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 think it matters, Anonymous.”
No one else does.
That’s not a conclusion that a reasonable person who reviewed the materials at the site would come to, Anonymous.
Lots of people think it matters. Those of us who think it matters are not a majority, that’s for sure. We’re about 10 percent of the population. But if Shiller’s research is legitimate (I believe it is), it is very important for that 10 percent over time to become 20 percent and then 40 percent and then 80 percent. For that to happen, people need to be able to talk over the ideas among themselves, to ask questions, to probe, to hear the ideas explored from different angles until they become more comfortable with them.
It’s that learning process that has been blocked by the intimidation tactics of the Buy-and-Holders. I have asked people to help me out when you Goons crossed the felony line. People often don’t do it because they are afraid. Well. I am afraid too. I could theoretically do what others do, I could silence myself, censor myself, keep my doubts about Buy-and-Hold hidden so as not to draw the wrath of the Buy-and-Hold Goons down on me.
How would things ever change if I did that? I want things to change. Cowardice is not the formula for change. So I don’t want to go there. I want to take it exactly the other way. I want to develop Shiller’s insights to the fullest extent to which they can be developed and I want to share the implications of those powerful and life-affirming insights with every person on the planet. That’s my mission. That’s my job. That’s my life’s work. That’s what gives me a kick when I get up in the morning and when I go to bed at night. That’s the story for me.
You want the new ideas to die. You want the state of humankind’s knowledge of how stock investing works to return to where it stood in 1980. You and I are working at cross purposes. So you do what you do instead.
You say that it doesn’t matter. Your actions tell a very different story. You think it matters a great deal. That’s why you fight so hard. I think you are right re that one. I think it matters a great deal too. Every time you advance another death threat or another demand for another unjustified board banning or another act of defamation or another threat to get another academic researcher fired from another job, the message that you want me to hear is: “You are in scary territory, you better back down.” But the message that I hear is: “This is truly important stuff and the people on the other side have come to the conclusion that Buy-and-Hold can only be defended with the lowest tactics imaginable, this is worth fighting for.”
I love my country. What I love about it is that we have processes in place to resolve conflicts of this sort in ways that work to the good of every single person involved. I like that. I like being part of a process with the promise to enhance millions of lives in very big and important ways.
Is it possible that our country will fail us this time? It’s possible. I don’t say that it can’t happen.
But I don’t believe for two seconds that that is what is going to happen. I believe that the American people are going to win this one. I don’t have any doubts about it.
I think that you Goons are going to be with us when we all get to the other side. Losing 50 percent of your life savings is going to change your perspective on things. So we will be friends then. We will be working together then. I think that will be perfectly groovy, you know? I look forward to that.
We are prisoners of time. I can tell you what I see. I cannot persuade you that it is real until you are able to see it with your own eyes. We are going to have to wait a bit to see how things play out in the days following the next price crash to find out for sure whether Greaney’s study really does lack a valuations adjustment, as I have been saying, or whether the problem is just that I went off my meds somewhere along the line.
I certainly wish you the best of luck with it, dear friend. Does that help at all?
Med-Taking (or Not?) Rob
Everyone has had full access to Shiller’s comments. Nothing gives you the isn’t to do and say anything you want on someone elses’s website. You are not the dictator as to what people should discuss.
The published posting rules of every site at which I have participated permit honest posting on the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research. You also are not the dictator as to what people should discuss. When the published posting rules permit honest discussion and when hundreds of community members express a desire that honest posting be permitted, you are out of line to advance death threats and demands for unjustified board bannings and thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.
Financial fraud is a crime in the United States.
Crime-Avoiding Rob
We have yet to see proof of any death threats or job threats on any of the boards that have banned you. Further, you have exercised your right to ban people’s comments, yet feel that this standard does not apply to you.
The entire site will be available to the members of your jury. They will make the call. That’s how our system works.
I wish you the best of luck with it, if that helps at all.
Comment Banning Maniac Rob
“The entire site will be available to the members of your jury.”
