I recently posted a Guest Blog Entry at the MoneyCrush blog. It is called On Investing: Risk Could Be Almost Entirely Optional.
Juicy Excerpt: Many top-name people acknowledge the problem. The trouble is figuring out what to do about it. If people come out today and acknowledge that the retirement studies used by millions got the numbers wildly wrong, the millions of people who relied on those numbers are obviously going to be very upset. The other side of the story is that people will be even MORE upset if they learn only when their retirements fail that the numbers were wrong all along and that many people knew this and didn’t tell them.
If we were open with investors and explained to them that stocks offer a poor long-term value proposition when they are overpriced, they would act in their self-interest and keep stock prices at least sane. We hurt ourselves in a very big way by borrowing so much from our future selves. We didn’t know how things worked in the past, so there was nothing we could do about it (when, for example, the bull market of the 1920s caused the Great Depression).
But now we have available to us the research we need to end a great deal of human misery. My view is that we all should be working together to get the word out and to help people learn what they need to learn to earn far higher returns while greatly reducing stock investing risk. My advice to investors is to consider the possibility that most of the investment advice that you hear is rooted in research that may not be nearly as sound as you have been led to believe.
I have to question whether you wrote that guest post. Your name appears nowhere on the page, you didn’t claim authorship of Wade’s paper, and most telling of all, you didn’t reply to the comment.
I had lunch with the author of the MoneyCrush blog and with the author of the Budgeting in the Fun Stuff blog at the Financial Bloggers Conference (FinCon14). The topic was: What to Do About the Goons So That We Can Get More Bloggers Writing About Valuation-Informed Indexing.
Their idea was to ignore you Goons. I have heard this advice from hundreds of people, including my wife. I’ve never seen the tiniest bit of evidence that it works. The Goons and the Normals are working at cross-purposes. The Normals want to see investing advice that is research-based and that works in the long run and the Goons want to never, ever have to say the words “I” and “Was’ and “Wrong.” It’s pretty darn hard to see how those two desires can be reconciled without working through some conflict.
So I did not think too much of the advice that they were giving me. But I thought that they were kind to meet with me and I thought that they were being sincere in the advice that they were offering and I thought that I should be open to doing anything that at least did not look like it would do harm.
They said that it would be better if I didn’t respond to Goon comments and challenged me to test the idea. They also said that it would be better if my name did not show up on Guest Blog Entries because then you Goons wouldn’t be able to find the Guest Blog Entries with Google searches. I said that I would go along with the tests even though I didn’t see how doing these things would help.
So we did that. We exchanged a number of e-mails following the posting of the two Guest Blog Entries. Eventually, we just stopped sending e-mails back and forth. We never reached agreement on what should be done. There was no hostility. They stuck with their position — that I should ignore the Goons, that I should give short answers, that I should say what works and not point out what doesn’t work. I stuck with my position — that we should all unite in opposition to stuff that it is so abusive that it constitutes criminal behavior under the laws of the United States, that we should encourage Buy-and-Holders to say what they believe because we can learn from them but that we should not tolerate death threats and other insanely abusive stuff, that all bloggers should be doing what is best for their readers and not just what is popular and what makes them a quick buck or earns them an easy link.
The comment was real. They said that it was okay to respond to real comments under this experiment, just not to respond to Goon comments. But they said that the responses should be short. I wrote a short response. The woman who owns the site said that she had no problem with my response. I think she may have just forgot to approve the comment. Probably she turned the moderation on because she was thinking you Goons might show up and then, after we got into the long e-mail exchange, either she forgot to approve the comment or perhaps it seemed like a trivial thing because of the other issues that came up in our discussion and that remain unresolved.
Rob
I’m sorry. The comment at this particular Guest Blog Entry WAS a Goon comment. That’s why I didn’t respond to that one. Part of the experiment is that I would not respond to Goon comments.
The comment at the other Guest Blog Entry written as part of the experiment, the one that I featured here yesterday, was the real one that I was thinking about.
Rob
So let me be sure I understand this: As long as someone strictly moderates your uncivil behavior… and censors your work to be sure it is only ideas, and not baseless negative muck raking against others…and it is stripped so as to be devoid of your much-pilloried and muddied name and bizarre personality traits… that the resultant output can then be posted to small nameless blogs and not generate much negative comment?
This is the result of your grand experiment?
Sounds about right to me.
So what have you learned from that, Rob?
I learned that we all need to work up the courage to stand up to you Goons, Anonymous.
