Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site
Rob’s verdict: Shiller is just another cowering Goon, living in fear
No one who lives in the United States has ever seen anything like the 12-Year-Long Campaign of Terror against those of us who have posted honestly on safe withdrawal rates and other crtitically important investment-related topics on the internet, Anonymous.
Death Threats. Demands for unjustified board bannings. Tens of thousands of acts of defamation. Threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.
There are reasons why the people of the United States elected to make it a felony for anyone to participate in an act of financial fraud of that magnitude.
There is a reason why you and your fellow Goons and perhaps a good number of the Wall Street Con Men will be going to prison for a long time following the next price crash.
Yes, Shiller fears all that hate and anger and abuse.
He is one of the humans. ALL the humans fear that sort of thing, as we have seen for 12 years now.
And please note that it is ONLY Buy-and-Holders who embrace such acts of hate and anger and abuse. We have never seen the advocates of any other investing strategy embrace such tactics on even a single occasion.
I wonder why.
Rob
Anonymous says
Rob,
What value do you think you are offering the typical viewer? If you read all of your posts so far this year, it is about how you think you are a victim and how you think people (that you call goons) should be in prison. You really offer up nothing of value to the viewer on investing insights, etc. I am sure you think making your claims of lucky VII is the golden path, but what specific leaning, facts, etc have you really provided. Nothing. Take a look at other blogs, like Wade’s for example. Notice how he makes a point and then provides the specific data and facts to back it up. Why don’t you do that instead of spending your days crying about your hurt feelings? It is time to get over all your hate and anger.
Rob says
There’s more leverage in what I am doing, Anonymous.
Say that Wade writes a good article on some aspect of stock investing. I certainly agree that that’s a limited plus. But the benefit that any one article can offer is very limited. What I am seeking to do is to open THE ENTIRE INTERNET to honest posting.
Not just on safe withdrawal rates. That’s where this started. I obviously want to see the errors in the Old School SWR studies corrected and to see the New School SWR studies promoted all across the internet. But I intend to achieve a whole big bunch more than just that one wonderful advance. I want to see honest posting on risk management. I want to see honest posting on retirement planning. I want to see honest posting on asset allocation strategies. And on and on and on and on.
Take a look at the articles at this site about the work that Wade and I did during the 16 months when he was under the impression that he could do honest work and not have the Buy-and-Hold Mafia come after him and threaten to destroy his career as his “punishment” for “crossing” them. Wade was talking about being published in the Journal of Finance, the #1 journal in the field. Wade was talking about winning the Nobel Prize in Economics for the amazing work we did together on the superiority of Valuation-Informed Indexing over Buy-and-Hold. Wade was like a kid in a candy store in those days. He was tapping into amazing new insights on a daily basis, insights he had never been exposed to during his days at Princeton. He was excited to be learning so much about how stock investing really works. And he was enjoying that amazing learning experience BECAUSE HE FELT FREE TO DO HONEST WORK, to follow the research-based insights where they led him.
You don’t see that sort of excitement in the work that Wade does today. Yes, he continues to advance the ball in tiny ways. But you don’t see Nobel Prize winning research coming from the mind of Wade Pfau today. Why? Because he is afraid of what will happen to his family if he does the work he was trained to do.
That’s sad, Anonymous.
It’s not just sad. It’s sick.
And it doesn’t just hurt Wade Pfau that he has been intimidated into giving up his right to do honest research. It hurts ALL OF US.
Wade should have called the police when you Goons threatened him. Then he should have gone to the New York Times. If he had taken those two steps, we would be living in a different world today, a world in which the same ethical standards that apply in all fields of human endeavor other than the investing advice field also apply in the investing advice field. That’s a world in which we would be able to bring this economic crisis to an end in six months. That’s a world in which we would be able to enter the greatest period of economic growth ever seen in our history. That’s a world in which we would all be able to post honestly about safe withdrawal rates at every board and blog on the internet. That’s a world in which we all would be able to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent while also earning returns high enough to permit us to retire five to ten years earlier than we ever dreamed possible during the Buy-and-Hold Era.
