Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
“How will I profit? It’s impossible even to count the ways, Yogi. ”
Try, Rob.
Try.
Just one would be a start.
We now know that emotion (valuations) is 80 percent of the stock investing story, Yogi.
I think it would be fair to say that I am the world expert on the ways in which investors engage in self-deception to persuade themselves that the inflated numbers on their portfolio statements are real. There are THOUSANDS of articles and blog posts and podcasts and columns at this site detailing in great depth how it is done. I will be making money for many years to come using that material to help investors understand how stock investing works in the real world through the publication of books and by giving speeches and by creating CD products and through personal consulting and on and on and on.
Shiller’s 1981 finding changed the history of investing analysis in a profound way. He “revolutionized” (the word is Shiller’s) the field. We have as a society delayed our recognition of his earth-shaking accomplishment. But we are not going to have any choice about going forward following the next price crash. From that point forward, nothing will ever be the same again.
Shiller and Fama say opposite things. They cannot both be right. It is a logical impossibility.
If Fama is right, we are doing fine. 95 percent of the investing advice that the average investor hears is rooted in Fama’s research.
But what if Fama is wrong? What if Shiller is right (there is now 33 years of peer-reviewed research showing this to be so)? If that’s so, then we should be in an economic crisis today. If that’s so, we are on our way to the Second Great Depression. If that’s so, we should be seeing threats of violence and career destruction on the part of the Buy-and-Holders in a futile effort to keep their strategy going for a few more months or a few more years.
If Shiller is right (and I obviously believe strongly that he is), the investing advice field is today in the process of being rebuilt from the bottom up. That’s why the Buy-and-Holders fight so hard. They know the stakes as well as I do. If valuations matter, Buy-and-Hold is not just wrong, it is the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick scheme ever concocted by the human mind.
Valuations (investor emotion) is no small thing, Yogi. Either it is nothing (as Fama theorized) or it is 80 percent of the stock investing story. I have played the lead role for 12 years now in getting accurate and honest reports of what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research says out to millions of middle-class investors. I have zero fear that there will not be thousands upon thousands of money-making opportunities opening up to me once we pull together as a society to open every board and blog on the internet to honest posting. I will have far too many money-making opportunities available to me following that day than I will possibly be able to handle by myself. I will be hiring teams of people to help me take advantage of all the opportunities that will be open to me once this story gets out.
Does Jack Bogle have ways to make money?
Does Robert Shiller have ways to make money?
Does Rob Arnott have ways to make money?
Does Bill Bernstein have ways to make money?
The shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing is a bigger accomplishment than anything that any of those four has enjoyed. It was Shiller who showed that Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work, not me. But Shiller has not yet written clearly about the practical how-to IMPLICATIONS of his amazing research findings. I am the first to have done that in a comprehensive way. That’s huge. And achieving huge breakthroughs like that lead to tons of money in the long run in the society in which we live in today. (I think that’s entirely appropriate. Some might disagree. But, whether one agrees or not that it is appropriate, that certainly is the case).
It won’t just be me making tons of money once the internet is opened to honest posting. There will be hundreds of us, thousands of us. There are hundreds of smart bloggers who would LOVE to be making millions from their blogs and who today are not doing so. All they need to do is to turn their efforts to further development of the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. The only reason why they don’t do it is that they fear what you Goons would do to them and their businesses if they began posting honestly.
Do you really think that they are going to continue to live in fear following the next price crash?
They are not. They are going to work up the courage to go for the money. And we are all going to be a lot better off as a result. People SHOULD be rewarded for giving accurate and honest investing advice. Seeing that the thousands of people who will be further developing the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept receive financial rewards for their efforts is in the best interests of every person alive in the United States today.
We have had big advances in the computer field since 1981, no? There was no internet in 1981. Now there is. Thousands of people made fortunes as a result of the development of the internet. There was no YouTube in 1981. Now there is. Thousands of people made fortunes as a result of the development of YouTube (there was an article on the front page of the New York Times on this just last Friday). There were no laptops or tablets or smart phones in 1981. Now there are. Thousands of people made fortunes as a result of the development of laptops and tablets and and smart phones.
