Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site:
So, you agree with me that it has been a disaster.
Beyond that, the rest of your post is a fantasy.
Again, why have you refused to get a job that provides you an income?
I agree that in personal financial terms it has been a disaster. That just tells us how important an advance this is. If this were some small thing, there would be no opposition and the money would have been rolling in all along. The Buy-and-Holders fight this HARD. That shows us how worried they are that Valuation-Informed Indexing will catch on if people are permitted to hear about it in non-abusive back-and-forth discussions. We have a tiger by the tale here, Sammy.
The Washington Post was a small newspaper in the days before Watergate. I think that today it would be fair to describe it as the second or third most influential newspaper in the United States (behind the New York Times and possible the Wall Street Journal). Breaking the Watergate story obviously made a huge difference in that paper’s fortunes. But how much money do you think their pursuit of the Watergate story brought in to the paper in the early months of the reporters’ investigations?
In the early days, not one other newspaper was willing to commit the resources to investigate that earth-shaking story. The New York Times had one reporter on it, the Post had two, and that was it. Everyone else said it was a waste of time, that it would never amount to anything, that if anything it might bring the papers that followed it down because it made everything they said look suspect and there might be lawsuits brought against them.
Why did Katherine Graham stick at it? She understood what the journalism profession is all about. It’s not about retyping press releases. It is about telling readers things they need to know. Telling them what they already know does not advance the ball. Telling them what they want to know when it isn’t true sets them back. The public wanted to hear that Nixon was telling the truth. And every paper other than the Washington Post saw that the money was in going along with that story. But Graham saw hat the public needed the truth even if it didn’t bing in money in the short term and she could tell by the way that Nixon was reacting to questions that challenged his version of events that there was a cover-up going on. So she backed up those two reporters and in the long run she built a media empire by doing it.
I haven’t made a penny. That much is so. But the reason why I have not made a penny is not that there is nothing here. I know that because thousands have told me how much they want to be able to hear the truth about stock investing and because I know that those thousands that I have met on a few internet discussion boards represent millions out in the real world. Going 15 years without making a penny and then making $500 million in a settlement is not such a bad deal financially, Sammy. I can live with it, you know? I never in a million years would have chosen this path. But I am willing to play the cards that I was dealt re a matter of such great importance.
There’s plenty of money in this. We are going to need to rewrite all the economics textbooks once this gets written up on the front page of the New York Times. That’s going to bring about a huge economic advance. There are going to be thousands of people making fortunes from this once we get the ball rolling forward in a big way. All we need to do that is to get about 10 people to stand up to you Goons. Then it just happens. The internet already exists for us to use to make this go viral times 5,000.
It’s a process, Sammy. We both know how this is going to end up. If you didn’t know deep in your heart how things are going to play out following the next crash, you wouldn’t behave the way you do. You are in desperate circumstances. I can afford to be patient and just let things turn by themselves. I can afford to reach out the hand of kindness to you and offer to help you out in any way possible. Sadly, you do not feel that you can afford to accept the offer given what had already gone down over the first 15 years.
So be it, you know? If I don’t pick up that $500 million sitting there on the sidewalk in front of me, someone else will. It makes no sense to me to walk away without first picking it up. The Buy-and-Holders would say that there isn’t $500 million sitting on the sidewalk because it is isn’t rational that there would be, that if there really were $500 million sitting on the sidewalk someone would have picked it up by now. I agree that that would be the rational thing to do and it is indeed perplexing to me why there are not lots of others trying to pick up that money ahead of me. But I know from lots of experience in life that the humans just ain’t rational creatures and any belief system rooted in an insistence that they are is just going to let me down. It’s crazy that that money is still sitting there 15 years later but that’s just the reality crazy or not.
You are not rational, Sammy. You prove it with every post you advance. I’m not either. It works both ways. But at least I am acknowledging my irrationality and trying to do something about it by engaging in friendly back-and-forth discussions with those who disagree with me re how stock investing works. You do not possess the ability to do that. That tells me (rightly or wrongly) that I am one step ahead of you, that I am at least capable of acknowledging my irrationality and thereby of taking steps to cope with it and protect myself financially. I believe that millions need to do that and I know from the thousands who have already told me so that there are millions who want to get about the process of learning how to do that. I expect that those millions are going to make me a very, very wealthy man not too many days in the future now.
But we are just going to have to wait and see how it plays out in the real world. I could be wrong. It has been known to happen. If I were wrong again re this matter, I would probably be deep in self-denial and would be the last person on Planet Earth to see it. It is possible that that is what is happening. I don’t think so. I very much do not think so. But we are just going to have to wait and see how it all plays out following the next price crash (presuming that there really is another one coming).
I know with 100 percent certainty that I don’t want to be one of those who didn’t have the courage to speak up BEFORE the crash hurt. If another one is coming (and I sincerely believe that that is the case), then I at least want to be able to say that I did everything I could at a time when those efforts could do some real good.
I hope that helps a bit.
Rob
Anonymous says
“I agree that in personal financial terms it has been a disaster.”
You need to have a track record of success in order for people to follow you. Second, you need facts to support your comments (which you lack). Third, you have to learn how to behave.
Those are the three most significant reason why you find yourself in the unfortunate spot you are in today. Don’t you think it is about time you start to listen versus blaring the next headline on your website.
