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 wonder how the idea entered my head that you were seeking something from me.”
You are the one telling us that you want full access to any board on the internet. Thus, the often given recommendation of you getting the help of a mental health professional was proposed once again. This is the key towards you getting the resolution you need. With proper help, perhaps you will then know how to behave and access can reopen for you.
I certainly want full access to every board on the internet, Anonymous. I don’t want that just for me. That benefits everyone. And of course I want to see every other person who wants to post at our boards to have full access to every board. About 10 percent of the population of investors holds doubts about Buy-and-Hold. I want all of those people posting. And I of course also want the 90 percent that has full confidence in Buy-and-Hold to be posting at every board as well. I enjoy hearing from people who agree with me. But I usually learn more from people who do NOT agree with me.
If I need help from a mental health professional because I believe that people with different views should all be allowed to post, then all of the owners of the sites need help from a mental health professional too. Every site that I have visited permits people with different views to participate in the discussions. No, the rules are not always administered properly. Most site owners are Buy-and-Holders; that biases them. And even the few who are not Buy-and-Holders don’t want to alienate the 90 percent of their potential readers who are Buy-and-Holders and thus are reluctant to permit Buy-and-Hold to be challenged too forcefully.
I offer zero apologies for my behavior, Anonymous. I am very proud of my work and I have gone to a lot of effort to respond to as many questions as possible at every board that I have visited. If I held back on stating my beliefs about how stock investing works just as strongly as I hold them, I would feel that I was letting the community down by failing to do my part to make the discussions diverse and spirited and provocative. I want the discussions to be friendly and respectful as well, to be sure, and so I make great efforts to praise the efforts of my Buy-and-Hold friends to argue their case forcefully as well. But I hope that I don’t pull my punches in stating the case for Valuation-Informed Indexing. And I don’t think it would be at all a good idea for me to begin going down a road where I would do that in return for being able to post again at the numerous sites that I love that have banned me.
Your suggestion that there might be some arrangement that I could agree to that would permit me again to participate in communities for which I have a deep affection exerts a tiny bit of pull on me only because my love for those communities is real and deep. But if I agree to post views other than those I hold, I would be betraying those communities rather than helping then. That possibility of course holds no appeal at all.
There is not one school of thought as to how stock investing works in the year 2018, Anonymous. There are two — Buy-and-Hold and Valuation-Informed Indexing. I am a Valuation-Informed Indexer. I have to post like one or not post at all. It breaks my heart to think that another day might pass in which I will not post at all. But it would break my heart worse to betray my fellow community members by pretending to be something that I am not. I am not a Buy-and-Holder. I am a Valuation-Informed Indexer. That has to show in my posts. I hold different views on how stock investing works from those held by my Buy-and-Hold friends. How could that not influence my posting?
There is no problem with my behavior. The problem is the hyper-sensitivity of some Buy-and-Holders. Every poster should be posting what he or she sincerely believes about whatever topics it is that he or she is addressing. Those who are made uncomfortable in some way by my posts of course have every right in the world not to read a word of any of them. That’s obviously so. But they do not have a right to decide for others what those others can read by banning posters who make a forceful and unapologetic case for Valuation-Informed Indexing.
I want to see Valuation-Informed Indexing grow in popularity. It is shocking to me that the concept has won over only about 10 percent of investors in the 37 years since it was born with the publication of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) research findings of 1981. I think it would be fair to say that a big part of the reason why progress has been so slow is that most Valuation-Informed Indexers have been pulling their punches for 37 years so as not to annoy their Buy-and-Hold friends. Not this boy, you know?
I want the ideas to spread. I don’t want to pull punches. I have zero problem seeing the ideas not catch on if that happens despite my best efforts to explain them carefully. But I have a big problem with behaving in such a way as to make it likely that the ideas will not catch on until after we experience another price crash, at which time it will be too late for many of my fellow community members to protect themselves from its effect. I have to do my part. I have to post honestly. I have to argue the case forcefully. I have to answer questions carefully. If I do less than that, I am responsible for the board at which I am posting failing to achieve its full potential as a learning resource. Yucko, you know? That’s not me.
I hope that helps a tiny bit.
As always, I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, my dear Buy-and-Hold friend.
Non-Apologetic Rob
Anonymous says
“ I want the discussions to be friendly and respectful as well”
Really? Calling Jack Bogle a con-man is friendly and respectful? Telling people that they are going to prison is friendly and respectful? Making up stories about death threats and job threats is friendly and respectful?
Rob says
Yes. It is friendly and respectful.
I sent an e-mail to the site administrator at Motley Fool in June 2002 asking that he do something about John Greaney’s abusive posting. He thanked me for my “thoughtful” e-mail and said that he agreed with me that it would be “ideal” if Greaney would permit honest posting re retirement planning at that retirement planning board. Would it have been “friendly and respectful” for that site administrator to have given Greaney the boot at that time? It sure seems so to me. That would have solved the abusive posting problem. And that board would still be thriving today. And I would have asked that Greaney be reinstated a few months later and the site administrator would have reinstated him. And no one would be worrying today about prison sentences.