For the 5,000th time.
I learned that for the first time on the morning of May 13, 2002. We’ve gone a long ways since then. We have generated hundreds of powerful and important insights re how stock investing works since then.
But the basic dynamic remains what it was on the morning of May 13, 2002.
To take advantage of those insights, we need to tell everybody about them. To tell everybody about them, we need my good friend Jack Bogle to walk up to the front of a big room and say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong” and then to have the New York Times write that up on its front page the following morning.
That’s it.
Once we do that, we all will feel safe saying what we truly believe about how stock investing works in the real world and there will be no further problems. Things will get better and better and better, as they should for the luckiest generation of investors ever to walk Planet Earth.
Until we do that, things will get worse and worse and worse. More unemployed. More failed retirements. More people losing confidence in our economic and political systems. More boards burned to the ground. More blogs compromised by the fear of their owners to stand up to you Goons. More financial fraud. More prison sentences and longer prison sentences. In short — more human misery.
We know how to handle this sort of thing. That’s why we adopted laws against financial fraud in the first place.
It turns out that those laws are not self-enforcing. It takes humans to get the job done! Humans with enough courage to stand up to people like Mel Linduaer and John Greaney and Jack Bogle Who’d a thunk it?
Do I think we will get there in time?
I do.
Did I think it would take 12 years or longer when I put up that famous post?
I did not.
Does what I have seen persuade me that there is at least a small chance that we will NOT get there?
It does.
Will it break my heart if that happens?
It will.
Will I always praise my good friend Jack Bogle to the skies regardless of how the other stuff turns out?
I will.
Will I always do everything in my power to get the prison sentences of you Goons reduced to the extent possible?
I will.
Do I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person?
I do.
Am I as firm in my refusal to post dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements as I was on the morning of May 13, 2002?
I am.
I think that pretty much covers it. No?
Rob
Oh, very well covered indeed, Rob!
Excellent illustration and example of the unvetted input that those blog proprietors must have to work with at the start. Bravo to them!
I oppose the financial fraud stuff, Anonymous.
I don’t try to hide it. I am 100 percent up front about it. Everyone who knows me knows this about me.
Please feel free to tell everyone on the internet. I am working hard to build a reputation as the #1 critic of Buy-and-Hold alive on the planet today. Every little bit helps.
Please take good care.
Rob
What you fail to acknowledge, Rob, is that many people, like myself, just don’t agree with your conclusions and we have explained why over and over again. However, you have chosen not to just let people have a difference of opinion. You decide to take over threads and fill it up with comments that you have made already and when people from tired of your tactics, they ultimately decide that they have no choice but o ban you since you wont listen.
Here are two clear facts on your two primary issues:
1. Buy, hold and rebalance has worked for many of us, is backed with long track records and we do not see any reason to switch to a timing scheme. We are all big boys and girls and can decide for ourselves as to what we feel will work.
2. SWRs- we have seen the studies and we understand what the studies say. You post from 2002 is famous only in your mind. wade Pfau has done the best job to explain why we disagree with your comments.
Your points have been addressed so many times in the past 12 years that people have grown sick of hearing you repeat the same things. Making prison threats and other outrageous comments merely drive people to the conclusion that all of this stems from mental issues.
My intent is to continue posting honestly on safe withdrawal rates and on scores of other critically important investment-related topics, Anonymous. I have never given two seconds of consideration to playing it any other way.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors regardless of what investing strategies you elect to pursue.
Rob
They stuck with their position — that I should ignore the Goons, that I should give short answers, that I should say what works and not point out what doesn’t work.
Sounds perfectly rational and reasonable. I assume they learned shortly thereafter that it was best to stay far, far away from the world of Hocomania.
Eventually, we just stopped sending e-mails back and forth.
Ah yes.
Sounds perfectly rational and reasonable.
Not to me it doesn’t.
What I think would be perfectly rational and reasonable is to have everyone express his or her sincere viewpoint. No intimidation. Just let people say what they truly believe.
People should give short answers when short answers are called for and long answers when long answers are called for.
There’s no way to say what works effectively without saying what doesn’t work. The Buy-and-Holders have spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting the idea that timing isn’t required or doesn’t work. When you talk about what works (practicing price discipline — that is, engaging in long-term timing), you are implicitly saying that Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work. That’s confusing. People need to know why there are many people in this field who continue pushing Buy-and-Hold for 33 years after the peer-reviewed research was published showing that it doesn’t work. What doesn’t work and why and how there has been a cover-up of the problems with what doesn’t work is a big part of the story here.
