Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Goon Central board:
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Rob, can you do me a favor and post a Youtube video of your Ignite presentation to the Financial Bloggers Conference (FinCon13)?
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I believe that the talk will go up on YouTube. All of last year’s are there. I don’t have any knowledge of the process by which that is done or of the timing.I also don’t know if they post the slideshows on YouTube as well. I looked at the talks as preparation. I don’t recall if they had the slideshows as well or not.I am fine with sharing the slideshow. I don’t know what is involved in getting it posted here. If one of you Goons wants to explain that, I am willing to give it a shot. I am not sure that the slideshow will make much sense without the presentation to go with it. The slideshow is 20 slides. Each has a quote of something that was said during the 11 years of discussions and an image. Most of the images are intended to be funny. So, for example, I have one where one of you Goons says “Haven’t you noticed that NO ONE ever goes to your site?” and I have an image of a little boy holding a teddy bear for comfort. They are all that sort of thing.The talk was well-received. There were about 200 people there. I got a big laugh when the title of the presentation (“How to Become the Most Hated Blogger on the Internet”) went up. I got applause at the end, but that doesn’t mean much, everyone gets applause. I had three people come up to me as soon as the other talks were over and ask for more information. The four of us continued talking about investing and lots of other stuff until about midnight. I presume that other people had questions too. But people could see that I was involved in this group and so no one else actually came up.
I don’t believe that I have 200 converts. I think that what this did was put a thought in people’s heads that they will ponder in the back of their minds. That’s all you can do in five minutes. I say that that is the likely outcome because that is the outcome I saw with lots of people that I spoke to outside of the Ignite presentation. In each of the three years, I have seen an increased openness to the ideas. But rarely do I see people give 100 percent endorsements of the ideas. Usually, there is a tentative willingness to think them over and to hear more. It’s too big a change for people to go all the way as the result of a single exposure. I did have two complete converts. One was a guy I had breakfast with. Another was a guy I met at a speed networking event. Those two offered John Walter Russell level support. I haven’t seen that before. So that obviously made me happy. I ran into several people that I expect to work with a bit on different projects. Podcasting and that sort of thing. I have a few other things on my list before I turn to those projects. But it’s not too early to start making tentative plans for 2014. I would say that in each of the three FinCons I have seen a bit more acceptance than in the one before. I had a long talk with my buddy J.D. Roth. He said that my problem is that my arguments are too “overpowering.” I noted that it is common for baseball teams that have a fellow who hits too many home-runs to let him go because it is not fair to the other teams for one team to always have the most overpowering player. Then we shook hands and I went on my way. I saw Mike Piper in the hallway and we exchanged cordial greetings and went on. I talked with Todd Tresidder several times. One time I was explaining to someone else how there is a 65 percent crash coming and Todd said: “Now you know why Rob is so popular!” I attended a Kareoke (I don’t know how to spell it but you know what I mean) event. I didn’t have the guts to get up and sing “You Are the SunShine of My Life” 100 percent off key. Perhaps if my wife had been there, I would have forced myself. I did that once on a trip we made to San Francisco. But no, on this particular occasion it was not in me to be the brave one. I was nervous before doing the Ignite presentation. There was a lot of beer around and there was a temptation to use that to ease the nerves. I knew better because I have heard stories of one unfortunate fellow who went too far with that strategy last year. Once I was up front and saying words, the nervousness went away. I think the fear is that you won’t actually be able to talk when the time comes to do so. Once you see that your mouth works even when you are on a stage, the rest just follows. Lots of financial bloggers have been hit hard by Google. That was the elephant in the living room. The number of attendees was way up (over 500 this year). I don’t see how that can continue if Google keeps hitting people. But I didn’t expect attendance to be up nearly as much as it was this year either. So there may be things going on that I do not fully understand. Anyway, that’s the basic story. The conference was certainly worth the time and money I put into it. I will certainly do it again next year. I hope that helps a bit. Rob the Devil |
Rob,
Do you really understand what he is saying? He is saying that you are too verbose. You could often respond with a simple paragraph that gets to the point, but you typically respond back with a novel. You never really answer any questions directly, which demonstrates that you don’t really care what people post. Instead, you look for a couple words that you can take out of context and then use it to launch another one of your diatribes.
In short, I don’t think you have the capability to have a “normal” conversation via the internet. If you did, you wouldn’t be banned at so many of the financial websites.
