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 have my name on the most important piece of peer-reviewed research published in this field in 30 years. That ain’t nothing.”
What paper has your name listed as an author?
If you count being listed in the credits section, then I can show you a few dozen that I have my name on. No big deal.
I am proud to have my name mentioned in the credits section of the Bennett/Pfau research. That’s the most important piece of peer-reviewed research published in this field in the past 30 years. Bogle has indicated an interest in knowing the answers to the question explored in that paper and Bogle is one of my heroes. So I certainly am proud to have played a big role in getting those answers to him. If Bogle were thinking clearly, he would have celebrated the research that Wade and I prepared together. He would not only have spoken up in our support when Linduaer attacked us, he would have called a special meeting of the Bogleleads Community so that we could explore that research together in great depth.
One of the community members there said that our research challenges many of the most basic principles of Buy-and-Hold. Bogle responded defensively to that challenge. That is unfortunate in the extreme. He should have welcomed the learning experience that would have certainly followed from widespread dissemination of the research. Bogle dropped the ball on that one and you Goons — who call yourselves friends of his — should have helped him rein in his defensiveness and advance the Buy-and-Hold cause in a big way (Valuation-Informed Indexing is really just Buy-and-Hold 2.0 — Buy-and-Hold is a research-based strategy and so, when new research is published, the strategy must of course be modified to incorporate the new research findings).
And of course I played a bigger role in the development of that research than the role usually played by someone mentioned in the credits section. I had been developing the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept for over seven years when Wade contacted me and asked me if I would be willing to work with him to prepare research showing the superiority of Valuation-Informed Indexing over Buy-and-Hold. I was the person who discovered the errors in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies. We never would have had The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate had I not done that and it was The Great Debate that got Wade interested in doing research on Valuation-Informed Indexing in the first place. So I am properly referred to as the co-author. Wade made clear in numerous e-mails that he sent me in the 16 months in which we worked together that he thought that my assistance was absolutely critical. He asked me many questions during the time we were preparing the research and he always thanked me profusely for the help that I was able to offer him.
The Bennett/Pfau research simply wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for the seven years of my participation in The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate that preceded it. And, strangely enough, even you Goons played a positive role at times. It is though interactions with others that we come to understand new ideas more clearly and in more depth. I learned a lot in those seven years (and in the nine years since). You weren’t intending to help me learn with your ruthless abusiveness. But there were times when you did. I only wish that you had learned more yourselves. Had you been open to learning, we all would be in a better and happier and more life-affirming place today.
I offer no apologies for advancing the world’s understanding of how stock investing works through publication of that amazing piece of peer-reviewed research. I hope there comes a time when you can take delight in what one of your fellow community members did by co-authoring that research. I think it will happen. Probably not until after the crash. But I think that it will happen down the road a piece. And our interactions will become warmer and more productive when it does.
Please take good care, man.
Co-Authoring Rob
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