Say that there has been a Typewriter Mafia back in 1981 that has devoted hundreds of billions of marketing money to seeing that no one could succeed in selling computers. We would today be a poorer people as a result. The advances that we have seen in the investing advice field over the past 33 years are 50 times greater than the advances we have seen in the computer field. The only reason why we have not seen thousands and thousands and thousands of millionaires made through the promotion of the first true research-based strategy is that the Buy-and-Hold Mafia has possessed the power to keep us all in the Dark Ages re our understanding of how stock investing works in the real world.
But for how much longer?
The next step down is the Second Great Depression, Yogi. Do you think people are going to stand for that? I do not. I love my country. I have noticed by reading history that my country has in the past always possessed the intelligence and fortitude and love to overcome forces like the Buy-and-Hold Mafia. I believe that we will prevail once again. When we do, no one is going to be able to count the money that will be flowing in to those who worked up the courage to post in support of those offering honest investing advice.
Money is what this whole freakin’ saga is about. If there weren’t so much darned money in pushing Get Rich Quick garbage, everyone in the field would have made the shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing by January 1982. The problem is that the big shots in this field love the marketing edge that comes from saying that their advice is research-based but cannot bear to give up the short-term wealth that comes from pushing Get Rich Quick garbage. Buy-and-Hold gives them the best of both worlds, in their eyes. It is pure Get Rich Quick garbage. So it makes them all rich beyond their wildest hopes. But because Fama made a mistake back in 1965 and many of us have been too afraid to say that in clear and firm and simple language in the three decades since, they have been able to make claims that there is research supporting these “ideas.”
The problem with spending billions of dollars promoting the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick strategy ever concocted by the human mind is that doing so eventually causes the collapse of the economic system in which you live. And the collapse of the economic system eventually causes the collapse of the political system. Lots of the people who push Buy-and-Hold are very wealthy people as a result of doing so and don’t want to get off the gravy train. But do they have any real choice? Where are they going to spend their money when the economic and political system of the United States collapses? In an ultimate sense Jack Bogle has as much of a motivation to see that honest posting be permitted as I do.
These people are today suffering from cognitive dissonance. They are telling themselves that pushing the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick scheme ever concocted by the human mind might work out in the long run, they are trying to hang on to a belief that we will NOT see an economic or political collapse.
But based on what do they believe this?
In 12 years they have not been able to find any support in the peer-reviewed academic research for this belief of theirs.
I am a research-oriented guy, Yogi. I believe that we are going to see the economic collapse that the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research says we are going to see.
And I believe that my many Buy-and-Hold friends are going to flip shortly after we see that collapse. I believe that my good friend Jack Bogle is a good man. I believe that he is going to be my biggest booster in days to come. With Jack’s help, I am going to experience no problems receiving that $500 million paycheck or taking over ownership of the Bogleheads Forum or being invited to give the keynote address to the next FinCon event or bringing thousands upon thousands of community members to this site or profiting from books and speeches and CD packages and consulting arrangements and on and on and on.
I am not a multi-millionaire today only because my good friend Jack Bogle has not yet worked up the courage to say the three magic words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” But Jack is going to work up the courage to do that. He has no choice if he wants to save from economic ruin the country he loves and that has blessed him in so many ways. So Old Saint Jack is in days to come going to work up the courage to do what he should have done 33 years ago. And from that point forward we will ALL be in much more favorable financial circumstances. But that will be so for me especially. Because I am the one who has been fighting so hard for 12 years now for a principle that Old Saint Jack first articulated many years back — INVESTORS SHOULD BE ROOTING THEIR INVESTING STRATEGIES IN THE PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH.
I’m not too worried about making money, Yogi. I would like to see it happen soon. I would like to have seen it begin happening on the morning of May 13, 2002. So I do want to see a change in that department. But that is not the thing that I worry about most.
