Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at my site:
“We need to make a demonstration as a people that we will not tolerate the intimidation tactics of the Buy-and-Holders any longer. ”
Intimidation? Please. You’ve been afforded much more presumed credibility than any internet crank deserves, by having many people tolerate your crap and even respond to it as if it were a legitimate case of ignorance or misunderstanding or other solvable situation, rather than just ignoring you — as is the most deserving response. Over the years, people have continually provided you links, discussion, argument, examples, references, analogies, details, particulars, history, explanation, and any number of other valuable resources all geared towards your personal enlightenment. So, ‘Intimidation’? Please. Hardly. For the last decade, you have used the same phone number that you publicly provide, same address that you publicly tout, same web address, same everything, and have never provided once scintilla of evidence of a SINGLE threat or act of intimidation. So, I’d say that is not just remarkable, but damn near incredible, given the nature of the internet, which attracts crazy likes flies to a picnic. And no, this is not a death threat, you idiot. It’s a friendly and human sincere invitation for you to finally to wake up, smell the coffee, greet your wife, kids, community, and acquaintances anew, and from this day forward, begin to act towards them as a responsible adult: get a job, save some money, be a responsible parent and spouse, and quit being nothing but a full-time nuisance internet crank, devolving deeper and deeper into your self-made land of mental illness, and imaginary threats.
I’ll talk a bit about intimidation.
The thrust of your comment is a suggestion that you will not be going to prison because you never came to my house with a gun at fired it at my wife or children. That’s not the test. You will be going to prison.
The threat to come to my house with a baseball bat and kill my wife and children is an act of intimidation. My wife certainly saw it as that. She will testify to how she felt when that threat was made. She was at the time taking care of a two-year old and an infant of five months of age. The jury will hear all this. They will decide on the length of your prison sentence.
Motley Fool deleted the most violent posts. But I believe we can get them to present as evidence either by going to the Motley Fool files or by using a WayBack machine or through some other means. Portions of the deleted posts were included in posts that were not deleted. So we always have those. And there were references to the death threats made at the Bogleheads Forum and other boards and blogs and you Goons demanded bannings of all posters who posted honestly on the matter. That shows a guilty conscience. If the death threats had not been made, there would have been no need to cover them up.
I filed a police report re the death threats. That will be available as evidence. I also made a report with a special office on internet crimes in Virginia. I also contacted the FBI. The question that the police officer focused on was whether I believed that you would follow through on the threats. I said that my wife was much more worried about that than I was but that I did not believe that my wife should have to live in fear because an individual got an important number wrong in a retirement study posted at his web site and because I pointed that out to friends of mine who had been planning their retirements pursuant to a belief that that individual (John Greaney) had done honest work. I said that I personally did not believe that you Goons would kill anyone. I added that I could not be certain because anyone who was crazy enough to put up a post in “defense’ of John Greaney is capable of just about anything.
I have copies of posts containing HUNDREDS of threats of physical violence. There are posts where you Goons discussed what model of gun to use to kill me. Those will be seen by your jury. I have copies of posts in which you posted photos of my church and made suggestions that you Goons would be showing up there. Those will be seen by your jury. I have posts showing that a swarm of you Goons descended onto the Bogleheads Forum when community members there complained about the constant abusiveness. You wouldn’t have had a swarm descend if you didn’t have a long record of abusiveness at many different forums. Those posts will be seen by your jury. And on and on and on and on and on.
And of course your jury will be seeing all of the threats that were directed at Wade Pfau. The Bennett/Pfau research is the most important piece of research published in this field in three decades. That research should have been written up on the front page of the New York Times when it was first published. The only reason it has not been is because you Goons threatened to destroy Wade’s career if he continued to post about it and Jack Bogle indicated that he backed you and your use of intimidation tactics 100 percent. Bogle allows his name to be used at a site that permits posting by Mel Linduaer, a guy who was employing threats of physical violence to suppress honest posting on the peer-reviewed research in this field long before I came on the scene!
The most important question is WHY Buy-and-Holders feel a need to resort to threats of physical violence and of career destruction whenever anyone posts honestly on safe withdrawal rates or any other critically important investment-related topic. The obvious explanation (it wasn’t obvious to me on the morning of May 13, 2002, but it is 13 years later) is that Buy-and-Hold was based on a MISTAKE going back to the first day. There has never been even a tiny sliver of support for the preposterous Buy-and-Hold claim that there is no need for investors to practice price discipline when buying stocks. The entire historical record shows that practicing price discipline is 80 percent of the game. That’s a lie that Buy-and-Holders use to take money out of the pockets of millions of middle-class investors and to put it into their own.
This massive act of financial fraud will be exposed. I will expose it. You have my pledge. I am sure.
I will name names. Any blogger who has permitted participation at his site by an individual who has posted in “defense” of Mel Linduaer or John Greaney or Jack Bogle will be named. Their juries will decide the length of their prison sentences. That’s not my call. But I guaranty you that their names will become known to the millions of middle-class investors who are in the process of seeing their lives destroyed because of the 34-year cover-up of the biggest “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) advance in the history of personal finance.
I am going to see that you are put in prison, Anonymous. There will be no meanness to it. My aim is to put you in prison as soon as possible so that your sentence will be as short as possible, given the circumstances that apply. But it would be cruel of me for me to suggest that there is any but the most long-shot chance that you will not be going to prison. I will continue to do what I can to get your sentence reduced a bit. But that’s as far as my bending goes. There will be no felonies being committed on my end. There will be no discussion of felonies being committed on my end. Find someone else.
My best and warmest wishes to you, Goon friend.
Rob
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