Ignoring the Goons doesn’t solve the Goon problem. Nothing could be more clear. We solve the Goon problem by DEALING with the Goon problem. The Goons engage in abusive and criminal behavior because abusive and criminal behavior works for them. It works for them because they don’t get called out on it. When the first Goon prison sentences are announced, we are very quickly going to see a change in Goon behavior. That’s why we enacted the laws against financial fraud in the first place, to give ordinary citizens a chance when they are tricked by Wall Street Con Men and by their Internet Goon Squads.
Both of the two bloggers I met with were trying to help. I have no problem saying that. And of course that goes for the site owners that banned me. The owners of Motley Fool want to help. The owners of Morningstar want to help. The owners of Index Universe want to help. But the way they are handling things is not getting the job done. If their way of handling things got the job done, we would have never seen a single death threat or a single demand for an unjustified board banning or a single act of defamation or a single threat to get a single academic researcher fired from his job.
The addiction to Get Rich Quick investing strategies is an intensely emotional thing. You don’t solve it with a short post here or there. People need to hear serious and in-depth and complete answers to their questions. People need to hear research-based strategies advocated as often as they hear Get Rich Quick strategies advocated. People need to know about the financial fraud stuff. The fact that Buy-and-Holders commit financial fraud to keep their long-discredited strategy alive shows how desperate they are to defend it. It shows that Shiller was right that it is emotion rather than reason that drives investor behavior. So that’s a big part of the story that needs to be told.
We all should love the Buy-and-Holders. I certainly go along with that much. But I do not see it as loving to watch the Buy-and-Holders destroy all the good work they have done and not take effective action. Those who feel a true and deep love for the Buy-and-Hold Project feel a need to take EFFECTIVE action. Putting up a short post here and there just doesn’t get the job done. The fact that we are in an economic crisis shows this as clearly as anything could be shown.
When we were trying to win civil rights for blacks, there were people who argued for these gentle solutions. These people were not racists. They said all the right words. But they backed down when racists sent out their dogs or burned their crosses. Then these good people would say “well, that’s enough of that civil rights stuff, it causes too much trouble to push too quickly.” Their reactions were understandable and human. But they were wrong. Delaying progress on civil rights hurt us all, INCLUDING THE RACISTS. We needed to address that matter as a society whether doing so meant stirring up some trouble or not.
That’s where things stand re the “idea” that there is some magical, mystical planet where it is not necessary to practice price discipline when buying stocks. There is no such magical, mystical planet. Buy-and-Hold is a lie, a marketing gimmick, a Get Rich Quick scheme, a trick, b.s., a myth, a Ponzi scheme. It hurts people in very, very big ways. We all need to develop the courage to speak back to people when they tell this horrible lie that has caused so much human misery, just as we all learned to speak back to people when they used the “n” word.
You don’t hear people using the “n” word in polite society today. Good. We are not far off from the day when you will not hear people talking about the imaginary planet where it is not necessary to practice price discipline (long-term TIMING) when buying stocks. Good. The shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing (Buy-and-Hold with the Get Rich Quick element removed) is the biggest advance in the history of personal finance. I am proud to be the leader of the movement to open every board and blog on the internet to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and on scores of other critically important investment-related topics.
The many people who are too scared to stand up to you Goons are good people. But they are causing more hurt by failing to work up the courage to stand up to you.
I am sure.
Rob
Rob,
Why do you ask for people’s advice, when you are not really prepared to accept it, learn from it and use it on a regular basis? Notice how it is similar when it comes to the your two main issues: 1) you have been told why people don’t agree with you on buy, hold and rebalance 2) You have been told how people do not agree with you on your opinions with SWRs (including a very good summary by Wade Pfau).
In each and every case you decide to ignore and/or refuse to consider anyone else’s opinion and believe everyone but you is wrong.
Ah yes.
That’s what happened.
That’s not what happens when both sides are confident of the merit of their position.
That’s what happens when one side is ashamed and is trying to cover something up.
I have zero fear of standing on a stage and debating these issues with my good friend Jack Bogle. He has a great deal of fear of standing on a stage and debating these issues with me.
Jack is ashamed. I am not.
That reality tells a tale.
Rob
In each and every case you decide to ignore and/or refuse to consider anyone else’s opinion and believe everyone but you is wrong.