I worry that the economic collapse will get out of hand and that even working together we will not be able to turn things around in time. I don’t think that that is how things will play out. But the fact that there is even a small chance that things might play out that way scares me to death.
That’s my primary worry, not the money thing. The money thing will work out more than fine so long as Jack eventually works up the courage to say The Three Magic Words. And he doesn’t exactly have much choice, does he? He loves his country, does he not?
I say that Jack Bogle loves his country. I am sure.
So I see good things happening for all of us in days to come, Yogi.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
It’s difficult to fathom your motivation. By all observable evidence, your sole purpose for this site is to irritate anyone who bothers to comment. But then you seem genuinely baffled by your unpopularity. Puzzling.
Did you ever hear a football coach yelling at his players in the hot August sun that they need to stop being such sissies and run harder and hit harder?
Did you ever see someone who is trying to lose weight put a photo of his or her fat self on the refrigerator as a motivational tool that will kick in when he or she goes looking for another can of soda or another bowl of ice cream?
Did you ever notice that the best teachers are the one who are not afraid to give their students a grade less than “A+.”
We all like to give positive feedback. It makes us feel good to make others feel good. And in the investment advice field, there is huge money to be made in encouraging people to believe that Buy-and-Hold strategies can work.
In the long-term, however, there is more profit to be made in being honest than in churning out even more of the smelly Get Rich Quick flattery garbage.
Or so Rob Bennett sincerely believes.
I am not just unpopular. I am very, very, very unpopular with you Buy-and-Hold Goons. But a big part of the reason why you Buy-and-Hold Goons hate me so much is that I am so insanely popular with non-Goon Buy-and-Holders. There are millions of people out there who follow Buy-and-Hold strategies only because they don’t know about the 34 years of peer-reviwed research showing that there is precisely zero chance that this “strategy” could ever work for a single long-term investor and who very, very much want to see the Ban on Honest Posting on that 34 years of peer-reviewed research lifted. You only hate me because those people love me, Dizzy. Take away the thousands of posters who have demonstrated a desire to be able to hear honest posting and none of this would upset you so.
Is it understandable that those who tell the truth about stock investing would be unpopular when there is so much money to be made by lying to people about what the peer-reviewed research says? In a sick way, that makes a certain amount of sense. Flattery is an easy way to make a buck. Peer-reviewed research makes it impossible for those who push an investing strategy rooted in flattery to make a buck with their flattery. That’s why I fell in love with the idea of using the peer-reviewed research as a guide (an idea that I learned about from my Buy-and-Hold friends!) in the first place. Peer-reviewed research is objective and real. It takes us out of the flattery zone and exposes those who are just in this field to make a smelly buck no matter how much it hurts their readers and clients and indeed their country.
My words irritate anyone trying to believe that this might be the first time in history that the pure Get Rich Quick approach might work for one or two long-term investors either in this solar system or is some distant alternative one.
Good.
IT’S MY JOB to irritate those people.
The Bennett/Pfau research shows that 70 percent of the risk of stock investing is rooted in the reality that we all have a Get Rich Quick urge and the Wall Street Con Men know that there is a mountain of money to be made exploiting that urge. I once believed in Buy-and-Hold myself. I am not saying that I am better than the millions of middle-class people who fell for the con.
What I am saying is that I did not become a Buy-and-Holder because I wanted to be taken in by a con. And I don’t believe that the millions of middle-class people whose lives are in the process of being destroyed became Buy-and-Holders for that reason either.
I thought that all the garbage was real. They think that too.
Yes, it irritates them to know that they were taken. The fact that telling the truth to people who have been taken irritates them makes my job a hard one. That much is certainly so.
At least it doesn’t get me sent to prison!
Joining you in your massive act of financial fraud would get me sent to prison. Um — No thanks, friend.
