Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“Thousands of people have offered effusive praise for my work. ”
How much have those “thousands” paid you for your work?
How many of those thousands are posting here on your board to show they support you?
I have not earned one dime from this work in seventeen years.
And not one of the thousands who have expressed interest in the work is posting here today.
You’ve got me re those two, Anonymous.
I still say that your behavior demonstrates that you see the huge potential for me to make boatloads of money promoting the first true research-based model for understanding how stock investing works. You have put yourself at great risk of going to prison for a long time in the days following the next price crash. That’s strange, strange, strange behavior. My behavior of sticking at this for so long is unusual. But my behavior has not been one-fiftieth as strange as yours. I have hurt myself financially for 17 years with the hope of receiving a huge payout when the crash arrives. You have put yourself at grave risk of going to prison for the remaining years of your life. There’s no comparison.
I don’t think that you believe in Valuation-Informed Indexing. I believe that your skepticism is genuine. But you obviously don’t believe that all investors who learn about these ideas share your level of skepticism. If you believed that, you would just let me speak and enjoy watching them lose interest and walk away. Never one time have you considered doing such a thing. You behave the way you do because you have seen the same thing that I have seen — intense interest in a better way to invest on the part of about 10 percent of the investing population, which is millions of people. You can’t stand the thought of me making the millions that you believe that I will make if you permit the laws of the United States to rein in your behavior.
Well, I intend to make those millions anyway. And I intend to encourage hundreds of others to follow my lead and earn their own big paydays developing and promoting the first true research-based strategy. A win/win/win/win/win, if I ever heard of one.
We’ll see how it plays out, you know? I wish it hadn’t gone this way. I wish that you weren’t going to prison and I wish that my efforts to turn a buck with this stuff had not been delayed for 17 years and I wish that the people of the United States were not likely to see a 50 percent drop in stock prices over the course of the next year or two or three. I played the cards that I was dealt. That’s all that any of us can do.
But I certainly believe that I have been dealt more good cards than bad ones. There are some bad ones that have come my way. I have seen some very, very, very bad cards. The way it is. But I have also seen some very, very, very exciting and encouraging and life-affirming and enriching (in all senses of the word) cards. Good for me, you know? I have zero intention of throwing those cards back. It’s knowing that those cards remain in my hand that keeps me from breaking into tears when I think about all the pain that the bad cards that I have been dealt have caused me.
One has to take the bad with the good, no? Things become cliches for a reason.
If there is ever anything that I can do to help you out a bit, please let me know. I will be there. Holding grudges is bad karma, in my book. I don’t go for that sort of thing.
My best wishes.
Rob
Anonymous says
What deluded nonsense.
Rob says
Okay, Anonymous.
Please take good care.
Deluded Rob
Hopeful for Rob to Seek help says
You are literally a very sick man, Rob. Sick meaning ‘in need of medical attention and treatment’. I recently saw you posting at some obscure blog where you tried to ingratiate yourself to the blog-owner, exactly as you tried to do with Greaney on Motley Fool, exactly as you did Wade Pfau on Mstar or wherever you tracked him down at… it’s part of your standard M.O: it always begins with treacly praise and fawning bows and over the top accolades to the person you are targeting and ‘buttering-up’. But it never lasts long! You need to look up the meaning of the word obsequious in the dictionary. You are disgustingly and stupidly transparent with that behavior, and not one soul is ever taken in by your false flattery and ridiculous ‘me-too-isms’. You should consider why you are so fawning to people, only to later throw them ALL under the bus when they chose not to tout you and your bizarre brand of insanity. Todd Trelander? Mel Lindaur? Arrette? Promethius? Raddr? Motley Fool? Bogleheads? etc etc etc. I thank the stars that (to date at least) your particular brand of mental illness has not manifested itself into actual violence (as far as is known publicly). I do fear though, that your level of financial destitution and mental instability could easily lead you to eventually become unhinged enough to actually try to harm yourself or others. So, Please. Please. Get help, Rob. I genuinely hope you will, before your ongoing years-long decline eventually turns into a full blown mental health crisis. Think about it seriously. Talk it over with the wife. And/or a trusted physician. Get a mental health wellness referral. As you often ask: “What’s the downside?”
Rob says
I love my Buy-and-Hold friends, Hopeful. None of the positive stuff that I say is fake. It is all 100 percent sincere. I view Bogle as a giant in this field. The only person I have learned more from is Shiller. To be second to Shiller is to be a giant in the field. Greaney helped a lot of people. He told people that the safe withdrawal rate was 4 percent. If he had not been saying that, I am confident that a lot of the posters at the old Motley Fool board would have been putting together retirement plans calling for a 7 percent withdrawal. So Greaney’s study was a plus in a very important sense. And on and on and on. We would not be where we are today if not for the good work of the Buy-and-Holders. There would be no Valuation-Informed Indexing had Buy-and-Hold not come before it. Valuation-informed Indexing is the fulfillment of the Buy-and-Hold dream, which was a very, very life-affirming dream indeed.
I love the Buy-and-Holders. And one of the things that I most love about them is that they argue that investors should use the peer-reviewed research in this field as guidance on how to invest effectively for the long run. It’s because I believe in that Buy-and-Hold idea that I believe that we should open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. On safe withdrawal rates and on scores of other critically important investment-related topics as well.
Does all of that not make perfect sense, my dear Goon friend?
Nearly Unhinged Rob
Hopeful for Rob to Seek help says
Credit where credit is due Rob: you managed to keep your madness in check long enough to post the non-raving reply above. So, atttaboy, and good on you for exhibiting the self-awareness required to bite your lip long enough to pull that off. I consider that a positive sign, that indicates there is hope for you. Godspeed on continuing your journey towards wellness! Take that next step! I’m praying for you! And best wishes on your job search, too. I know it must be harrowing after so long out of the job market.
Rob says
I am grateful for your prayers, Hopeful.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, my dear friend.
Job-Seeking Rob