Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
I am willing to give anything a shot for a period of time (1-3 years). But spending 16 years of my time with $0 earnings is beyond any level of reason.
I was rereading yesterday’s posts this morning and I saw this one and I thought that I should make a point that I did not bring out in my original response.
In an objective sense I agree with this point. If you described to me some hypothetical scenario where a fellow waited for 16 years for things to turn around re some matter, I would be inclined to agree with what you are saying here, Anonymous. I would say “maybe waiting one year for a turn-around makes sense, perhaps two years, three years is pushing it. Not 16 freakin’ years!” So I get the point.
I sometimes ask myself: “If you knew how things were going to play out, would you have put forward that famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002?” Given the positive stuff we have seen over the past 16 years, the answer is obviously “yes, a thousand times yes!” There’s been a mountain of amazingly positive stuff. But given the negative stuff and given that the positive stuff has not to this day generated any cold hard cash for the Bennett family, an argument can be made that the negative stuff outweighs the positive stuff. The positive stuff outweighs the negative stuff when you take a global perspective — the advance that we all achieve with the shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing permits us all to live far richer (in every sense of the word) lives. But we all live our lives mostly in the hard-cash personal realm, not in the all-you-need-is-love global society-wide realm. As you note, the penalties that I have faced in the personal realm for my “crime” of posting honestly re safe withdrawal rates have been pretty darn severe. So has it really been worth it? Can I really make that claim with a confident, calm feeling?
There’s a reason why I often use the catch-phrase “I love my country — that’s the bottom line here.” There’s a motto they use in the marines — God, Country, Family. I don’t consider myself a particularly brave person. If I were asked to risk my life in a military battle, I would be afraid. I like to think that I would overcome my fears and do my duty. But I know I would be afraid. That’s the way I was made. I don’t see how it benefits me or anyone else for me to lie about that.
I have more courage to fight battles in the intellectual/emotional realm where these investing strategy battles have been fought. I have taken lots of hits standing up to you Buy-and-Holders. Lots and lots and lots of hits. And I have been a little bit afraid at times. But not nearly as afraid as I would have been were the battles being fought in the physical realm. I possess a lot more courage in the intellectual and emotional realms. I believe in God. I believe that things happen to us in this life for a reason. I believe that I was placed in circumstances in which my courage would be tested in realms in which I am capable of standing up to the test because God knows that I at least potentially possess what it takes to pass the tests in those realms.
When a man dies for his country as a soldier on the battlefield, no one says “oh, he is a fool, he gave up too much, he hurt his family.” People praise the fellow, they say he is a hero. God presented me with this other way of demonstrating my love for my country. He said: “Oh, you flatter yourself that you love your country and you are willing to make sacrifices for it, let’s see you stand up to these internet Goons, let’s see whether you mean what you say when you encourage your boys to be real men or whether you are just a hypocrite pumping out more hot air.” God (Evolution/Life/Fate/Circumstances/Whatever) placed me in a position where I could help millions of people by putting myself and my family through some temporary (16 years!) strain or where I could just decide that there is no reason why I should stick my neck out anymore than my heroes Jack Bogle and Robert Shiller have stuck theirs out and let our economic system go down because there was no one brave enough to stand up to the relentless hate of the Lindauerheads and the Greaney Goons.
I stood in the line of fire. I never flinched. I am proud of it. No apologies.
God will judge me when I die. That’s what I believe. I believe in my heart that I have passed the test. But I don’t want to be presumptive about it. I still ask myself the question every day. I still pray that, if I have gotten something wrong somewhere that God gives me the grace to see it and fix it before too much more time passes through the hourglass. But I sincerely believe that I have DEMONSTRATED my love for my country (and for my family too — my boys are going to have to live in the economic system that we are all creating with our actions today) with unwillingness to post dishonestly re the numbers that many of my friends are using to plan their retirements. I don’t just express my love for my country with words. I was there with my honest posts when it became clear to me that some honest posts were needed if this economic and political system of ours was going to continue to work in the future as well as it has worked in the past.
God help me, you know? It’s a big responsibility. It’s scary to be a human. We all have consciences. We know with a good bit of confidence what is right. But we don’t get to see the last page of the story in advance. So it’s always a little bit scary making the best of things with our limited brains and our limited understandings as each stage of the process plays out before us. God protect me. God give me guidance. God give me strength.
God help us all. God help you Goons. You Goons have that human thing going on somewhere deep inside no matter how much you endeavor to cover it up. Or so Rob Bennett sincerely believes, you know?
Take good care, my dear Goon friend. There’s a better place on the other side of The Big Black Mountain. Or so I heard in a story once. That sounded to me to be more or less on the mark.
Yowsa!
Rob
feed twitter twitter facebook