“It Is My Belief that the Story Did Not Get Out when Shiller Published his Research Because the Buy-and-Holders were Suffering from Cognitive Dissonance. Now they Cannot Stand the Thought of Word Getting Out Because They Feel that it Will Look Bad that There has been a Cover-Up Going on for so Many Years. But, If the Story is Going to Get Out Sooner or Later in any Event, the Buy-and-Holders and Everyone Else are Better Off if it Gets Out as Quickly as Possible.”

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

“When I collect my $500 million settlement check, my setting myself up so that I could go 17 years without a paycheck is going to look very, very good. ”

But let’s say you get to the age of 70 and you don’t get that $500 million, You would look pretty foolish, don’t you agree?

Yes, I agree.

But I don’t see that I have ever had any alternative courses of action available to me. What would you have me do, Anonymous? If I say that I believe that Greaney included a valuation adjustment in his retirement study, I am guilty of fraud myself (and obviously so as I have said on thousands of occasions that I do not believe that the study contains a valuation adjustment). That would obviously be an insane thing to do.

I am always trying to figure out what you Goons would like to see me do. The best guess that I am able to come up with is that you would like me not to mention this stuff anymore, neither the fact that none of the Buy-and-Hold studies contain valuation adjustments nor the fact that there has been a 17-year cover-up of that reality.

Is that a viable option?

I don’t think so. Say that Shiller is right. I believe that he is. If Shiller is right, we are going to see a devastating price crash. In the past three bull/bear cycles, we dropped to a CAPE level of 8 before the irrational depression that always follows a period of irrational exuberance came to an end. That’s a 70 percent drop from where we are today. Millions of retirements will fail. Hundreds of thousands of businesses will go under. Millions of people will lose their jobs. It is possible that we will experience a Second Great Depression. I obviously pray that we do not. But, given what I know about Shiller’s research, I cannot rule out the possibility.

I love my country. I live in this country. My boys are going to be starting their own lives in this country. Should I just keep quiet about what I know and let millions of people suffer as a consequence? I am not able to rationalize doing that. If you knew in advance about the 911 attacks, would you have kept your mouth shut? I think you would have tried to do something. A Second Great Depression would have effects on our country worse than those we experienced with the 911 attacks. I don’t see how I can in good conscience keep my mouth shut about what I know given the likely consequences to millions of people of me doing so.

The story needs to get out. Of this I am 100 percent sure. If we could go back in time, the Buy-and-Holders would vote for it getting out way back in 1981. It is my belief that the story did not get out when Shiller published his research because the Buy-and-Holders were suffering from cognitive dissonance and just elected to look the other way. Now they cannot stand the thought of word getting out because they feel that it will look bad that there has been a cover-up going on for so many years. But, if the story is going to get out sooner or later in any event, the Buy-and-Holders and everyone else are better off if it gets out as quickly as possible. So for 17 years I have been doing everything in my power to see that it gets out as quickly as possible.

I have paid a big price for what I have done. Obviously. I certainly do not say different.

But what sort of price will we all pay if I elect to keep my mouth shut? It seems to me that that price is likely to be many times bigger. I wish that there were no price to pay whatsoever. But it appears to me that my only options are to pay a very, very big price or to pay a price many times higher than that. For 17 years I have chosen to pay the smaller price no matter how painful it has been to pay that price (and it of course has been painful indeed).

We need to solve this problem. I need that. You need that. Shiller needs that. Bogle needs that. Bogle needs that even now that he has died. Bogle needs that to protect his reputation. As a Bogle lover, I want to see his reputation protected. So I work to help Bogle out as much as I work to help all the rest of us out.

I just am not able to imagine any possible good that could come from a continued cover-up. We are talking about unimaginable amounts of pain being inflicted on people. I fell into circumstances where I can help those people and be compensated very, very handsomely for doing so. That is the course of action that makes sense to me. I acknowledge that I have been hurt very badly and I of course do not like it. I just am not able to see any course of action that would not lead to more hurt, both for me and for millions of others. So I soldier on.

I hope that all of that makes at least a tiny bit of sense.

I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.

Rob