Mistake. They Might Say That the Explanation for the Millions of Deaths That They Caused Is That Six Beers Isn’t Really Enough, That People Need to Drink a Minimum of Eight Beers Before They Can Drive a Car Safely.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “ I do not intend to write fresh material.” When did you ever write fresh material? I have never seen anything new. Valuations affect long-term returns. That’s the story. It’s a pretty darn simple message. But it’s important. Say that that the alcoholic beverage industry got control of all the driving schools and put out a message that the key to safe driving is always to drink six beers before getting behind the wheel. That would be a catastrophe equal to the catastrophe that we have seen in the investment advice field with this garbage about how there might be some alternate universe in which valuation-based market timing might not be 100 percent required for every investor. Say that that the alcoholic beverage industry con men didn’t want to acknowledge their mistake. They might say that the explanation for the millions of deaths that they caused is that six beers isn’t really enough, that people need to drink a minimum of eight beers before they can drive a car safely. And on and on like that. When you make a mistake this big, the best thing to do is to acknowledge it and move on. Covering it up just makes things worse. My sincere take. Rob Related Posts“I Used to Believe in the Buy-and-Hold Garbage. I Know How It Feels to Be Tricked Re This Stuff. Legitimate Strategies Can Be Defended Without Death Threats. I Earned My Retirement Money. I Expect to Be Able to Find Accurate and Honest Reports re What the Peer-Reviewed Research Says About How to Invest It. I Deserve That. We All Do. We All Should Demand It.”“The Fact That Wade Pfau Won’t Speak to Me Today Definitely Tells a Tale That Needs to Be Widely Told.”“The Wall Street Con Men Are Not Convinced That Buy-and-Hold Cannot Work. They See the Holes in the Concept. They Become Insanely Defensive When Challenged. But They Tell Themselves That Buy-and-Hold May Work Well Enough. They Tell Themselves That There Is Nothing Better.”“There Are Cases in Which Someone Drinks Six Cans of Beer and Does Not Get in an Accident. So Those Who Follow the Buy-and-Hold Approach to Data Analysis Say: ‘You Cannot Look at the Number of Cans of Beer Consumed to Know If There […]

    (12 Comments)

  • “Maybe It’s Okay to Believe It So Long As You Don’t Give Voice to What You Believe in a Public Place.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: No, we are all not victims.  Reasonable people know that they are responsible for their own well being.  Making up these silly posts are not helping anyone.  It seems your therapist has his work cut out for him. Anyone who believes that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment must be nutso. Or maybe it’s okay to believe it so long as you don’t give voice to what you believe in a public place. Rob Related Posts“It Means It [the Greaney Retirement Study] Never Needed Correction and That It Has Been Explained to You Well Over a Thousand Times.”“Is It My Failure If Many Buy-and-Holders Did Not Call for the Greaney Retirement Study to be Corrected Even Though It Is Obvious to Anyone Who Checks That It Lacks a Valuation Adjustment?”“I’m Not the One Who Permitted the CAPE Value to Rise to 37. That Was the Buy-and-Holders. That Number Suggests That It Is Today’s Stock Market That Needs a Therapist.”“Do You Think That I Should Lie About My Belief? Should I Say That It Appears to Me That the Greaney Retirement Study Contains a Valuation Adjustment Even Though My Sincere Belief Is That It Lacks One?”“You Need Either to Point to the Page in the Greaney Retirement Study Containing a Valuation Adjustment or Join Me in Insisting That He Correct the Error Immediately.”“At the Very Bare Minimum, We Need to Make It a Practice to Tell Both Sides of the Story. Reasonable People Need to Absolutely Insist on That Much.”

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  • “Unfortunately, There Is a Feeling Among Some Buy-and-Holders That They Will Not Be Perceived as Super Duper Experts If People Come to Learn That They Didn’t Always Know It All. “

