Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Did you even bother to read the article? With your drastically reduced activity, it seems like you’d have plenty of time to keep up on your reading. Anyway, your old buddy Wade states quite emphatically that 4% is not safe. What more of a “correction” do you require?
Wade said that the Old School studies were in error YEARS AGO, X. He wrote to the authors of the Trinity study asking that they correct their study. That’s when you Goons threatened to get him fired from his job if he did not ditch the honest posting routine. AND BOGLE BACKED YOU UP.
That’s why you are going to prison. You get that, right?
I don’t WANT to go to prison. So I am posting honestly.
I said above what sort of correction I require. I require the sort of correction we see in every field of human endeavor other than in the investing advice field. We need to see the studies corrected. We need to see accurate studies promoted. We need to go back and study how we got this one so terribly wrong and determine what we need to do to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. We need to see that damages are paid to the millions of people who were taken in by the garbage studies. We need to decide how long the prison sentences should be for those who have put up posts in “defense” of Mel Linduaer and John Greaney and Jack Bogle. We need to make settlement payments to those who tried to solve the problem by posting honestly and who were targeted by the Buy-and-Hold Mafia as a result. We need to send a message to all academic researchers in this field that the Buy-and-Hold Mafia is no longer running the show and that, starting here, starting now, we want to encourage all researchers in the investing advice field to do HONEST work.
Does that help?
Going to prison is not on my bucket list. I have zero desire to participate in this massive act of financial fraud. I told Wade when he signed up with you Goons that he was “insane” to do so. I think it would be fair to say that it would be equally insane for me to do so today.
Of course the studies are in error. Everyone who bothered to take five minutes to check the Greaney study to see whether it contained an adjustment for the valuation level that applied on the day the retirement began knew that back on the morning of May 13, 2002. Now we need to get the legal matters taken care of so that we can all begin enjoying the benefits of being the luckiest generation of investors ever to talk Planet Earth. We need to get your prison sentence announced so that the millions of us who very, very much need to know how stock investing works according to the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research can get about the business of talking about this subject in honest and accurate and research-based ways.
Does all of that make good sense to you, X?
Rob
via CNBC:
The 4 percent rule no longer applies for most retirees
Kelley Holland | @KKelleyHolland
Wednesday, 22 Apr 2015 | 8:00 AM ETCNBC.com
Give it up, Rob. you are beating a horse that is not only dead, it’s carcass has disintegrated and spread to the four winds long ago. You are a ghost of a shadow of a relic of a wisp, and whatever fleeting chance for glory you thought might ever have existed for you is very much long gone. Now; go get your shine box.
I don’t agree with what you are saying here, Anonymous.
I obviously agree that the 4 percent rule is garbage and always was. So we are in complete agreement re that one.
But, no, I am not finished and the rest of us are not finished.
Why wasn’t the 4 percent rule corrected when we first learned of the errors in the studies that created it? That happened on the morning of May 13, 2002. What the heck have been waiting for?
We all enjoy huge learning experiences when we acknowledge errors, Anonymous. This is a great opportunity. We should be taking advantage of it.
The people who created the 4 percent rule are not dummies. They are good and smart people. They want to come clean. They want to report the retirement numbers accurately.
Why aren’t they doing that? What is holding them back?
The Buy-and-Hold Mafia is holding them back. They don’t want their careers destroyed. They don’t want the lives of their loved ones threatened.
Can we really blame them so much?
Bogle wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Bernstein wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Swedroe wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Kitces wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Richards wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Schultheis wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Piper wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Pfau wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Treisdder wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Shiller wants to tell the truth about stock investing. Heaven help us all but my guess is that Linduaer and Greaney would like to feel free to tell the truth about stock investing. Heaven help us all again, but my guess is that on some level of consciousness you want to feel free to tell the truth about stock investing.
That’s coming.
My job is to swing things so that every one of those people feels free to tell the truth about stock investing. The WHOLE truth, not just part of it.
The next step is the announcement of your prison sentence. The announcement of your prison sentence sends you to jail but it frees all the rest of us. And prison sentences don’t last forever. Someday in the future you will be free to tell the truth about stock investing too as a result of your prison sentence. The announcement of your prison sentence is a win/win/win/win/win. It’s the biggest win in the history of personal finance for all of us.
No?
Hang in there, my long-time Goon friend. It gets better. A LOT better.
We live in a great country. We were smart to enact those laws against financial fraud before you and your Goon pals showed up to darken our doorstep.
Whew! That was a close one!
My best and warmest wishes to you in any event.
Rob
The answer to your question is: It doesn’t matter and no one cares.
The answer to your question is: It doesn’t matter and no one cares.
We disagree, Laugh.
I believe that it matters a great deal.
And I know from speaking to a large number of middle-class investors and academic researchers and bloggers and investment advisors that many people care deeply about these matters.
We’ll see how it goes.
Rob
The next step is the announcement of your prison sentence.
Ohhh we’re so scared Rob.
Do you have any good suggestions for prison reading?
You’re somewhat scared or you wouldn’t post here, Anonymous.
It’s not my intent to make you feel scared. I don’t believe you are going to come clean until we see the crash and the reaction to it. If you were a Normal, you would come clean immediately. But if you were a Normal, you wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. I would expect a Goon to refuse to come clean until after the crash. Even a Goon who is a bit scared is going to make Goon-type decisions. I entertain hopes that you will come clean sooner. But I don’t harbor illusions that those hopes are likely to become realities.
My intent is to build a record that will aid the healing process following the crash. People are going to wonder “why did no one speak out?” Well, someone did speak out. And people are going to wonder “did no one care enough about these Goons to try to get their prison sentences reduced a bit?” Well, someone did care.
My intent is to help you Goons, not to hurt you. After the crash, the emotion will flip. The people who today are saying “I cannot bear to hear what the peer-reviewed research says, at least those Goons get that Rob Bennett fellow to shut up” will be calling for your head after the crash. My intent is to step forward and point out that you Goons did not act alone, that a lot of the Wall Street Con Men supported you and that a lot of Normals at least tolerated you and that this problem has been a society-wide problem, not just a Goon problem.
If I don’t speak out now about the prison sentences, I won’t have credibility then to make the pro-Goon case. By speaking out clearly now, I earn the credibility that I will be able to put to use then to help get your prison sentence reduced a bit, Anonymous.
Please feel free to not be even a tiny bit scared. And please feel free to stop posting here.
Just please don’t think that there is any chance whatsoever that more of your intimidation tactics will someday cause me to agree to cross The Felony Line myself. It would be cruel of me to plant any suggestion in your mind that that might ever be possible. So long as we are clear re what is possible and what is not, I have done my bit and I can sleep at night.
I wish you all good things, you big Scaredy Cat!
Rob