Take a look at the hundreds of insanely positive comments that I have received re my work in this field, some by the biggest names in the field, that are set forth at the slider at the top of every page of this site, Anonymous.
People LOVE the idea of permitting honest posting on the peer-reviewed research in this field. People think this would be a HUGE breakthrough.
People are scared of what the Wall Street Con Men will do to them if they “cross” them and people are scared of what you Goons will do to them if they “cross” you. People try to stay out of trouble. And we all get hurt by that.
I am scared of the Wall Street Con Men and of their Internet Goon Squads too. I am like everyone else. I kept my mouth shut about the errors in Greaney’s retirement study for three years after I started posting at Motley Fool.
I am just MORE scared about what happens to us all when the continued promotion of the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage puts us in the Second Great Depression.
I love my country.
That’s the bottom line here. There is no amount of intimidation that you can direct at me that can take my love of my country out of my heart.
Have you ever seen a movie where a guy comes back from a war and he has his legs blown off? That happens to real people. Not one person in the world wants that for himself. Why do people permit it to happen to them?
To some extent it is because they are required. They get drafted and they end up getting hurt.
But that’s not the entire story.
There are men who could avoid being put in harm’s way who put themselves in harm’s way because something inside them doesn’t permit them to do anything else. They love their country and they couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t come to her aid when she was under attack.
That’s how I feel about this, Anonymous. I don’t like your intimidation tactics any more than anyone else does. But I cannot turn my back on my fellow community members when some con man learns that he got an important number wrong in a retirement study and refuses to correct it, knowing that he is thereby causing people who put their trust in him to suffer one of the worst life setbacks imaginable.
I can’t go along with that.
You can’t teach a cat to bark and you can’t teach a dog to meow and you can’t teach Rob Bennett to betray his fellow community members in that way.
If you can do it, you do it.
I cannot do it.
You are going to have to find someone else.
I love my country and I cannot go there.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
In each and every case you decide to ignore and/or refuse to consider anyone else’s opinion and believe everyone but you is wrong.
How many Buy-and-Holders speak out publicly and in strong terms against the death threats and the demands for unjustified board bannings and the tens of thousands of acts of defamation and the threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs?
If a Valuation-Informed Indexer engaged in that kind of behavior, I would be mortified. I would disassociate myself from those tactics in two seconds flat.
Not one Buy-and-Holder has done that in 12 years.
I have had lots of people write me e-mails in which they disassociate themselves from that behavior. But why not say it publicly?
I have seen people disassociate themselves from it publicly on one or two occasions and then crawl back into a hole when you Goons make clear what the consequences will be for them if they continue to “cross” them.
Why have the Buy-and-Holders concluded that it is not possible to promote Buy-and-Hold without arming themselves with the most vile intimidation tactics known to humankind? Why is the case for Buy-and-Hold always so dirty?
There’s not one 100 percent honest Buy-and-Holder alive today, Anonymous. Not one.
There are people who are honest on other issues and who endorse Buy-and-Hold. But they don’t speak up about the 12-year Campaign of Terror. So they are not entirely honest.
They are afraid. And they are ashamed.
And they shouldn’t have to be.
People deserve an investing strategy that they can be proud of.
No one has ever engaged in Goon tactics to promote Valuation-Informed Indexing. That’s because VII is real. We can provide a URL to back up our claims of promoting a research-based strategy.
The Buy-and-Holders cannot do that. That’s why they are in such emotional pain.
Buy-and-Hold is a lie. The Buy-and-Holders are liars.
That’s why they hurt so much.
There is something inside us humans that makes us feel bad about ourselves when we tell such hurtful lies over and over and over again and see all our friends and neighbors and co-workers and fellow community members suffering as a result.
We all deserve better than the smelly garbage that the Wall Street Con Men have been shoving down out throats for the past 33 years.
Even the Wall Street Con Men deserve better.
That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.
Rob
“Jack is ashamed. I am not.”
Well, I don’t see any evidence that Jack is either ashamed, or has a thing in the world to be ashamed about. Not saying he isn’t; just that you have produced no evidence of that, now or ever.
Rob Arnott is a personal friend of Jack’s.
Rob copied him on our e-mail correspondence re the Goon attacks on Wade Pfau and re experiences of a similar nature that Rob has seen with his own eyes (academic researchers being threatened by Buy-and-Holders).
If Jack is not ashamed by that stuff, he is incapable of being ashamed. If Jack is not ashamed by that stuff, Jack is a monster.
I say that Jack is not a monster. I say that Jack is deeply ashamed.