I don’t want that just for Wade, Anonymous. I want it for every academic researcher out there. I want them ALL doing honest work. There’s no telling how many advances we will see when thousands of researchers are putting their life energies into mining new insights rather than into the tired and sick business of trying to prop up the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage for another week or another month or another year. 33 years of propping up is more than enough! I mean, come on!
And I don’t just want to see all the academic researchers doing honest work. I want to see the “experts” in this field doing honest work too. Take my good friend Jack Bogle (PLEASE! [That’s a joke!]). What is Jack’s confidence level in Buy-and-Hold? I say that there is zero chance that it could ever work for a single long-term investor. What does Jack think? Does he think that the odds are 20 percent that it might work for some? 50 percent? 80 percent?
I don’t know the answer. Neither do you.
The difference between us is that I WANT to know. I don’t believe that Jack has zero confidence in Buy-and-Hold, as I do. But I sure don’t believe that he has 100 percent confidence (if he did, he wouldn’t be so afraid to respond to questions about his public statements). I want to know what level of confidence he possesses. You should want to know that too. Your retirement is at stake. And of course millions of middle-class investors NEED to know.
We are the luckiest generation of investors that ever lived. The Buy-and-Holders built a strong foundation for the development of the first true research-based strategy. Shiller provided the piece of the puzzle re which the Buy-and-Hold Pioneers messed up in 1981. Now we’ve got it all. Now we know (intellectually at least) what really works. We are on the one-yard line today.
There’s one thing holding us back. We are afraid of the Buy-and-Hold Mafia. We have for 12 years now seen how ruthlessly vicious they become whenever anyone dares to “cross” them by posting honestly on safe withdrawal rates or on any other critically important investment-related topic. You know what? I think the Buy-and-Hold Mafia is a paper tiger. They can destroy us one by one, as Wade well knows. But once ten of us take a vow to stick together and continue to tell the truth no matter what threats they make, their power to intimidate evaporates.
That’s where I am coming from, Anonymous. The hard part re getting ten of us to unite is that those who step forward first get the stuffing knocked out of them. I have been getting the stuffing knocked out of me for 12 years now. So I am pretty much used to it at this point. I don’t like it, of course. But it doesn’t shock me anymore. I have grown to accept that this is the way it is going to be until as a society we have made the shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing. That’s when all the fun starts.
I WANT THE FUN TO START, ANONYMOUS!
That’s the deal here. I LOVE posting honestly. I get an amazing kick from it. And I want to do it more and more and more and more.
So I absolutely refuse to cave in response to your intimidation tactics. I want the caving to stop. For me to cave just makes it more likely that others will cave. That’s the opposite of the direction in which I want to take things. So I believe that it is important that I not cave and that I encourage others not to cave.
I hope that makes some sense, my old friend.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours REGARDLESS of what investing strategies you elect to pursue.
Rob
Anonymous says
Tell me what specific points that you want to bring up that you feel are not already available to the investment community that does not already exist.
Rob says
I would like to see the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal rate studies corrected by the close of business today, Anonymous.
The sooner those errors are corrected, the shorter will be the prison sentence that you will be serving following the next price crash.
Is that not so?
Rob
Anonymous says
Why does Wade say you are wrong on SWRs? Is he lying?
Rob says
Of course.
And on the day that my good friend Jack Bogle walks to the front of a big room and says the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong,” Wade and lots and lots and lots of others will STOP lying about what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works in the real world.
I very much look forward to that day, Anonymous.
And I naturally wish you all good things.
Rob
Anonymous says
So if he is a liar, then he has no credibility, yet then you rely on Wade’s work to support your claims.
Interesting.
Anonymous says
In normal conversations we refer to people as good friends when we have an actual relationship with that person. Why do you refer to Jack Bogle and others as good friends when you have never had a conversation with them?
Rob says
So if he is a liar, then he has no credibility, yet then you rely on Wade’s work to support your claims.
Wade is certainly not unique, Anonymous. Everyone in this field has to lie about what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research says or the Buy-and-Hold Mafia destroys them. How could they keep the cover-up going for 33 years any other way?
People need to know that Wade lied. I certainly agree with that much. And I certainly agree that it hurts his credibility that he lied. I told him when he flipped to the Goon side that I thought his decision was “insane.”