I think there may be something to what you are saying here, Pink. J.D. likes me. We are friends. But, when I asked him to get involved to bring the Ban on Honest Posting to an end, he declined to get involved. There’s got to be some reason for that. He’s not at all a bad guy. I think he is a great guy and everyone else I have spoken to feels the same. So there is certainly something odd going on here. I think it is entirely possible that part of what he is trying to convey when he says that my arguments are “overpowering” is that I am too verbose. Maybe what he is trying to say is “you’re just too much, people cannot handle it.”
You are also right that it is off-putting to a lot of people when I put forward long posts. That’s been so going back to the first day. That’s a real issue.
I strongly disagree with your other points — that it would be possible for me to make my points effectively in a single, simple paragraph and that I take things out of context.
Perhaps you feel that I take things out of context. I think it is likely that you genuinely have that feeling. I can assure you that there is ZERO desire on my part to take anything out of context. I write long posts. I go into background and that sort of thing. But never have I put forward a single word with the aim of distracting people from the real issues. I RESPECT the people who challenge my views. I SHOW that respect by taking their challenges seriously. That’s part of the explanation of the long posts. I take the time to write long responses because I CARE. If you go to the trouble to give voice to some concern you have, I feel that I owe it to you to do all in my power to see that that concern is addressed. Never in a million years would I intentionally take something out of context. That would be a mortal sin in my book. It may well be that you perceive it that way. It is my belief that you really do. But that is not what is in my heart.
Why are the posts so long? That’s an issue that very much needs to be examined by people of good faith.
There are millions of people who today believe in Buy-and-Hold. They have been talking about and following the strategy for 40 years now. The core Buy-and-Hold beliefs have been repeated over and over and over again. When you say “timing doesn’t work.” you don’t need to offer any explanation of why you said it because the vast majority of the people reading the words already believes that. So you can indeed make your points in a single, simple paragraph.
That’s not the case for me or for other Valuation-Informed Indexers. When I say “long-term timing always works and always is 100 percent required for those hoping to have some realistic hope of long-term success,” the reaction of the vast majority of my readers is to have lots of questions. If this is so, why haven’t we heard about it from lots of people long before this? That’s the biggest question. If I am to have any hope of convincing those people of the merit of my case, I MUST give the background. I MUST explain how it came to be that 32 years have passed since Shiller published his peer-reviewed academic research showing that there is zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy can ever work for even a single long-term investor and that Buy-and-Hold remains the dominant strategy to this day. The realities that we all face today do not permit me to make my case effectively with responses of just a few words. I must provide background and context or fail in the important work that I do in getting word out about the first true research-based strategy to the millions of middle-class investors who very, very much need to know about it.
There are ways that things could be set up so that I could write shorter posts. One that I mention all the time is that Bogle could give an “I Was Wrong” speech. When Bogle gives that speech, it is going to be written up everywhere. There will be a national debate on these questions. And then people will know what I am getting at when I say something like “long-term timing always works and is always required.” Once that national debate begins, my job gets a lot easier. I can still post and share my thoughts. But I no longer will need to carry the burden of being the only person talking straight to people about this stuff.
Do you want Bogle to give that speech? Are you willing to help me persuade Bogle to give that speech?
Until now, you have not been willing to help. That’s why the ugly stuff continues.
The answer here is not to continue to try to cover things up. The answer is to get everything out in the open. Then the need for long posts disappears.
Say that you believe in Buy-and-Hold 100 percent. If that’s so, then it follows that you should believe that Buy-and-Hold can withstand the challenges that will be put to it in a national debate. If Buy-and-Hold withstands the challenges, confidence in it will be stronger than ever before. So there is no possible way that a national debate could produce a negative result for you. Either you end up switching to a strategy that permits you to retire many years sooner or you are affirmed in your confidence in the strategy you believe in today. Having the national debate is a win/win/win/win/win.
And I will never again need to put forward a long post after we have the national debate because everyone reading my words will “get it” when I say something like “long-term timing always works” or “it’s not possible to identify the safe withdrawal rate without taking into consideration the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins” or “stocks today are a virtually risk-free asset class for those who are informed about the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research in this field.”
Long posts shouldn’t be necessary. But they are because of the unusual circumstances that apply in the investing field today. As a society we once believed that Buy-and-Hold worked. Now doubts are growing. But to get people to convert from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing, we must explain to them what happened, why it is that so many experts still advocate Buy-and-Hold 32 years after the research was published discrediting it? We need to stop trying to suppress discussion and instead ENCOURAGE it. We need everyone (Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers alike) giving voice to their SINCERE beliefs about how stock investing works. In cases in which experts have come over time to believe that they made mistakes re certain points, they need to SAY THAT in clear and certain and simple terms so that we can all process the message and move forward in a mutual Learning Experience.