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You are always the victim, aren’t you Rob.  The whole world has orchestrated a mass conspiracy against you and even your ex-wife is in on this scheme.  Poor Rob. We are all victims of this massive act of financial fraud, Anonymous. We all would be living richer and freer and happier and better lives if every site on the internet had been opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research in this field on May 13, 2002, as I proposed at the time. I is not possible for the Rational human mind to imagine any possible downside, I mean, come on. Learning is this world one true free lunch. There was a time when we didn’t know all that we needed to know to invest in stocks successfully for the long run. Now we do. Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize for his research because it represented such a huge advance over what came before. Unfortunately, there is a feeling among some Buy-and-Holders that they will not be perceived as super duper experts if people come to learn that they didn’t always know it all. Well, they didn’t. I don’t think that the mistake they made was that big a deal. But the cover-up of the mistake has hurt millions of people and hurts more each day that it continues. We all need to pull together and insist that every site be opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research so that we can all move forward together into a better tomorrow. Where I’m coming from. Rob Related Posts“The Bennett/Pfau Research Shows That Market Timing Is 70 Percent of What It Takes to Achieve Long-Term Stock Investing Success. So 70 Percent of What We Hear From Investment Experts Should Be Telling Us Ways to Avoid Getting Sucked in By the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold Garbage.”“I Certainly Am Not Going to Demand Prison Sentences If Most Others Do Not See a Need for Them.”“My Buy-and-Hold Friends Are Good and Smart and Hard-Working People. They are Trapped in Unfortunate Circumstances. But They Want To Be Giving Sound Investing Advice. I Know Because I Have Talked To a Good Number of Them re How They Feel About All This.”“This Is a Field Where People Don’t Admit Their Mistakes. The ‘Experts’ […]

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  • “Say That There’s a 1 in 100 Chance That What I’ve Been Saying for 23 Years Now — That the Greaney Retirement Study Lacks a Valuation Adjustment — Is Accurate. After 23 Years of This Stuff, I Personally Would Put the Odds at 99.9999 Percent. But Let’s Say for Purposes of Discussion That There’s Only a 1 Percent Chance That Greaney Got the Numbers Wrong in His Study. If There’s a 1 Percent Chance, Then We Should Be Talking About It at Every Site on the Internet.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: “ I did many things to help her. She owns her own home today. That came from money that I provided” From what money? You haven’t worked in 25 years. Meanwhile, your ex-wife has been working multiple jobs the whole time. Notice you even admit in your last post, like you have done before that she needed you to bring in an income. There is zero excuse for ANYONE to not support his family if you are physically able. I don’t think that there’s any excuse for anyone who knows about the 44-years cover-up not to do everything in his or her power to bring it to an end. It affects the retirement accounts of millions of people. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing that I was aware of the problem and just let another Buy-and-Hold Crisis take place. Say that there’s a 1 in 100 chance that what I’ve been saying for 23 years now — that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment — is accurate. After 23 years of this stuff, I personally would put the odds at 99,9999 percent. But let’s say for purposes of discussion that there’s only a 1 percent chance that Greaney got the numbers wrong in his study. If there’s a 1 percent chance, then we should be talking about it at every site on the internet. Greaney isn’t the only person who advanced that loony-tunes 4 percent rule. There are millions of people who put together their retirement plans thinking that that was something real and who need to be advised that it was all just a scam. How do you think that word is going to get out if no one works up the courage to stand up to you Goons. There’s no other way that it could happen. And look at today’s CAPE level. It’s pretty darn scary. If we had opened every site to honest posting re the research on the afternoon of May 13, 2002, as I proposed at the time, we would obviously never again have to endure such an insanely dangerous CAPE level. We would have people explaining why valuation-based market timing is the key to long-term stock investing success at every site. How do you think we are going […]

    (2 Comments)

  • “The Thing That Is Really Off in the Investment Advice Field Is That the Non-Experts — the People Who Will Be Suffering Huge Losses in the Event That the Stock Market Continues to Perform in the Future Somewhat As It Always Has in the Past — Tolerate the Cover-Up. That’s Nuts. But They’ve Got That Get Rich Quick Impulse Residing Within Them That Makes Them Like Buy-and-Hold, that Makes Them Think That This Might Be the First Time in History When It Doesn’t End in Tears for Everyone.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: Did you care about what happened to your ex-wife’s retirement account? Very much so. If we experience another Buy-and-Hold Crisis, she is one of the millions and millions of people who will get hurt by it. I obviously don’t want to see that happen. The question is — Why do we not apply the same rules that apply in every field other than the investment advice field in the investment advice field as well. That’s what makes sense. In every other field, we apply laws that show that we understand that experts can make mistakes and that those mistakes need to be corrected over time. So we permit honest posting re new research and thereby provide a means for the experts to come to terms with the mistakes that they have made and to develop stronger ideas. The thing that is really off in the investment advice field is that the non-experts — the people who will be suffering huge losses in the event that the stock market continues to perform in the future somewhat as it always has in the past — tolerate the cover=up. That’s nuts. But they’ve got that Get Rich Quick impulse residing within them that makes them like Buy-and-Hold, that makes them think that this might be the first time in history when it doesn’t end in tears for everyone. Can we overcome it? I believe that we are working up to that magic moment. I believe that the arc of history in the personal finance field bends toward rationality. I believe that opening up one large site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research will get us over the line will get us there. At that point, my ex-wife and millions and millions of others will be able to have some confidence that the numbers on their portfolio statements are accurate. I see that as being a huge step forward. We’ll see. Rob Related Posts“We Don’t Accept the Phony Numbers. We Fear the Emotional Pain We Experience When Our Longstanding Game of Let’s Pretend Is Exposed to Daylight. We Are ASHAMED.”“Peer Pressure Is a Huge Influence on the Human Mind. Bull Markets Are the Product of Peer Pressure. Buy-and-Hold Is the Product of Peer Pressure.”“Jeff at the Sustainable Life Blog […]

