Set forth below are the text of some words that I recently posted to the Goon Central board re me efforts to send out 1,000 e-mails letting people know about the Wade Pfau Story:
this very unhealthy turn, of calculated and purposeful escalation of annoyance-on-purpose Providing notice of a coming hurricane drags people down, Drip Guy.
Are the people who tell people in an area about to be hit meanies because they do so? Most people don’t want to hear this message. I get that loud and clear. I don’t think I am a meanie for doing what I can to get the word out. Now — It does hurt me when I get no reaction (from most) or a hostile reaction (from the Goons). And the hurting slows down my efforts to get the word out as extensively as I should be getting it out. That tells me that, even though I SAY that I don’t view myself as a meanie, there must be some part of me that is buying into the crazy idea that I am. I am one of the humans. I am flawed. I fight those feelings. That’s the point of this thread. I have had to fight this battle over and over again over the past 10 years and all signs are that I will be fighting it over and over again in days to come. I’ll win some. I’ll lose some. But if we all go down (I don’t think we will, but I no longer put the odds at zero or at anything close to it), I’ll be able to say that I went down swinging. I HATE it when a guy who can hit gets called out looking. Today is a small move forward. Tomorrow I might be back where I was yesterday. The next day I might short forward more than I did today. The courage comes and goes. I’m just a reporter reporting to you the story. My actions are certainly purposeful and calculated and they certainly do annoy. Morningstar was right when they called my words “inflammatory.” I don’t go along with the “unhelpful” part, though. I do this in an effort to be helpful. If you find someone else to take on the job, I’ll step aside. No matter how scared I am, I know someone has to do this job. If no one else steps forward, I will continue to wake up each day with a prayer that I find the courage needed to do it to the best of my ability. My best wishes to you and yours, in any event. Rob |
what says
What a bizarre sappy post.
1) Why would you be scared? This just sounds stupid.
2) You may be trying to be helpful but I think actually BEING helpful is beyond you
3) What exactly are you doing to the best of your ability. It looks to most of us like you just fool around on the Internet blabbering about ridiculous conspiracy theories of which you have no evidence.
Rob says
Why would you be scared?
MOST of us are scared, What.
Shiller published his research showing that Buy-and-Hold can never work in the long run in 1981. Bogle to this day continues to advocate Buy-and-Hold. Is Bogle not scared of the reaction he would see from investors he has misled (not intentionally at first, but still…) if he were to start telling the truth about what the research says? It sure seems to me that he is.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
Rob says
ridiculous conspiracy theories
I don’t attribute the Buy-and-Hold problem to a conspiracy. I attribute it to cognitive dissonance. But it obviously must be attributed to something out of the norm.
I put up the post at Motley Fool pointing out the errors of the Old School retirement studies on the morning of May 13, 2002. Not one of the studies has been corrected in the ten years since. What is your explanation, What?
Rob
Rob says
You may be trying to be helpful but I think actually BEING helpful is beyond you
Of course I am trying to be helpful. I have been trying to be helpful for 10 years.
The two things standing in my way are:
1) The unwillingness of “experts” like Bogle and Bernstein and Burns and Swedroe to acknowledge the mistakes they made in the days when they believed in Buy-and-Hold; and
2) The threats and disruptions of the Linduaerheads and the Greaney Goons.
You often note that I do not see many comments posted at this blog. I have argued that Bogle needs to give an “I Was Wrong” speech and that the speech should be written up on the front page of the New York Times. Say that Bogle gave that speech and that he explained that he learned about the problems with Buy-and-Hold from my postings at the Bogleheads Forum and that this was reported on the front page of the New York Times. Would that not help me get the number of daily readers I need to see hundreds of comments appearing at this blog each day? It sure seems to me that it would.
I’m doing my part, What. I’m working it hard. The problem has been that Bogle has not been doing his part and Bernstein has not been doing his part and Burns has not been doing his part and Swedroe has not been doing his part and lots of others have not been doing their part.
We are all in this together, my man. There is not one person alive who benefits from seeing the economic crisis turn into the Second Great Depression. We should all be working together. I would like to see a new and more constructive and more positive and more life-affirming attitude on the part of the Buy-and-Holders beginning at the close of business today, if not sooner.
Does all that not make all the sense in the world, my old friend?
Rob
Rob says
What exactly are you doing to the best of your ability.
For starters, I was the person who discovered the errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies, What. Most of the Big Shot “experts” in this field have only acknowledged those errors over the course of the past year or so. I wrote a post at the Motley Fool site calling for corrections in those studies on the morning of May 13, 2002.
There are Post Archives. As Casey Stengel used to say, you could look it up!
Please take good care, my long-time abusive posting friend.
Rob
Evidence Based Investing says
“There are Post Archives. As Casey Stengel used to say, you could look it up!”
Indeed you could.
Here you go
The data that turned up for 1969 concerned me. As I read the data, it appeared to me that had I made an 80 percent stock allocation in 1969, I would now (31 years later) have lost all of my investment and be bankrupt. Is that true? It’s possible that I don’t understand how the calculator works, but that result was disturbing to me. The actual portflio figure that the calculator gave was that I would now have a negative $31,035. I don’t understand the concept of a negative portfolio value. That’s what makes me a little uncertain as to whether I am reading the results correctly.
Rob says
My intent is to continue to post honestly re safe withdrawal rates and many other critically important investment-related topics, Evidence.
I wish you all good things, my old friend.
Rob