We ALL want to learn, Pink. That’s why we all are here. We all need to pull together to insure that this wonderful and important Learning Experience moves forward. We do that by changing the tone. You need to drop the Goon pose and work up the courage to say “Thank you!” to the fellow who brought these issues to the table on the morning of May 13, 2002, and thereby opened up the opportunity to learn things about stock investing that you never knew before and that make your life richer in scores of different and important ways.
I am 100 percent happy to begin today working with you to take this to a very positive place, Pink.
Can you grasp the hand of kindness this time?
Or will you fire back with more of your Goon sludge, sinking ever deeper in the negativity that in earlier days you have brought to the table again and again and again.
Greaney’s retirement study does not contain an adjustment for the valuations level that applies on the day the retirement begins. That is a stone cold objective fact.
Why?
Until we answer that question, our work here is not done. I have put forward hundreds of thousands of long posts explaining why I believe he made that mistake. What’s your take? Do you agree with the explanations that I have advanced or is there some point re which you have a somewhat different take? And, if you have a somewhat different take, are you capable of giving voice to it according to the posting rules that you agreed to follow when you were first permitted to participate in any of our discussions?
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, my old friend.
Rob
In short, I don’t think you have the capability to have a “normal” conversation via the internet. If you did, you wouldn’t be banned at so many of the financial websites.
A conversation by which a community member tells his friends about the biggest advance in the history of personal finance can never be “normal,” Pink. It can be the most wonderful experience that any of us have ever had on the internet. Or it can be an ugly, dirty, smelly, slimy thing that ends up with a good number of us getting thrown in prison cells. It depends on how we respond as a community to the Goon element, those low individuals who direct their energies to tearing things down rather than building things up.
There is no other community member who has spoken out as forcefully or as frequently as I have re the need for us all to take action re the Goon problem. There is no one in a close second place.
If you did, you wouldn’t be banned at so many of the financial websites.
If there were even a tiny sliver of research or data supporting the key Buy-and-Hold claim that there is no need for investors to consider price when setting their stock allocations, there would have been no need for you Goons to organize a Campaign of Terror against our board and blog communities and there obviously would never have been any bans.
The bans are on you, not me, old friend. I have been speaking out in opposition to them for many years now. There are Post Archives.
Rob
Rob,
You still don’t really get it. I just made a short statement about you being verbose, yet take a look at your response. You start out by saying “I think there may be something to what you are saying here, Pink.”, yet then you go off with yet another long-winded post that branches off into 5 or 6 other canned diatribes.
Stick to these three simple guidelines:
1. Stick to the topic – no one is interested in your agenda.
2. Keep it brief – people will just tune you out
3. Stick to facts – be prepared to back up with you say with verifiable 3rd party support (not a link to your own comments)
We have had thousands of community members express a desire that honest posting be permitted. If there are that many in just our few communities, there must be MILLIONS of middle-class investors with an interest in hearing honest and accurate reports of what the academic research says. HUGE NUMBERS of people are interested in what you call “my agenda.” It is not even right to call it “my agenda.” It is the agenda of every person who loves his or her country and wants to see us survive this economic crisis.
I think it is true that lots of people tune me out because of the length of the posts. It is bad marketing to give careful and complete answers to the questions posed to me. It is very important that I do so, however, for the reasons stated above. Marketing isn’t the only thing that matters in this world. Tens of thousands of businesses have failed in the Buy-and-Hold Crisis. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Those people matter. The record that I build with my long posts will help those people following the next crash when they bring their civil cases and when prosecutors bring criminal cases.
All of the facts support Valuation-Informed Indexing. It has been beating Buy-and-Hold soundly for 140 years now. I would love it if I could find some factual support for Buy-and-Hold. That would help the Buy-and-Holders save face and perhaps we could put the nastiness behind us. But I cannot make things up. Wade spent a lot of time looking for a single study supporting the key Buy-and-Hold claim that price discipline doesn’t matter when buying stocks. He came up with nothing. He asked at the Bogleheads Forum if anyone there had ever heard of a single study supporting the key Buy-and-Hold claim. Jack Bogle was not able to supply even one. Bill Bernstein was not able to supply even one. Larry Swedroe was not able to supply even one.
I wonder why.
No, I still don’t get it. I still intend to continue posting honestly on SWRs and on may other critically important investment-related topics.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, Pink.
Rob
“No, I still don’t get it.”
That is the only thing true and relevant in your post. I doubt you will every really get it and it is likely that you will be in the same spot in the next 11 years.
Okay, Pink.
Please take good care.
Rob