Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Rob,
Good ideas — ideas that pass logical and empirical muster — simply cannot be long suppressed. Even if one ‘inventor’, ‘discoverer’, or vocal proponent is somehow squelched, others inevitably will come forth with almost simultaneous discovery. Witness the ‘discovery’ of radio, telegraph, the calculus, and many other examples. The annals of history are replete with such occurrences, and in fact, one theory is that even if a genuinely good idea is actively suppressed, the energy used to suppress it will form a sort of springboard to bounce it back into the eye of humanity. That is if it has merit. So you should not despair, if your REAL objective is to get the ‘truth’ out there. Because, totally without you being involved at all, the truth still will come forth. It always does. Reading this does not bring you comfort, though, does it? No. Because it undermines your twisted need to be a martyr and somehow obtain personal public recognition, no matter what the cost.
Please read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery
“”When the time is ripe for certain things, they appear at different places in the manner of violets coming to light in early spring.”
I strongly agree with what you are saying here, Anonymous.
I have spent the last 13 years of my life developing the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. And I of course am very proud of the work I have done. We have discovered some absolutely amazing things. And I have played a big role. So good for me, you know?
But I certainly could not have done what I have done without Jack Bogle. And I certainly could not have done what I have done without Robert Shiller. And I certainly could not have done what I have done without John Walter Russell. And I certainly could not have done what I have done without Wade Pfau. And I certainly could not have done what I have done without Mike Piper. And I certainly could not have done what I have done without Todd Tresidder. And on and on and on.
I’ll go even a step further. I couldn’t have done what I have done without you Goons! Imagine that!
These ideas cannot be long suppressed. I agree 100 percent. They have been suppressed for 34 years now. But that’s not a long time in the grand scheme of things. The humans have been trying to come to a better understanding of how stock investing works for hundreds of years. The shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing is BY FAR the biggest advance we have ever achieved. That has been the entire problem going back to the first day. If I had shown how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 5 percent, I would be on the cover of Time magazine. Unfortunately (!), I showed how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent. Something that big makes the people pushing the outdated approach feel bad. That’s why we have seen 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. WhaChaGonDo?
I can’t change things so that this is only a small advance to make the Buy-and-Holders less defensive. The peer-reviewed research says what the peer-reviewed research says. ALL of the research supports VII. NONE of the research supports Buy-and-Hold. The Buy-and-Holders need to come to terms with that. We all want the same things. When the Buy-and-Holders come to terms with our good fortune and realize that it is in their best interests to look forward rather than backward, we will get to the other side of The Big Black Mountain and enjoy together our good fortune in being the luckiest generation of investors ever to walk Planet Earth.
I am not despairing. Something that I have said hundreds of times now is that the good news here is 50 times more good than the bad news is bad. We are on the verge of achieving the greatest advance ever achieved in the history of personal finance. I am humbled to have played a big role in bringing it about
And, yes, I believe 100 percent that “the energy used to suppress it will form a sort of springboard to bounce it back into the eye of humanity.” That’s exactly how things usually work out in life, in my experience. John Walter Russell said something along these lines many years back. He said that this is all going to work out in way better than any of us can imagine. Those words struck me as having the ring of truth to them. That’s how I believe it is all going to turn out.
I hope that helps you understand two things: (1) why I want to do whatever I can to help out you Goons; and (2) why I never, ever, ever want to engage in any acts of financial fraud myself. My focus is on the rebuilding effort. I want to turn from the negative to the positive. So I don’t want people getting caught up in some sick desire to seek revenge on your Goons. And I know that the key to my helping you out is maintaining credibility in the eyes of the millions of middle-class investors whose lives are in the process of being destroyed. So I try to be as careful as possible not to do anything to aid this massive act of financial fraud.
Thanks for putting forward a super post, Anonymous. I think you are making a very important point with this one.
Take good care, my long-time abusive posting friend.
Rob
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