You are referring to YOUR site with YOUR words, in which there is zero credibility.
Then you should be in good shape.
Rest easy, man.
Reassuring Rob
“Then you should be in good shape.”
I am in great shape. I don’t have a failed retirement like you. I don’t have to blame goons. I don’t have to make up stories about death threats, job threats, jury’s, prison, etc.
Sounds super groovy.
Maybe I should take a look into this Buy-and-Hold stuff.
Open-to-New-Ideas Rob
Given that your retirement failed, your investments lag the market, your predictions failed and you have been widely banned, you should be open to new ideas. Unfortunately, you have decided to continue down the path of failure and you have taken your family with you. Very sad.
I’m starting to think that maybe Greaney’s retirement study really does contain a valuations adjustment. I overlooked it. Now I’m beginning to see it!
Does that get the job done?
New Path Rob
“I’m starting to think that maybe Greaney’s retirement study really does contain a valuations adjustment. I overlooked it. Now I’m beginning to see it!”
Wade already set you straight on that. Move on with your life.
Did you Goons move on when Wade put forward scores and scores of posts saying that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies are “dangerous” and that “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” and expressing gratitude to me for teaching him things about how stock investing works that he never learned in the courses he took to earn his Ph.D. in Economics and expressing amazement at the insane level of abusiveness he saw among the Buy-and-Holders whenever the accuracy of the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies was questioned?
But I should move on because, when Bogle gave his implicit support to a threat to destroy Wade’s career if Wade continued doing honest work in this field, he put up one post contradicting the scores and scores of honest ones?
I think not, Anonymous.
I want to see Wade Pfau and thousands of others feeling 100 percent free to post honestly re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics at any internet site they please. We don’t get there by living in fear of you Goons. It’s by standing up to you Goons that we all get to the place that deep in our hearts we all want to be.
And, when I say “all,” I mean you Goons too. Had Bogle incorporated Shiller’s findings into his investing model back in 1981, when the “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) findings were published, Greaney would never have experienced the embarrassment of getting the numbers wildly wrong in a retirement study with his name on it. Greaney’s gripe is with Jack Bogle, not with Rob Bennett. If I say that I believe that Greaney included a valuation adjustment in his study, I am helping to create new John Greaneys and new Mel Lindauers and new prison sentences and longer prison sentences.
Not freakin’ interested, you know? Not this boy. Not my particular cup of tea.
There is no place for death threats in discussions of how stock investing works. There is no place for demands for unjustified board bannings in discussions of how stock investing works. There is no place for thousands of acts of defamation in discussions of how stock investing works. There is no place for threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs in discussions of how stock investing works. Please mark me down as OPPOSED to all acts of financial fraud.
And please mark me down as OPPOSED to pretending that acts of financial fraud don’t matter, that it is up to someone else to do something about them. It is up to ALL of us to do something about them. I am one of all of us. So I am going to continue to do my part. I can do no more and I can do no less. I do not control how others react to my efforts. But I do control my own behavior. I am going to continue to do my part. With love. With charity. With compassion. But with steadfastness too. Because the millions of middle-class people whose retirements are today at risk because of this massive act of financial fraud matter to me. I offer no apologies whatsoever for feeling that way.
We will ALL be able to get on to more fun aspects of our lives when the massive act of financial fraud has been brought to a full and complete stop via a public statement by Jack Bogle reported on the front page of the New York Times.
My sincere take.
And my best wishes.
Moving On (But By Going Forward Into a Brighter Future Rather Than Backwards Into More Ugliness) Rob
Wade has posted honestly on you, but you can’t accept it. You continue to make up stories about him and what he has said. You have done the same with so many other people and that is why your are now isolated. No one can have a normal conversation with you.
There was a story yesterday about an investigation into sexual abuses by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania. A 900-page report was issued detailing the cover-up in great detail. I saw one Catholic journalist who read the report put up a tweet saying that there is more corruption in the Catholic church today than there was in the days prior to the Protestant Reformation. He argued that, if the church does not face up squarely to the massive corruption, it will collapse. This is an institution that has been with us for 2,000 years.