Yes, I irritate people who still have dreams that all the rules of stock investing might be turned on their heads this time, just as the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads assure them. But at least the research-based stuff that I push works.
So over time more and more people come around to my way of thinking while fewer and fewer come around to your way of thinking.
That’s the path that I have chosen. And I certainly have never doubted the wisdom of taking it for even two seconds. I made the right call on the morning of May 13, 2002. The mountain of evidence showing that to be so has grown higher and higher on every day of the first 13 years of our Debate About Having a Debate.
I believe that the next price crash will irritate people 500 more times than any words that I have ever put forward.
And I believe that a good percentage of those irritated will then go looking for explanations of how they happened to lose most of their retirement money.
This site tells the story.
I believe that what they find at this site will make them angry. Not at those who irritated them by telling the truth about what the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research shows. At those who blocked them from learning what they very, very, very much needed to know about the corruption on Wall Street and how it brought on this economic crisis.
I will be doing what I can at that time to keep your prison sentence a bit shorter than what the millions of middle-class investors whose lives you will have destroyed will want it to be. I don’t say that I will have great success in my efforts. I don’t think I will. But you have my pledge that I will give the matter my best shot.
And that’s as far as I can go without committing acts likely to get me thrown in prison along with you.
Um — find somebody else, you know? I can’t go for that. No can do.
But what do I know? We’ll have to wait a bit to see how things actually play out in the real world.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.
Rob
They probably noted the level of success you’ve had, and decided to find more profitable blog content.
Some folks like to be able to take their kids to Disneyland, no?
If that’s so (and I believe that to a large extent it is), that’s good news for the future.
We learned what works in stock investing in 1981. The ordinary way to proceed is to start teaching people what works as soon as we learn what works. There were many years in which people had come to very different conclusions. So not everyone was going to switch over to the new thinking on the day after Shiller published his “revolutionary” (his word) research. So if things had proceeded in the usual way, we would have had 90 percent Buy-and-Holders and 10 percent Valuation-Informed Indexers in 1981. And then the percentages would have gradually shifted in the VII direction year by year so that today it would be 90 percent Valuation-Informed Indexers and 10 percent Buy-and-Holders.
Things obviously did not proceed in that manner. The Buy-and-Holders went into cover-up mode rather than encouraging and participating in a national debate re the breakthrough finding that valuations affect long-term returns (and that the market is thus not efficient and long-term timing is 100 percent required). As the research-based case against Buy-and-Hold grew stronger and stronger and stronger, the tactics used by the Wall Street Con Men to block millions of middle-class investors from learning what they very, very much need to know became more and more brutally abusive. Until today, we have lots of Wall Street Con Men and lots of members of their Internet Goon Squads looking at long prison sentences to begin following the next price crash.
The criminal behavior of the Buy-and-Holders has SLOWED the transition from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing. It hasn’t stopped it. As you point out, people like to have successful blogs. So people have held back from exploring the implications of the recent research so as to avoid having their careers destroyed by you Goons.
The announcement of your prison sentence flips that, Anonymous. When word gets out that those who lie about the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research are landing in prison cells, what do you think the people who want to have profitable blog content are going to do? They are going to run from Buy-and-Hold at a very, very, very fast pace.
The transition should have been gradual. Because of the criminal behavior, it will be sudden. In an overall sense, it’s unfortunate that things played out as they did. But it is certainly a good thing that it is not going to take 34 years for us to increase the percentage following VII strategies to 90 percent, that we are going to be able to do it in a year or two.
Had things been done the right way, I would not today be in line to receive a $500 million settlement payment. I am not saying that that reality makes me happy that things played out this way. I would have preferred to have received a whole big bunch less than $500 million in compensation and not to have millions of people on the road to experiencing failed retirements.
But given the realities that apply, I’ll take it!
Given that there has been a 13-year delay in getting the word out to people, it’s better that we will be able to get the word out in six months or a year or two years rather than having it take the 30 years that it might take if ordinary procedures were followed. And lots of other people will be making millions giving honest investing advice following the crash. So there are lots of people who will be seeing outsized benefits just for being honest. And that reality will cause the momentum to grow all the faster.
The promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies has caused four economic crises. Following the first three, we eventually fell for the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage once again. The difference is that there was not 34 years of peer-reviewed research showing the dangers of Buy-and-Hold following the three earlier crises. This time there is. So this time those who engaged in criminal behavior will be going to prison. That is going to make a difference. When Buy-and-Hold goes down this time, it ain’t ever coming back.
Good.
People like to take their kids to Disneyland. The transition from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing is the biggest advance in the history of personal finance. There is nothing even in a close second place. MILLIONS of middle-class people who could not afford to take their kids to Disneyland in earlier days will be able to do so not long following the announcement of your prison sentence, Anonynmous.
I think it is wonderful. I cannot wait. I think it shows the wonders of our political system that as a people we were smart enough to adopt laws making financial fraud a felony before you Goons even showed up to darken our collective doorstop.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, Goon friend.
Rob
I am so insanely popular with non-Goon Buy-and-Holders.
So popular in fact that not one “non-Goon Buy-and-Holder” posts at your blog or comments on your Value Walk articles or interacts with you on twitter.
It is all just one big mass conspiracy. Hopefully, Rob won’t find our secret hideout and uncover all our secret plans.
What you are saying is so, Evidence.
I want that to change.
It’s not going to change if all of us who want to post honestly live in fear of the Buy-and-Hold Mafia, is it?
We need to stand up to them. We need to protect each other. We need to get those who have posted in “defense” of Mel Lindauer and John Greaney and Jack Bogle sent to prison.
Then it’s all downhill sledding.
I wish that someone had done it before I came along. That would have saved me a lot of grief.
How do you think the people who come after me are going to feel about all the grief I save them?
They are going to feel very grateful.
When you see criminal behavior, the thing to do is not to run from it. The thing to do is to report it, to expose it, to bring it to a full and complete stop.
Once I am free to post honestly, we are ALL free to post honestly.
Once we are all free to post honestly re safe withdrawal rates, we are all free to post re ALL critically important investment-related topics.
I wish that this part was not necessary. Obviously.
But it IS necessary. You Goons are not going to just walk to the police station and turn yourselves in. Goons don’t do that sort of thing. If you were inclined to do something like that, you would never have become a Goon in the first place.
So this is part of a process that must be played out.
It’s a pain. It’s a stone-cold drag.
But it’s worth it for what is waiting on the other side.
10,000 times over.
My take.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
It is all just one big mass conspiracy. Hopefully, Rob won’t find our secret hideout and uncover all our secret plans.
I already know the name of your secret hideout, Massive. It’s called Planet Internet.
And I know your secret plan. Your secret plan is to make use of ever low-handed trick you can think of to be able to remain in Planet Ignorance for ever and ever and ever.
If you did that only for yourself, I would wish you the best of luck with it.
When you go beyond that and engage in trickery that keeps millions of middle-class investors in Planet Ignorance along with you, that becomes an important public policy matter. When you engage in financial fraud to protect people from learning things that they have expressed a desire to be able to learn, that’s financial fraud. That’s a crime, a felony. That’s prison time.
Planet Ignorance is not for me. Sue me.
Going to prison is not high on my bucket list.
Find someone else.
Rob
“I want that to change.”
No you don’t. All you want is to dictate and not be challenged. You censor here more than the Kremlin ever did. Unfortunately other sites won’t give you censorship power, which is why you refuse to venture out anymore. Still, since this site has gotten so godawful stale, here’s a suggestion that might just inject a little life: Open Posting Day!
No? Didn’t think so.
“We need to get those who have posted in “defense” of Mel Lindauer and John Greaney and Jack Bogle sent to prison.”
The school that proffered a law degree onto you should hide their face in shame. AFTER they withdraw your diploma. And sure, why not go ahead and call that a threat if you like, you laughable dipsh*t.
