“Bogle Did Not Acknowledge His Mistake When Shiller Revealed It in 1981. He Covered It Up. And Everyone Who Makes a Living in This Field Has Learned in the 36 Years Since That, If You Don’t Want to See Your Career Destroyed by Bogle’s Goons, You Will Keep Your Mouth Shut About the Contradictions You See Between the Buy-and-Hold Concept and the Last 36 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research in This Field.”

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

“If I say that I believe that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacks a valuation adjustment, that’s honest posting.”

No one has ever once asked you whether Greaney’s study lacks a valuation adjustment. You are physically incapable of making it through a comment thread without taking an off-topic shot at him. Even though he hasn’t mentioned you in years.

Why is that? He moved on, and you can’t. Which means he won and you lost.

If the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research is legitimate research, there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for a single long-term investor.

Greaney is not the only person who has ever offered investing advice based on the Buy-and-Hold Model for understanding how stock investing works. There are thousands who have done so. His connection with me is that he and I both posted at the same discussion board, the Retire Early board at the Motley Fool site. I happened to post honestly re safe withdrawal rates (noting that the peer-reviewed research shows that valuations affect long-term returns) and Greaney flipped his lid.

In ordinary circumstances, everyone who looked at Greaney’s insanely and indeed criminally abusive posting would have condemned it. But many condemned me for pointing out the errors in his study rather than condemning him for failing to correct the errors for 15 years now. Bogle did not acknowledge his mistake when Shiller revealed it in 1981. He covered it up. And everyone who makes a living in this field has learned in the 36 years since that, if you don’t want to see your career destroyed by Bogle’s Goons, you will keep your mouth shut about the contradictions you see between the Buy-and-Hold concept and the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.

I don’t keep my mouth shut. So I am Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of many Buy-and-Holders.

I believe that the Buy-and-Holders will all be supporting me in the days following the next price crash. They are good and smart people. They want to help their clients and their readers. Once they see you Goons put in prison, they will feel safe posting honestly, all the nasty stuff will be brought to a full and complete stop, and we will all be free to live far better lives than we ever thought possible before Shiller published his “revolutionary” (his word) research findings.

I hope that helps a small bit, my dear Goon friend.

Rob