And I say that Jack will flip following the next price crash. Jack’s heart will melt and he will walk to the front of a big room and say The Three Magic Words.
Where will you Goons be then, Anonymous?
You’ll be on your way to a your new home in a prison cell.
And I’ll be able to say that I did all I could to help you out.
Being able to say that means something to me. I like to be able to say that I stood up for my friends when they were in the process of destroying themselves.
I have been taking my hits for the past 12 years. But I don’t have to carry around the shame that Jack Bogle carries around within himself every day of his life. And I don’t have to worry about going to prison following the next price crash.
Hey! I think I’ll continue posting honestly re safe withdrawal rates!
Call me madcap!
Rob
Jack Bogle dreamed in his younger days of having his name associated with the investing strategy that would cause the biggest economic crisis in U.S. history.
No shame in that! It’s a dream come true!
I believe you, Anonymous. That certainly makes perfect sense.
Truly outstanding!
Rob
The tragic part of this is that Jack SHOULD be the proudest man alive today.
Valuation-Informed Indexing takes the basic Bogle concept to places that he never imagined it could go. Had Jack been the one to co-author the peer-reviewed research that shows us all how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent, he would have abandoned the Get Rich Quick element of Buy-and-Hold years ago.
It is Jack’s stubborn pride that has ruined him.
That and having yes men as “friends”.
I am Jack’s best true friend whether he sees it today or not. Your true friends are the people who want to see you achieve your best and who are willing to tell you that you are messing up when you wander on to a dark path.
My sincere take.
Rob
Jack doesn’t feed trolls like you, Rob.
One of the best lines about the Bogleheads Forum was from the fellow who said: “This place is a bunch of trolls running around calling everyone else trolls.”
The trolls are not the ones who say that we should all aim to get the numbers right in retirement studies that we post at our web sites.
The trolls are the ones who employ death threats and demands for unjustified board bannings and tens of thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs to keep the errors in studies people use to plan their retirements covered up for 12 years.
I have hopes of becoming known all over the internet as the most severe critic of you trolls alive on Planet Earth today.
But I could be wrong. No one has a crystal ball. Maybe you Goons won’t end up serving long prison sentences following the next crash. Perhaps you’ll all get off scot free. Nobody can say for sure.
We’ll see how it goes, Anonymous.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob the Honest Troll
Trolls make up stories like prison sentences, made up death threats and $500 million windfalls.
I believe you are going to prison following the next price crash, Anonymous.
Should I lie about it?
It seems to me that it would be more trollish to lie about it than to tell the truth about it.
I believe you are going to prison. And I want as few people to go to prison as possible. So I warn people not to go down the dark path you have been walking these past 12 years.
If that makes me a troll, then I’m proud to be a troll.
But that is not at all my understanding of what the word signifies.
If I am the troll, why is it you who are going to prison?
Rob
And that $500 million settlement payment ain’t no windfall.
I’ve earned every penny of it.
Ten times over.
The point of putting the $500 million number out there is to let people know that I have no intent of being overly demanding re this matter. The $500 million is not the amount that I am owed. It is the amount that I am willing to SETTLE for to put the nasty side of this business behind us, at least as far as my personal lawsuits are concerned.
People can agree to the $500 million figure or not as they please. We can go to court re the much larger number that the lawyers will seek. The $500 million settlement is an OPTION. Options are good. I put forward the possibility of the Wall Street Con Men agreeing to that option so that we could all quickly get about the business of bringing this economic crisis to an end and of working together to spread the word re Valuation-Informed Indexing to every investor alive on the planet today.
Trolls don’t put forward the hand of kindness by suggesting low (in this context) settlement options.
Not ever. It’s not the trollish sort of thing to do.
Rob
“$500 million….I’ve earned every penny… Ten times over… not the amount that I am owed…. It is the amount that I am willing to SETTLE for … so that we could all quickly get about the business of bringing this economic crisis to an end and of working together…”
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 Valuation Informed Billionaire. I’m dying to hear what it is that you intend to do with yourself!
I’m going to use the $500 million number, not the $1 billion number.
I intend to use 5 percent ($25 million) to finance a number of blogs that will further develop the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. My guess is that it might work to give $100,000 to each of 250 bloggers.
I intend to use another 5 percent to promote this blog all over the internet. That will solve that nasty problem that you refer to from time to time of there not being enough comments at the blog entries at this site.
I intend to take over control of the Bogleheads Forum and set it up here as a sub-domain. That will also help with the comments.