A non-Goon would have said “you lovable dipshit.”
That’s how you can recognize a Goon. They always take it a step too far.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, Anonymous.
Rob, the Lovable Dipshit
here’s a suggestion that might just inject a little life: Open Posting Day!
All of the non-Goons will feel free to say what they truly believe once you Goons are put safely inside prison cells, Dizzy. That’s the magic of the laws making financial fraud a felony.
Do you see?
Rob
All you want is to dictate and not be challenged. You censor here more than the Kremlin ever did.
I’m a meanie. Everybody knows that.
Rob
Once I am free to post honestly, we are ALL free to post honestly.
You are free to post honestly on this blog.
And the result is “No comments” from anyone other that those you refer to as goons.
And the people of the United States are free to enforce the laws against financial fraud following the next price crash and put you in a prison cell, Evidence.
I think you are crazy to play it the way you have played it. But it’s not my call. You make the call as to whether you commit felonies or not.
I ain’t committing no felonies. I ain’t even giving it two seconds of consideration.
So we are just going to have to wait to see how it all plays out.
I wish you the best of luck with it.
Fair enough?
Rob
And the people of the United States are free to enforce the laws against financial fraud following the next price crash and put you in a prison cell, Evidence.
Asking you questions that you can’t answer and pointing out that the vast majority of your output is worthless nonsense does not constitute financial fraud.
As you own this blog you are free to link to any statement that I have made that you consider to be financial fraud.
You will of course not be able to do so.
Your jury will decide the matter, Evidence.
That’s how our system works.
I naturally wish you all good things.
Rob
Your inability to link to any evidence of financial fraud suggests I won’t be appearing in front of any jury.
The contents of the entire web site constitute the evidence against you, Evidence.
The fact that you Goons post here daily shows that you are a lot more worried about it than you let on.
I’m telling the story. That’s all. I don’t decide whether you go to prison or not and I have zero interest in gaining the power to decide that. What I say doesn’t matter except to the extent that it prompts others to take action following the price crash.
We’re just going to have to wait to see how it all plays out, Evidence. That’s the bottom line. I cannot in good conscience fail to mention the prison sentences so long as there is even a tiny chance that I could help you (and lots of others) out. But I am under no illusions that the odds favor you making a good choice. So we are just going to have to wait and see what happens.
Rob
We cannot, in good conscience, fail to mention that you have no evidence of fraud and that it is one part of your silly fantasy.
It sounds like we have a standoff.
These things happen.
Rob
What standoff. There are no fraud charges, there are no prison sentences, there is no evidence. Case closed.
Good point, Anonymous.
Truly outstanding.
Rob
Betting your future on a fantasy of a $500 million windfall and prison for those you hate, is childish and stupid. Tell us you have a real plan to actually provide for your family.
Being willing to commit a felony and go to prison because some Internet Goon Squad demands it of you is what is truly stupid, Anonymous. Find someone else.
I’d rather bet my future on the people of the United States than bet it on the ability of a bunch of internet goons to stay out of prison one more day, one more week, one more month, one more year.
I didn’t build the Retire Early board at Motley Fool into the most successful board at that site for the purpose of destroying the lives of the people who posted there. Those people were my friends. I will continue to stand by them.
If we go into the Second Great Depression, my family has big problems. By posting honestly, I help the millions of middle-class Americans who need to learn the truth about what the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research says AND my family.
Please take good care.
Rob
If there are millions to be made, why aren’t you making millions?
My millions have been deferred by the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States, Anonymous.
I get the sense that you forget at times that I was once a Buy-and-Holder myself. I know why millions of middle-class investors are drawn to this strategy. People don’t want to take crazy risks with their retirement money. They want something real, something that will work in the long run. That’s what Buy-and-Hold is promoted to be. That’s what Buy-and-Hold really was (at least as far as we knew) prior to 1981. It has not been that for the past 34 years. When Bogle failed to walk to the front of a big room and say the words “I Was Wrong,” it became a con, a fraud, a Ponzi scheme a Get Rich Quick scheme. Something very, very, very different from what it was intended to be in the early years.
