“While I Have a Good Bit of Confidence That Most of What I Have Put Forward Has Great Value, I Would Obviously Feel Even More Confident in That Assessment If Every Site Had Been Open to Honest Posting for the Entire 17 Years and If We Had Had People Like Shiller and Bogle Commenting on My Work All Along and Pointing Out Any Weaknesses in My Work Product.”

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 rank him as the most important investing analyst of all time. So he obviously has done a huge amount of good, for which we all should be grateful. But he certainly has not done all the good that he could do“

Since you have put all the pieces together, unlike anyone else, wouldn’t you be the most important investing analyst of all time ?

It would be better for someone else to make that assessment and for that person to do it after we have had the national debate re these matters that we need to have and after which all of the insights that I have developed over the past 17 years have been examined by lots of good and smart people. I am extremely proud of the contributions that I have made. I offer zero apologies for rolling up my sleeves and putting forward my take re hundreds of implications of Shiller’s amazing, “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) research findings.

But I obviously could not have developed any of those insights without Shiller (and Bogle) having done their amazing work before I came on the scene. And, while I have a good bit of confidence that most of what I have put forward has great value, I would obviously feel even more confident in that assessment if every site had been open to honest posting for the entire 17 years and if we had had people like Shiller and Bogle commenting on my work all along and pointing out any weaknesses in my work product.

Shiller did his part and Bogle did his part and Bennett did his part. Why are you so focused on knowing who is going to get the most credit? It seems to me that the important thing is getting it right for the millions of middle-class people who are using our work product to plan their retirements. That’s what matters to me.

I am 100 percent happy to give Bogle the huge credit that he has merited with his work product and I am 100 percent happy to give Shiller the huge credit that he has merited with his work product. And I am 100 percent certain that Shiller and Bogle and thousands and thousands of others will be 100 percent happy to give me the credit that I have merited with my work product in the days after the entire internet has been opened to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.

Why does this matter of who is going to get the credit for all of the powerful, amazing insights that we have developed over the past 17 years come up again and again? Why do you care about that so much? How about just enjoying the amazing insights and learning from them? And. in the event that you have some worry that I might have gotten something wrong somewhere along the way, how about doing what you can to get every discussion board and blog opened to honest posting by the close of business today?

I think it would be fair to say that, once we open the entire internet to honest posting, someone is going to identify any mistakes that I have made. That’s obviously what I want to see happen. If I have made any mistakes, I would be grateful to have someone point them out to me so that I can correct them. Can we work together to see that we all begin experiencing the benefits of an internet opened to honest posting on the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research by the close of business today?

That one’s got my vote..

Rob