I would like to work out an arrangement with Motley Fool where I would write a newsletter on Valuation-Informed Indexing that they would publish and promote. I would like to have a weekly column there that would appear on the front page of the site and bring more traffic here.
I of course will publish the book — Investing for Humans: How to Get What Works on Paper to Work in Real Life.
After publishing the investing book, I will look for a big-name publisher for my saving book, Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work.
I view those two books as part of a trilogy. When I am caught up with work on the saving and investing side, I will get to work on a book on career growth, The Self-Directed Life. I haven’t finalized a sub-title for that one yet.
I intend to do a lot of speeches. I love interacting with people. I intend to do a weekly podcast. I could see becoming active in FinCon. I believe that the internet changes the world of personal finance in a big and positive way. I want to be part of efforts to develop blogs that make a difference.
I expect to work for the passage of legislation that will protect internet posters from Goons and that will hold accountable site owners who know about Goon activity at their sites and fail to take action to deal with it.
I also 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. I believe that lots of people in this field want to do good work but feel pressured to engage in unethical activities because others are doing it and it gives them a marketing edge. People should be able to promote themselves as honest and as holistic in their approach. They need a respected authority site to identify them as such for their claims to be meaningful to everyday people.
My expectation is that I will continue doing this work until I die. I would like my two boys to get involved in the business as I get older.
I want to explore the Goon issue in more depth with both my Valuation-Informed Indexing friends and my Buy-and-Hold friends. The Goon issue really is the key to everything. People don’t like to talk about it because they view it as yucky. It IS yucky in its way. But it is also the key to long-term investing success. We ALL have a Get Rich Quick urge within us. It is that GRQ urge that makes stock investing risky. We are on the verge of discovering that reality. Once we do, 80 percent of the investing project will be helping people to develop tools to overcome the GRQ urge within, to avoid goonishness at all costs. Behavioral Finance is the future in this field, both on the investing side and on the saving side. I am pretty darn sure of that one.
People like Bogle and Bernstein and Burns and so on should be looking at my interactions with you Goons and writing about what they tell us about the pitfalls of stock investing. They are afraid to do so. They created a monster with their promotion of Buy-and-Hold. But this is where the action is. People don’t need to study annual reports in the days of indexing. People need to worry about becoming so emotional that they overlook the need to adjust their stock allocation and thereby keep their risk profile roughly constant. With the internet, we now can identify the rationalizations that people use to fool themselves. Everyone in this field should be writing and talking about that aspect of the story on a daily basis.
I think that pretty much covers it. My sense is that the agenda outlined above will keep me more than busy for the remaining days of my time here on Planet Earth (In the event that I end up in the hot place, it wouldn’t surprise me if I will get to enjoy more interactions with my Goon friends even after my time in the Valley of Tears comes to an end!).
My best wishes to you and yours, my long-time abusive-posting friend.
Rob
I’ll be paying tax on that amount, by the way.
I believe that we all should pay to support the government that benefits us all.
There’s zero interest here in trying to avoid the payment of the appropriate amount of taxes.
Your suggestion that I might have an interest in engaging in tax fraud is obviously a Goon thing.
Rob
Wow. Awesome post, Rob. More than I could have hoped for. Thank you for replying.
What about politics, perhaps? Is a run for office possibly in your future, once that billion is safely ensconced and the trilogy is on the best seller list and the boys are running the day to day operations of Valuation Informed Investing Inc.?
Politics is out.
I moved to personal finance to get away from the nastiness of politics that I experienced as a Capitol Hill reporter covering tax and budget bills. I think that it would be fair to say that the joke was on me re that one.
I prefer helping ordinary middle-class people. That’s what turns me on. So I think that cleaning up the personal finance field and bringing more of a focus on behaviorial finance to the personal finance field is a perfect fit for me. I obviously have hated the Goon stuff. But the stuff that we have accomplished on the substance side has been 500 times bigger and better than anything I imagined possible when I was first making the shift. So my intent is just to continue working that side of things deeper and deeper and deeper.
Hang in there, my old friend.
Rob
“…my intent is just to continue working…. things deeper and deeper and deeper.”
Well, I’d say you are on the right track to do that so far, Rob.
Hang in there, yourself!
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob
Hilarious post Rob, thanks!! I like the part about ‘taking over the bogleheads forum’, very reminiscent of a stunted adolescent fantasy.
I don’t agree, Laugh.