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  • “You Are Broke. You Are Divorced. You Got Everything Wrong. Take Responsibility and Stop Blaming Everyone Else.”

    Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site: You are broke.  You are divorced.  You got everything wrong.  Take responsibility and stop blaming everyone else. And I was right about the Greaney retirement study lacking a valuation adjustment. Rob Related Posts“I Developed the Ideas Tested in the Study That I Co-Authored with Wade Pfau. Wade Did Great Work Testing Them and Proving Their Legitimacy. He Never Tried to Hog Full Credit for the Study. He Said Many Times That He Considered Me the Lead Person Behind the Development of the Valuation-Informed Indexing Concept and That He Believed That the Shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing Is the Biggest Advance That We Have Seen in the Investing Field in Many, Many Years.”Goon Poster to Rob: “Why Do You Continue to Do What You Do? Clearly You Are Not Making Any Money.”“You Are Broke. Who Got the Numbers Wrong?”Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: “You Are a Quintessential Don Quixote.” Rob’s Response: “This Nation Is a Don Quixote Nation. People Tell Us Good Things That We Are Trying to Do Are Impossible and we Go Ahead and Do Them Anyway.”Goon Poster to Rob: “Any Wife Would Be Saddened by a Husband Who Is Capable of Working But Hasn’t ‘Made a Dime in 13 Years.’ Since You Acknowledge That Fact, To What Extent (If Any) Does It Bother You?”“That Explains Why I Am Banned at Every Large Investing Site — I Never Had Any Success Convincing People. Makes Sense!”

    (18 Comments)

What’s Here

  • Bennett/Pfau Research (62)
  • Beyond Buy-and-Hold (117)
  • Bill Bengen & VII (8)
  • Bill Bernstein & VII (4)
  • Bill Schultheis & VII (2)
  • Brett Arends and VII (1)
  • Carl Richards & VII (8)
  • Daily Caller Articles (10)
  • Economics — New and Improved! (102)
  • Financial Highway Column (11)
  • From Buy/Hold to VII (382)
  • Guest Blog Entries (96)
  • Index Universe & VII (11)
  • Intimidation of VII Advocates (66)
  • Investing Basics (522)
  • Investing Experts (91)
  • Investing Strategy (55)
  • investing theory (23)
  • Investing: The New Rules (120)
  • Investor Psychology (94)
  • J.D. Roth & VII (17)
  • Joe Taxpayer & VII (14)
  • John Bogle & VII (97)
  • Larry Evans and VII (12)
  • Lindauer/Greaney Goons (471)
  • Michael Kitces & VII (43)
  • Mike Piper & VII (31)
  • Podcasts (200)
  • Reactions to Pfau Silencing (71)
  • Reality Checker (4)
  • Return Predictor (11)
  • Risk Evaluator (11)
  • Rob Arnott & VII (4)
  • Rob Bennett (304)
  • Rob E-Mails Seeking Help (67)
  • Rob's E-Mails to Researchers (1)
  • Robert Shiller & VII (103)
  • Roger Wohlner and VII (5)
  • Saving Strategies (23)
  • Scenario Surfer (3)
  • Scott Burns & VII (8)
  • Silencing of Wade Pfau (96)
  • Strategy Tester (5)
  • SWRs (87)
  • Todd Tresidder & VII (3)
  • Uncategorized (23)
  • Various Experts & VII (33)
  • VII Column (720)
  • Wall Street Corruption (353)
  • Warren Buffett & VII (5)

Rob on the Internet

  • Rob's Weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing Column at the Value Walk Site.

