“I Take All of the Stuff that Bogle Got Right and Incorporate it Into My Analysis. Then I Add the Stuff that Shiller Got Right So That the Stuff That Bogle Did Actually Helps People Instead of Destroying Their Lives. And Then I Add the Part that Shiller Failed to Put Into the Mix, the Exploration of the Far-Reaching How-To Implications of Shiller’s ‘Revolutionary’ (His Word) Research Findings. Without That Critical Part, the Entire Thing Just Does Not Work.”

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

You think way too much of yourself.

You’ve said that in a direct way hundreds of times, Anonymous. If we count indirect ways, you’ve said in thousands of times. So the thought behind the statement is obviously of great import to you.

I am extremely proud of the work that I have done over the past 17 years. If that’s what you are accusing me of, then you are right on. I think that Bogle is a giant. He built the foundation for the Valuation-Informed Indexing Model, which I see as the future of investment analysis. So I of course think very, very highly of Bogle. But I of course believe that he got the valuations question wrong. Which means that he got every calculation wrong. If valuations have to be considered in every calculation, every calculation that Bogle performed got the wrong answer because he never considered the effect of valuations.

Shiller is the one who corrected Bogle’s work by showing that valuations must be considered in every calculation. So I also think a great deal of Shiller. I also view Shiller as a giant. But Shiller’s work has not had nearly the influence that it should have had for the past 38 years because Shiller and all those who believe that his work is important have shied away from saying to the Buy-and-Holders: “hey, you got the numbers wrong.” So Shiller doesn’t tell the entire story right either.

I say those words. I take all of the stuff that Bogle got right and incorporate it into my analysis. Then I add the stuff that Shiller got right so that the stuff that Bogle did actually helps people instead of destroying their lives. And then I add the part that Shiller failed to put into the mix, the exploration of the far-reaching how-to implications of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) research findings. Without that critical part, the entire thing just does not work. People who don’t know Bogle don’t know how stock investing works. And people who don’t know Shiller don’t know how stock investing works. And people who don’t know Bennett don’t know how stock investing works. The way it is.

You are right that I think very, very highly of the work that I have done. But when you say that I think “too much” of myself, there is a clear suggestion that my high appraisal of my work is not justified by the realities. My high appraisal of my work is 100 percent justified. If I had not been right in my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002, John Walter Russell would not have devoted eight years of his life to doing research on my ideas. If I had not been right in my famous post, Wade Pfau would not have devoted 16 months of his life to co-authoring research with me that shows beyond any doubt whatsoever that, in his words, “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” If I had not been right in my famous post, you Goons would not have put yourselves at risk of spending the remaining years of your lives in prison cells due to your desperate concern that, if the published rules of every internet site were followed, millions of investors would learn about the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept and buy into it.

You are the one who has an unjustifiably exalted view of yourself. Your view is that you can never admit even the possibility of once having made a mistake and that, if the laws of the United States don’t permit you to threaten academic researchers who show that you did indeed make a mistake, then those laws have to be ignored. You are the one on the wrong side of the law and that reality shows us that you are the one with the unjustifiably exalted view of himself.

I follow the law. I follow the peer-reviewed research. I follow the published rules of every site. I am the humble one here.

The work that I have done is of great value. I offer zero apologies for the work that I have done. But when I praise the work product, I am offering tribute to the country that put in place the laws that protect people like me from people like you. I am praising this country that I love as much as I am praising Rob Bennett the person. And I am praising Bogle when I praise my work because my work gives new life to Bogle’s work. And I am praising Shiller when I praise my work because my work gives new life to Shiller’s work.

Full truth be told, I am praising Greaney when I praise my work. Greaney’s intent when he posted his retirement study was to help people, not to destroy their lives. So, if Greaney had been thinking clearly, he would have thanked me for pointing out the error in his study and thereby permitting him to correct it before it caused him further embarrassment.

I have done amazing work. But I did not do it alone. I couldn’t have done it without the help of millions of people who formed the laws of this country and who built the Buy-and-Hold Model and who worked up the courage to stand up to you Goons when you threatened those of us trying to help out our fellow community members. It is the lawbreakers among us who suffer from an exalted view of themselves. I am just doing the job that we all sign up for when we sign up at a discussion board — using my intelligence and experience and love to help out my fellow community members.

I am playing it straight. You are playing it crooked. That’s a big distinction. It is because I am playing it straight that I have been able to achieve more and more great advances as the sand has continued to pass through the hourglass. I offered Greaney the opportunity to do the same. I asked him to work with John Walter Russell and me to develop the first valid safe-withdrawal-rate study. He took a pass. Greaney would be one of the ones today with all of the amazing accomplishments had he taken me up on that offer.

I think that what was going on there is that he just didn’t love himself enough to position himself to realize all those achievements. I like to think that I DO love myself enough to do good in the world. I am humble enough to respect the laws of the country in which I operate. That’s an appropriate and healthy humility. But I am proud enough to want to get the numbers right in retirement studies that I put before others for their consideration. That’s an appropriate and healthy pride.

Hating yourself is not the answer. Greaney hates himself. Not this boy, you know? I often point out that I can get things wrong, just as Greaney did. But I show deference to the law and I invite other community members to point out any mistakes that I have made so that I can fix them quickly. That’s a healthy humility that does not evidence itself in self-loathing. Greaney’s self-loathing helps no one, it brings us all down.

I love my work, I love my accomplishments. I hate your goonishness because it destroys you and millions of others. It is my view that the laws against financial fraud are good and necessary laws. I love it that my country protects me from people like you who engage in financial fraud. I wish that it protected me immediately. I wish that those laws were self-enforcing. I have learned through 17 hard years that this is not the way it works. But I still love it that I live in a country that has such laws and I retain confidence that those laws will be recognized in good and effective and life-affirming ways in days to come.

Proud (and Rightfully So!) Rob