That is of course an unfortunate fact. There is not one of us, Buy-and-Holder or Valuation-Informed Indexer, who wanted it to go this way. If Bogle could go back in time, he would give the speech that he failed to give. But we cannot go back in time. So we are all stuck in the place in which we are stuck.
That reality created opportunities for people like me.
I am no investing expert. But I am capable of reading a book. Robert Shiller has published a book detailing what the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works. In ordinary circumstances, there would be hundreds of web sites detailing all of the many important strategic implications that follow from the 34 years of peer-reviewed research. The massive act of financial fraud has limited it to one. I own the most important web site on the face of Planet Internet. And it’s not a close call.
I intend to cash in. I would be a damn fool not to do so.
And I intend to cash in on the publicity for that site that I get by exposing the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States. Again, I would be a damn fool not to do so.
There’s nothing that you can offer me that can match the benefits of continuing to post honestly. Even if you offered me the $500 million settlement payment and required that I agree to keep quiet about the massive case of financial fraud as a condition of receiving it, that wouldn’t work. I need the publicity that comes from everyone in this field coming clean at one time to realize the full monetary and educational potential of the assets that I hold today. I can agree to state things in a charitable way. Doing that does not pose problems. But I cannot lie about basic facts like whether Greaney’s retirement study contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins or not.
I have made my decision as to how I am going to play this. I made that decision on the morning of May 13, 2002. I have never given two seconds of consideration to the idea of playing it any other way. If you truly think that there is some chance that I am going to flip, you are as stupid as you pretend to believe that I am.
My course is set. I understand that you feel that your course is set too — You feel that there is a chance that the crash will not come and that it is better to bet on that chance than to turn yourself in and go to prison for a shorter amount of time. I get it. I don’t like it. But I accept it. The world is not always what we want it to be. The world is what the world is.
We are going to have to wait it out and see whether that crash comes or not. If it does, I will be one of the richest men in the United States and you will be in a prison cell. That’s where we are. You are not going to give an inch because you don’t want to go to prison even for a relatively short time and I am not going to give an inch because I am not willing to give up my $500 million settlement payment and because I don’t like the idea of playing a role in bringing on the Second Great Depression.
It is what it is and we are where we are. You can cry about it. But it’s not going to do you (or anyone else) any good to do so.
I’ve made my millions. I’ve done the work. I collect after the crash. I don’t like waiting. I’ve earned the money and I want to see it deposited into my account. That’s not the way our system works in these sorts of circumstances. In these sorts of circumstances, our system says that I need to wait for the crash to come for people’s emotions to change so that they come to hate the con being worked on them as much as today they love it. So be it, you know? I love my country. I think its laws are good laws. I will wait to wait a bit to collect on the years of good work that I have done here.
If if it not been for the massive con, I would have collected a much smaller amount of money in a much shorter amount of time while being put to a great deal less trouble. I would have preferred that option. These are the cards I was dealt. So these are the cards that I played. I am not going to cry over having been put in circumstances in which I need to wait a bit before collecting my $500 million. I mean. come freakin’ on.
I hope that we don’t hear you crying when it comes time for you to walk into your prison cell and hear the door close on you. We all make our choices and we all have to live with the consequences that they bring on. Prison sentences come to an end someday. This does not need to be the last chapter of your life story.
I wish you all good things. That much I can do without going to the wrong side of The Felony Line myself.
Hang in there, man.
Rob
The shorter version:
If emotion is as strong a factor in investing as it has shown itself to be during the Buy-and-Hold years, those who have criticized Buy-and-Hold are going to be in clover following the next crash. No one alive has been as critical of Buy-and-Hold as I have been over the past 13 years. That translates into huge amounts of money once the emotion flips from loving Get Rich Quick to hating it.
We’ll see.
Rob