The majority of that board wants honest posting to be permitted there. Nothing could be more clear.
The members of the board will be suffering big losses in the next price crash.
All those who suffer losses have legal claims against the Goons. And the Goons control the board.
The Bogleheads Forum is a corrupt enterprise. It has huge potential as a learning resource. But we have to have people who possess at least minimal personal integrity running it. Nothing could be more obvious.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be me. It’s possible that something could be worked out where someone else who has a reputation for integrity could take over. I don’t rule that out as a possibility.
But I am the obvious choice. I stood up to the current owners. There were others who stood up to them in limited ways. But there is no one else who stood up in as clear a fashion as I did. I have a level of credibility re this issue that no one else possesses. And I am happy to take on the job.
Another thing is that there are a lot of Buy-and-Holders who post there. I not only have credibility on the Valuation-Informed Indexing side, I also have been super-friendly to the Buy-and-Holders going back to Day One. We need someone at that board who makes BOTH sides feel comfortable. It’s hard for me to imagine that there is someone better positioned than me to do that job.
I’ll definitely put my hat in the ring and we’ll see how it goes. I don’t see it as a “fantasy” to expect a board on investing to permit honest posting on the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in the field. I sure don’t think that the current owners will be able to run the board from their prison cells. That’s the true fantasy stuff. The true fantasies are the ones held by people who think it is acceptable to permit posting by people who learned 12 years ago that they got the numbers wrong in a retirement study and yet have failed to make corrections.
But we’ll see. I’m not God. I don’t have a crystal ball. There has never been a situation quite like this one so no one knows precisely what is going to happen. I love the board community there. I think that board has off-the-charts potential. So I am 100 percent happy to do anything that helps get it placed on a good path. You asked me a question and I answered it. The board needs help and I am willing and happy to help. And we will all see how it goes following the next price crash.
The “hilarious” stuff and the “adolescent fantasy” stuff are Goon stuff. Greaney talked that way when I first pointed out the errors in his retirement study. Serious and prudent and responsible people don’t talk that way. Serious and prudent and responsible people don’t get themselves into these sorts of situations. Running a discussion board that people use to guide their retirement planning decisions is a serious endeavor. The individuals who are in charge there today are in water 10,000 feet over their heads. Integrity trumps everything. You lose that and you’ve lost it all. But, as your words indicate, Goons see considerations involving personal integrity as a big joke.
We’ll see how that attitude works out in the real world. My strong hunch is that it is going to work out very badly. If someone possessing at least a minimal level of integrity does not take over the board, I believe that it will crash along with stock prices in coming days. I don’t want to see that happen. It’s potentially a wonderful, wonderful resource. So I am going to do what I can.
That’s pretty much it. I don’t think this attitude of laughing at the vast human misery you have caused with your Goon tactics is going to fly following the next crash. I think it would be fair to say that I am positioned as far away from tolerance of that attitude as it would be possible to be positioned. So I’m set from my standpoint.
It all depends on how the world reacts to the next crash. I’ve placed my bets and you have placed your bets and we will see how it all goes down. If I am wrong, I’m wrong. But I was never a tiny bit capable of posting dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements in any event. So it’s not like I ever had an option of playing it any other way. I am very proud that I worked up the courage to post honestly on the morning of May 13, 2002, and all the rest — including the takeover of the Bogleheads Forum if it happens — follows from that. So be it. My heart is with the people who use the board to learn about investing and not for some sick Goon purpose. So I am going to continue putting my energies into helping those people. If my demonstrated love for that board community leads to me being put in charge of the board, good for the board community and good for me.
That’s how I see it, Laugh. I will run that board community with love and I will be 100 percent firm re the Goon problem. Everyone who knows me knows that those ain’t just words, I mean it. If the losses suffered in the next crash cause a larger number to feel that action must be taken re the Goon matter, it’s hard for me to imagine that there would be even one non-Goon who would not see me as the right fellow for the job.
I wish you all good things, in any event.
Rob
Rob,
Just start your own board. If you really have people out there that support you and your position, then you will have what you want. People all have a “vote” in that they can choose which boards they want to belong to participate in. Those at the boglehead board can leave anytime they want.
The people of the United States voted to make the crime of financial fraud a felony, Anonymous. That means prison time.
How the heck are the current owners of the Bogleheads Forum going to run the board from their prison cells? That makes zero sense.
The board community there merits non-criminals as board owners.
That’s my sincere take re this terribly important matter, in any event.