But people also need to know the circumstances that caused him to lie. They need to know about the 12-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School SWR studies. And they need to know about the intimidation tactics employed by you Goons to keep this massive act of financial fraud going. And they need to know that major figures in this field like Jack Bogle and Bill Bernstein and Scott Burns and Larry Swedroe have all participated in the fraud and made clear that they would do nothing to protect Wade from your attacks. And they need to know that Wade has two small children for whom he is financially responsible. And they need to know that he was brave enough to stand up to you Goons for a time.
If people know all that and still elect to send him to prison, that’s their call. I can see how people would come down on that side given the number of middle-class lives that have been destroyed in this Buy-and-Hold Crisis.
I still love the guy, Anonymous. His lies don’t change that. I learned a lot from him. I believe that he merits a Nobel Prize for the work we did together. And I had a blast learning new things during those magic 16 months.
I will work with Wade again anytime, anyplace, anywhere. I won’t post dishonestly. For so long as that is the price for admission to the show, I will be on the outside looking in. But I certainly acknowledge that he is a smart guy and a good guy and that he has made contributions of immense importance. I certainly wish him the best of luck in all his future endeavors.
And I certainly don’t want to see more academic researchers placed in the circumstances in which Wade was placed. So I pledge to continue my efforts to bring the Ban on Honest Posting to a full and complete stop.
Byt the close of business today, if at all possible.
My best and warmest wishes to you, my Goon friend.
Rob
Rob says
Why do you refer to Jack Bogle and others as good friends when you have never had a conversation with them?
I refer to Jack as my good friend because of the enormous amount of good that he has done for me and because of the enormous amount of good that I have done for him, Anonymous.
Jack is the person who convinced me of the value of rooting one’s ideas in the peer-reviewed research. There would be no Valuation-Informed Indexing but for Jack’s many genuine and important breakthrough insights. It would be pretty darn ungrateful of me to deny that he has been a first-class friend to me after all he has taught me about stock investing, no?
And of course the relationship has been 100 percent mutual. When I was in communication with Rob Arnott, Rob called Jack his “friend.” How many times have you heard Rob Arnott demand that Jack walk to the front of a big room and say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong”? I’ve never heard him say that. I have said that THOUSANDS of time. So who has been the better friend to Old Saint Jack?
A friend is someone who helps you. Lots of people call Jack their “friend” and yet are too afraid of what he will do to them if they talk turkey in his presence. Yuck! That’s not friendship, that’s flattery. Jack said in one of his books that he wants his true friends to tell him when he gets something wrong. I’ve been doing that for years now. How many others do you know who have been as insistent as I have been that the guy come clean re the mistakes he has made? I don’t just talk the Jack Bogle friendship talk, I walk the Jack Bogle friendship walk. I am one of Jack’s few TRUE friends. No?
I have done more for Jack than anyone else alive. I took the Buy-and-Hold concept and made the change in it that was needed for it to work in the real world. Jack’s many phony friends have led him to a very dark place with their flattery. I have insured that his name will be respected for many decades to come. Buy-and-Hold has proved to be a bust. I think it is fair to say that Valuation-Informed Indexing is the first true research-based strategy and VII has Jack’s name on it. I intend to make sure that Jack gets the credit for the VII concept that he merits as the result of his years of good work in this field. That’s the way that a true friend plays it, Anonymous.
Mel Linduaer is a sycophant, not a friend. Mel Linduaer is happy to drag Jack’s name through the mud if doing so wins a few days of cheap glory for Mel Linduaer. Not this boy. Find someone else. I can’t go for that. No can do. It’s not my particular cup of tea.
I hope that helps a bit, my old friend.
Rob
Anonymous says
Of course anything that Rob doesn’t agree with must be a lie.
Rob says
The claim that the safe withdrawal rate is the same number at all times is certainly an ugly and dangerous and irresponsible lie, Anonymous. It’s hard to imagine that any other lie told in the entire history of personal finance caused even a fraction of the human misery that we have seen follow from that one.
I think it would be fair to say that there is no one who would say otherwise today, 12 years after I put forward my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002.
Even you Goons are on board re that one today. My understanding is that your only concern today is that no one talk about what went on during the 12-year cover-up.
Is that fair?
Rob