The remarkable thing about this story is not that there were cases of sexual abuse. That sort of thing has been with us since life began on Planet Earth. The thing that is hard to comprehend is why no one did anything about it. Lots of people knew. No effective action was taken. There was cover-up piled up on top of cover-up piled up on top of cover-up. In that sort of environment, no one feels safe speaking up. In that sort of environment, any honest statement represents a threat to the established order.
That’s where we are in the investing advice field today, Anonymous. Lots of people have TRIED to have normal conversations with me over the past 16 years. But, yes, once their lives are threatened or their careers are threatened, pretty much everyone backs down. The same story has played out hundreds of times.
Is the answer to let the same story play out yet hundreds of times more and to see millions more lives destroyed? I have a hard time believing that that is the answer.
The next price crash makes things real. We can respond as a people then or we can fail once again to work up the courage to respond and see our economic system collapse. I love our economic system. So I am going to vote for us all as a people working up the courage to take effective action.
I only get one vote. That’s a reality I need to accept.
But our country has done great things many times before. I don’t think its a safe bet to rule out the possibility that it will do a great thing once again. That’s a reality that I think you Goons would try to accept if you were thinking clearly.
We will have to wait a bit to see how it goes.
I hope that works for you, dear friend.
Isolated (But Not Really Given That the Laws of the United States — Which Reflect the Nation’s True and Deep Take re These Matters — Are On His Side) Rob
“But, yes, once their lives are threatened or their careers are threatened, pretty much everyone backs down.”
Once they realize they’ve engaged a willfully ignorant pathologically lying passive-aggressive narcissist, absolutely everyone backs away. Which makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make sense is that you think that will ever change.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all good things, in any event.
Willfully Ignorant, Pathologically Lying Rob
Wen a large group of people question your mental stability, don’t you think it is time for self assessment?
Read the report about the cover-up of the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Anonymous. The same sorts of tactics were used to keep people quiet.
Tale a look at what happened in the Harvey Weinstein case. Same tactics.
Look into how the tobacco companies kept the research showing that smoking causes cancer under wraps for a number of years. Same tactics.
Consider what happened to people who spoke out in support of civil rights laws in the days before those laws were passed. Same tactics.
Humans have been doing the same sorts of things since they have been residing on Planet Earth. We have laws against financial fraud for a good reason. We are seeing today what happens when we let phony bull market gains persuade us that those laws are no longer necessary.
If Greaney had truly included a valuations adjustment in his retirement study, we never would have seen a single death threat or a single demand for a single unjustified board banning or a single act of defamation or a single threat to get a single academic research fired from a single job. I didn’t say that the Greaney study lacks a valuations adjustment because I am crazy. I said it because it is so. Your reaction shows that you lack confidence that you can persuade people otherwise in civil and reasoned debate.
You do your thing and I’l do mine. We can trade notes in the days following the next price crash as to who has fell and who’s been left behind.
My best wishes.
Crazy Eyes Rob
“I didn’t say that the Greaney study lacks a valuations adjustment because I am crazy.”
Greaney’s “study” (which wasn’t even his study) was posted 18 years ago. It’s been at least five years since he even mentioned you at Goon Central. But you rip into him every single day. Because you are crazy.
I don’t rip into him at all. I say that I consider John a friend. I say that we had a lot of good times together. I say that he helped me build an amazing discussion board community at the Motley Fool site. I say that I believe that he personally believes that 4 percent really is safe, that that is what he would tell his best friend if he was asked and that he could pass a lie detector test re that question. I say that I was right to give the study a five-star review when I reviewed it because it advanced our understanding of retirement planning in important ways. Peter Lynch was saying that the safe withdrawal rate was 7 percent around the time that Greaney put out his study. So Greaney clearly got a lot closer to giving us the right number than Lynch did, and Lynch was the manager of a huge fund. I say that I had hopes at one time of co-authoring a book on early retirement with my good friend.