  • Rob's Weekly Beyond Buy-and-Hold Column at the Out of Your Rut Site

  • Rob's Articles at the Financial Highway Site

  • Rob's Articles at the Balance Junkie Site

  • Rob's Daily Caller Articles: (1) Can We Handle the Truth About Stock Investing?; (2) How We Invest Is a Political Question; (3) The Economic Crisis Is Trying to Tell Us Something (and We're Not Listening); (4) Facts Don't Matter; (5) Going Google Stupid; (6) How Much Transparency Can We Handle?; (7) Confessions of an Internet Troll; (8) Conservatives Fall Into a Trap by Blaming Obama for the Bad Economy; (9) Meet the New Media, Same as the Old Media; and (10) How Restoring Honor Will End the Economic Crisis

  • Humble Money Experts Are the Best Money Experts, (Rob's Article in the Integrative Advisor, the Journal of the Association for Integrative Financial and Life Planning)

  • Articles on the Return Predictor, the RIsk Evaluator, the Scenario Surfer and the Strategy Tester

  • The Myth of Buy-and-Hold and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • The Good Side of Stocks' Lost Decade and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • A Better and Safer Way to Invest in Stocks and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • The Economic Crisis Is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • The Bankers Did Not Do This to Us! and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • Stock Volatility Kills! and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • The Risks of Buy-and-Hold and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • The Future of Investing and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • What the Stock Investing Experts Don't Want You to Know and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • What's the Best Age at Which to Experience a Stock Crash? and Seven Other Guest Blog Entries

  • Guest Blog Entry Compares Our Effort to Open the Internet to Honest Posting on Stock Investing with the Civil Rights Struggle of the Early 1960s

  • Our Monster Thread (153 Comments!) on Whether Bill Bengen Should Correct His Retirement Study Now That He Acknowledges the Errors He Made In It

  • Google Search Results for the Term "Valuation-Informed Indexing"
  • Favorite RobCasts

    • Bogle and Valuations

    • When Stock Losses Are True Losses and When They Are Not

    • There Is No Free Lunch! Or Is There?

    • Risk Tolerance in the Real World

    • Cash Is a Strategic Asset Class

    • Nine Valuation-Informed-Indexing Portfolio Allocation Strategies

    • Why the Stock Market Does Not Set Prices Properly (Even Though Other Markets Do)

    • Only Valuations Matter -- Everything Else Is Priced In

    • Low Stock Prices Are Better Than High Stock Prices

    • 30 Investment Myths in 60 Minutes

    Links That Matter

    • Ten Bogus Investing Truths

    • Study by Associate Professor Wade Pfau Showing That Long-Term Timing Provides Higher Returns at Reduced Risk

    • Study by Associate Professor Wade Pfau Showing That Valuation-Informed Indexing Beat Buy-and-Hold in 102 of 110 Rolling 30-Year Time-Periods in the Historical Record

    • Wall Street Journal Article Pointing Out That the Idea That Long-Term Market Timing Does Not Work Is a "Myth" of Stock Investing "That Will Not Die" Because "This Hoary Old Chestnut Keeps Clients Fully Invested" Even When It Is Contrary to Their Best Interests

    • Wall Street Journal Article Pointing Out That" "This Ratio (P/E10) Has Been a Powerful Predictor of Long-Term Returns" and That "Valuation Is By Far the Most Important Issue for Investors"

    • The Internet Blowhard's Favorite Phrase: Why Do People Love to Say That Correlation Does Not Imply Causation?

    • Michael Kitces (One of the Bravest of the Good Guys in This Field) Asks: "Who's Really at Risk When Avoiding Overvalued Stocks?"

    • Financial Mentor Article Reporting on How Our Knowledge of How to Calculate Safe Withdrawal Rates Has Grown During the First Nine Years of The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate

    • Does the Trend Matter?

    • Improving RIsk-Adjusted Returns Using Market-Valuation-Based Tactical Asset Allocation Strategies

    • A Value Restoration Project Blog Post That Sums Up in Three Paragraphs All You Need to Know to Become a Highly Effective Investor

    • Year 20 Annualized, Real, Total Return v. P/E10

    • Year 10 Annualized, Real, Total Return v. P/E10

    • Valuation-Informed Indexing Always Superior to Buy-and-Hold Over 10-Year Periods

    • The Valuation-Informed Indexing Advantage

    • What P/E10 Predicted vs. What Actually Happened

    • Normal and Valuation-Adjusted Wealth Accumulation

    • Valuation-Informed Indexers Can Retire Five Years Sooner

    • Following Valuation-Informed Indexing Strategies Reduces Stock Investing Risk by 80 Percent

    • S&P 500 Tracked by P/E10 Level

    • Treasury Inflation-Protected Income Securities (TIPS) Table

    • Best, Average and Worst Returns Since 1871

    • Compound Annual Growth Rate Calculator

    • Investing Through Time

    • Mapping S&P 500 Performance

    • S&P 500 at Your Fingertips

    • S&P 500 Return Calculator

    • Russell's Research

    • Shiller's Data

    • Safe Withdrawal Rate Research Group