Rob says
I think that I need to evidence honesty to have people follow me, Anonymous. And I think that I need to root my work in what the peer-reviewed research (both pre-1981 and post-1981) And I think that I need to possess the courage to call you Goons out when you engage in insanely abusive and even criminal behavior.
I am covered re those three. So I am feeling good about the future. I don’t like seeing the damage that has been done to our board and blog communities over the first 15 years of The Great SWR Debate. But, for so long as we do not permit honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and other critically important investment-related topics, they are all corrupt enterprises in any event. The best that those of us who love those communities can do is to lay the groundwork needed to revive them in the days following the next price crash when opportunities to do so will present themselves to us. I continue to lay that groundwork on a daily basis.
I am not in an unfortunate spot. At least not more than any of the rest of us living on Planet Earth at this time. We all are in danger of experiencing the economic turmoil that will follow from the next price crash, which may well lead to political turmoil as well. I am highly concerned about that. But there’s a saying that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Smart and good people who see that the peer-reviewed research does not support Buy-and-Hold have been self-censoring for 36 years now. Look at where it has brought us? The Buy-and-Holders are in such pain that they cannot permit one fellow to post honestly re SWRs at one large discussion board, even after thousands of his fellow community members express a desire to be able to hear what he has to say. Not good. The “Live in Fear of the Buy-and-Hold Goons Stategy” has been a dismal failure. Not this boy.
I have every right in the world to post honestly re SWRs or any other investing question at any board or blog at which I wish to do so. So does Wade Pfay. So does Carl Richards. So does Bill Schultheis. So does Bill Bernstein. So does Larry Swedroe. So does Robert Shiller. So does Jack Bogle. So does everyone. When I win my war with you Goons, they all will be doing so. And the entire world of investors will be hearing about 36 years of advances in our understanding of how stock investing works in the space of a few days. My job is to bring on that day, to free everyone in this field to do good, honest, research-based work once again. I take my job seriously. I will get it done. You just be sure to watch closely and you will see.
I offer no apologies for posting honestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements. I love you Goons as dear friends. I will do anything in my power to help you out. But “anything in my power” obviously does not include saying that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. Thousands of people have looked at his study and not one has ever been able to find a valuation adjustment. I am beginning to develop a funny feeling that the reason might be that there really is not one there, just as I said in my famous post of the morning of May 13,2002.
We will find out together how things play out, Anonymous. I do wish you the best of luck with it
Rob
Anonymous says
“I think that I need to evidence honesty to have people follow me, Anonymous. And I think that I need to root my work in what the peer-reviewed research (both pre-1981 and post-1981) And I think that I need to possess the courage to call you Goons out when you engage in insanely abusive and even criminal behavior.”
You have tried to convince yourself that you are right on these, but you are not. People have been trying to tell you that for years, yet you stick your fingers in your ears and go “La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la”.
Rob says
It’s the way that these people aim to do their “convincing” that persuades me that Shiller is right that stock investing is an intensely emotional endeavor and that any strategy rooted in a belief that investors are 100 percent rational is going to miss the mark by a lot.
Rob
Anonymous says
“I am not in an unfortunate spot.”
Who would trade places with you? Maybe people in prison or a war zone. Maybe the permanently disabled or terminally ill.
Then again, maybe not.
Rob says
I am not able to speak for other people. I agree with you that there is a lot of evidence that few would be willing to trade places with me.
But I am the one who has to live with my conscience. The fact that so many others are not willing to pay the price associated with posting honestly re these matters in the year 2017 impresses upon me how important it is that I do so. Surely someone has to take on this responsibility. The next price crash is not going to be the end of our story. We are going to need to rebuild our broken economic and political systems, We are going to need the materials available at this site to come to a full and balanced understanding of what was done to us and of what we did to ourselves.
We all have to play the cards we are dealt in this life. These are my cards, I will play them. I have never once in 15 years given two seconds of consideration to the possibility of walking yhe other path. Never in 15 billion years would I do so. I love my country.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
Anonymous says
“Going 15 years without making a penny and then making $500 million in a settlement is not such a bad deal”
The first part of that is history. The second part is an insane fantasy. But to you, both are equally true.
This gets back to the previous comment. What’s worse, being in prison or being nuts? The prisoner at least has hope for a better future.
Rob says
I don’t think it is nuts to expect someday to see the laws of the United States apply in the investing advice field just they today apply in all other fields of human endeavor. The people who tolerate you Goons are the same people who supported enactment of those laws. They believe in those laws. They have made an exception for a time because of the pain they feel when asked to confront the reality that their portfolios are only worth one-half of what the Buy-and-Holders have told them they are worth. But what purpose will such an exception serve once the portfolio numbers drop below the real-value numbers. The exception will go “poof!” soon after the phony portfolio numbers go “poof!”
My sincere take.
Rob
Anonymous says
If I create my own investing site to promote my own investing strategy, but so don’t like to your site or mention VII, do you consider that fraud?
Rob says
Bad intent is an element of fraud. If you believe in your strategy and just seeking to share it with people there’s no fraud.
But if someone comes along and points out that your retirement study does not contain a valuation adjustment and that there is 36 years of peer-reviewed research showing that one is needed and your response is to threaten to kill him if he continues posting honestly, that shows bad intent.
Ultimately, a jury will decide these matters.
If I were sitting on a jury and the evidence suggested strongly that you had just made an innocent mistake, I would not find you guilty. If I saw abusive behavior on your part, that would tell me that there was bad intent and I would find you guilty.
Rob