How does any of that add up to “ripping him”? I would say that the reality is quite the opposite.
I also say that he did not include a valuations adjustment in his study. I say that because it is so. Thousands of people have looked at the study over the past 16 years and not one has been able to identify a valuations adjustment in it. So I have been proven right in what I said in my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002. Greaney made a mistake. So what? He’s human, like all the rest of us. Had he promptly corrected the mistake, there never would have been any problem, just good stuff piled on top of good stuff for as far as the eye can see for all of us.
It’s not only Greaney’s study that lacks a valuations adjustment, Anonymous. None of the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies contain valuation adjustments. When Buy-and-Hold was developed, we didn’t even know that valuations affect long-term returns (Shiller’s “revolutionary” [his word] research came later. Millions of middle-class people used those studies to plan their retirements. So there are today millions of people at grave risk of suffering failed retirements in days to come.
Are you willing to work with me to get those studies corrected as soon as possible?
There’s the rub. It’s not Greaney who is at the center of this. It’s Bogle. Bogle should have incorporated Shiller’s research findings into the Buy-and-Hold model when he learned of them, back in 1981. He didn’t do that. I assume that he was suffering from cognitive dissonance. So we now have millions of people at great risk of suffering one of the worst life setbacks imaginable.
And you Goons don’t want to help. Not at all. It’s worse than that. You want to BLOCK efforts to get those studies corrected. Huh? What the f?
You feel that, given the 37-year cover-up, it is going to make the Buy-and-Holders look bad to acknowledge today that valuations affect long-term returns and their retirement studies lack valuation adjustments. You are onto something re that one. It does look pretty bad. The difference between us is that I love my Buy-and-Hold friends and I want things to go as well for them as possible. It obviously doesn’t help them for the 37-year cover-up that makes them look so bad to become a 38-year cover-up. So I am working to bring The Great Buy-and-Hold Con to a full and complete stop by the close of business today.
And you are doing everything in your power to stop me.
I am working on your behalf. If you could think clearly about this stuff, you would see that we are on the same side. I am not crazy to want to help you or Greaney or Bogle. You are my friends. I have learned things from you. It is natural that I would want to help you.
If I were to be perfectly frank, I might venture forth the opinion that you are perhaps a little crazy to work so hard to make your life worse. But you know what? That sort of thing has been going on since the beginning of time. Humans don’t always act in their self-interest. We are emotional creatures. Which is another way of saying that we are all a little crazy at times. So be it, you know? I love all the crazy humans all the same.
If you want me to help you and Greaney and Bogle, I will be there in three seconds and you won’t have to ask a second time.
Just don’t ask me to say that the Greaney study or any other Buy-and-Hold study contains a valuation adjustment, you know? Because doing that wouldn’t help you, it would hurt you. So not my particular cup of tea.
There will be no ripping from this side of the table. Unless you perceive a statement that the Greaney study and the other Buy-and-Hold studies lack valuation adjustments a “rip.” That one needs to be said. A failed retirement is a serious life setback. If you are able to think about what you believed before you got wrapped up in “defending” Buy-and-Hold, I have a funny feeling that you would agree with me re that one.
I hope that all of that helps at least a tiny bit.
My best wishes to you.
Rob the No Ripper
In just this one thread:
“I don’t rip into him at all.” – The fact that you keep MENTIONING him, despite having no contact from him in so many years, is crazy. You knew that was the point of the comment, of course. You just spiral off into semantic nonsense about what constitutes ripping. Willful ignorance.
“you are out of line to advance death threats” and “there is no place for threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs” – Pathological lying.
“I say that I consider John a friend” but also “I am helping to create new John Greaneys and new Mel Lindauers and new prison sentences” – Passive-aggressive.
“I have been proven right in what I said in my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002.” – Narcissist.
So like everyone else, I’ll be backing away now.
Okay, Anonymous.
I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.
No rip intended.
Passive Aggressive Rob