The laws against financial fraud are good and necessary laws. We should all want to see them enforced. That very much includes Jack Bogle. If we had been enforcing those laws over the past 37 years, would Buy-and-Hold still be around? I personally doubt it. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe it would still be around. Either way, Bogle would be a lot better off. If it were not still around, Bogle would today be a Valuation-Informed Indexer and he would be getting credit for all the elements of it that come from his work. And, if it were still around, he would be getting credit for Buy-and-Hold and would be far more confident in the strategy because he would know that no one had been able to point out any holes in it even though honest posting was permitted on every discussion board and blog on the internet.
Do you think that Bill Cosby would be better off today if the first actress that he had drugged had turned him in? I sure do. Cosby was an immense talent. Millions of people loved him. He destroyed himself because he was tempted to do wrong things and because he had come to believe that he could get away with doing those things because no one would call him out on his bad behavior. Cosby is responsible for his own behavior. But everyone who failed to call him out in the early days played a role in his self-destruction. We live in communities. We all should try to care for each other. When we see our friends engaging in bad behavior, we need to call them out on it before they go too far down the road to self-destruction.
Bogle’s true friends are the ones who call him out on his bad behavior. I have done that. I am proud to say that I have acted as a true friend re this great man.
That’s my sincere take, Anonymous.
I wish you all good things.
Friendly and Respectful Rob
Anonymous says
“Yes. It is friendly and respectful”
No, it is not. You cannot decide if it is friendly and respectful. The readers determine that and you been told exactly what people say it is.
Rob says
There’s a lot of people who don’t like it when I say that Bogle is wrong about a lot of important things. And I am not just talking about Goons when I say that. I am talking about Normals. People don’t like it and people choose not to read my stuff or interact with me as a result. I get all that.
But ultimately I have to live with myself. And I truly do think that Bogle is wrong about valuations. And I truly do love the man. And I truly do believe that, were he thinking clearly, he would invite challenges to his thinking. He would learn more over time by being challenged and in the end he would have more to offer to the world.
I have to live with my conscience. And I know what my feelings toward Bogle are. I think he is a great man. But I think that he has made mistakes. And I think that there is a part of him that wants to be told when he makes mistakes even if going by appearances that does not appear to be the case.
My best wishes to you.
Conscience-Driven Rob
Anonymous says
And there goes your spin yet again. You have your fake stories and purposely ignore the reasons why you are banned at most sites.
Rob says
I know why I am banned. Shiller’s research findings are truly “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word). They change everything that we once thought we knew about how stock investing works.
For the average investor, they mean that they need to divide the number on their portfolio statement by two to know the true, lasting value of their portfolio. That’s hard medicine.
For the experts, they mean that they need to re-learn everything, They mean that they have been giving bad advice for years. They mean that their expertise is going to be questioned in days to come.
My question is — What’s the alternative to permitting honest posting?
We can continue the cover-up and cause even MORE human suffering. That doesn’t sound like such a hot idea to me.
Any site that bans honest posting on the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research is a corrupt enterprise.
New research always helps. Learning new things is always a plus. There can be some pain in making the transition to a new way of understanding how stock investing works. But the bigger the advance, the greater are the benefits ultimately obtained by making that transition. Has we made the change 37 years ago, all of the pain would be in the rear-view mirror and we would all be living better lives today. Every day of delay causes us more pain.
Not this boy, you know?
I wish you the best of luck with it. But not this boy. The thing that I MOST love about Bogle is how he advocates using the peer-reviewed research to guide one’s investment strategy. If only he listened to his own advice way back in 1981, when the Shiller Revolution was launched and he failed to make the necessary adjustments to his investment advice.
My best wishes.
Fake Spin (and Banned!) Rob
Anonymous says
“I know why I am banned.”
You just don’t tell people the truth as to why you are banned. It is well documented. It is your behavior.
Rob says
Specifically the behavior in which I say that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies are in error and should be quickly corrected and in which I say that in general the Buy-and-Hold strategy has been discredited by 37 years of peer-reviewed research.
Buy-and-Holders don’t like to be told that they are wrong. The experts don’t like it because they see it as a threat to their livelihood and ordinary investors don’t like it because their hopes for retirement are riding on the accuracy of the numbers on their portfolio statement.
I don’t think that investment advice should be decided by taking an opinion survey. I believe that we should go by what the peer-reviewed research says. If Shiller is right that valuations affect long-term returns, then we are hurting ourselves more with every hour that we delay opening every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting. This stuff matters. When we get it wrong, we hurt people in very serious ways.
My sincere take.
Bad Behavin’ Rob
Anonymous says
The fact that you still won’t give an honest answer is further proof that the correct decision was made to ban you.
Rob says
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all good things, in any event.
Unrepentant (And Bad, Very, Very, Very BAD) Rob
Rob says
So VERY Bad!