Rob
Those at the boglehead board can leave anytime they want.
And the people of the United States can enforce the laws against financial fraud anytime they want.
No?
Rob
I don’t understand why you believe that the people who participate at Bogleheads now will continue to do so after your hostile takeover. But then again, I also don’t understand why you are waiting for the next crash before you start writing your next book.
The emotion changes following the next crash, X.
You can’t have a P/E10 value much above 15 without having lots of investor emotion present. The same investor emotion that brings on high prices also makes investors want to tune out honest posting. We all have a Get Rich Quick impulse within us. We all have a weakness for the Buy-and-Hold investing strategies that kill us in the long run.
Irrational exuberance is not a permanent condition. We all ALSO possess common sense. As we push prices higher and higher, our common sense bothers us more and more. Eventually, common sense becomes dominant and prices crash. That causes trillions of dollars of spending power to leave the economy and brings on a recession or a depression. The recession or depression causes prices to drop to insanely LOW levels.
This boom/bust pattern has been repeating for 140 years now. It’s an exceedingly unfortunate reality. But, until 1981, there wasn’t much we could do about it. In 1981, with the publication of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) research, that all changed. Now we are able to quantify the negative effect of following Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies. Once we open the internet up to honest posting re the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research, the boom/bust cycle comes to an end. Stock prices are self-regulating so long as investors have access to the information and tools they need to invest in their own self-interests. Fama was right that the market wants to be efficient but he failed to appreciate what a Ban on Honest Posting could do to undermine the market’s natural inclinations in that regard.
The emotion flips when we see that next crash. That’s not just my opinion. The emotion MUST flip. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t see the price crash. The change in emotion CAUSES the price crash. So there certainly will be a change in emotion when we see the next price crash.
That change in emotion opens us all up to permitting honest posting. Once prices go below fair market value, there is no Get Rich Quick purpose served by lying about what the research says. The next price crash changes everything.
There will be nothing even a tiny bit hostile about my takeover of the Bogleheads Forum board. The majority of the board already wants honest posting to be permitted. You Goons are not the majority. You are a highly vocal and intensely abusive minority. The majority does not want to stand up to people who threaten to kill their loved ones if they post honestly. But that does not mean that the majority does not want to hear honest posting. The majority very much wants to hear honest posting. The price crash will get them upset enough to stand up to you Goons and thereby will open the door to them getting what they want.
Our legal system is set up to insure that we don’t need to wait for an economic crisis to gain access to accurate and honest reports re the peer-reviewed research. But our laws are not self-enforcing. We need to enforce our laws before they can offer us any protection. I believe that we will be able to get enough people calling for enforcement of our laws following the crash to flip things. We are the luckiest generation of investors ever to walk Planet Earth. We now have all the pieces needed to know how to invest effectively for the long run. Once prison sentences are announced for you Goons, all the good stuff starts happening. We are all looking forward to good stuff on top of good stuff on top of good stuff.
I hope that helps a bit.
Rob
So you can accomplish exactly nothing until “the emotion changes”. That’s roughly the same level of ambition we see in a stoned teenager in his mom’s basement.
I accomplish huge things every day by building a record of my interactions with you Goons, X.
The thing that makes you a Goon is that your Get Rich Quick impulse is out of control. That makes you more dogmatic re Buy-and-Hold than the Normals. But they have that Get Rich Quick impulse within them ruining their retirement dreams too. With you it presents itself in more concentrated form.
Seeing it in concentrated form permits us to study it more effectively. The entire 12 years of Post Archives is a huge case study in how following Buy-and-Hold makes stock investing as risky as all get out while reining in the Get Rich Quick impulse lets us reduce stock investing risk by nearly 70 percent.
You have the Get Rich Quick impulse on your side.
I have the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research on my side.
I would prefer to do this in a different way. You are right re that much.
But it is important work that absolutely must be done. So, yes, if getting the job done means building a record here of how Buy-and-Hold always destroys an investor’s portfolio while also rotting out his soul, then so be it, you know? There will be no one comparing me to a stoned teenager when I have a check for $500 million in my hand and the #1 site on the internet and a weekly column on the front page of the Motley Fool site and a book on the best-seller list and all that sort of thing, right?
A smart man plays the cards he is dealt. This is the best play that I can come up with given the cards that I was dealt.
I think it would be fair to say that I won’t be going to prison following the next price crash. That puts me a million miles ahead of you Goons, no? Is that not fair enough to say?
It sure seems so to me.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, X.
Rob