A Rich Life

The Old Ideas on Saving & Investing Don't Work -- Here's What Does

“The Whole Discussion-Board Thing Works ONLY If All Community Members Feel 100 Percent Comfortable Posting Their Sincere Views.”

by

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 want feedback.”

No you don’t. You just want to keep pushing your points.

You’re wrong, Anonymous.

I want both. I want feedback. AND I want to post honestly re my views on how stock investing works (or, as you put it, I want to push my points).

The two work together. I want feedback so that I can inform my thinking and challenge my current beliefs. Now — if I agree to post dishonestly (to push YOUR points because I am afraid of what you will do to me if I post honestly re my own views) then all of the informing stuff serves no good purpose. Say that I work so hard at listening to feedback that I become the best informed person in the world but that I agree to post dishonestly because I fear what you will do to me if I say something other than what you believe. Are my posts helpful? I say “no.” I say that my posts would be exceedingly unhelpful in those circumstances.

The whole discussion-board thing works ONLY if all community members feel 100 percent comfortable posting their sincere views. That’s why we have laws against financial fraud. We recognize as a society how dangerous your intimidation tactics are. So we adopted laws letting people know that we would send them to prison if they engaged in that sort of behavior. Good for us, you know?

I only wish that we had all been enforcing those laws going back to the morning of May 13, 2002. Then we would not have suffered that economic crisis in 2008 (we would have suffered a recession but things would not have gotten as out of control as they did) and we wouldn’t be looking forward to a follow-up in the next year or two or three. And you Goons wouldn’t be looking forward to long prison sentences. And the Motley Fool’s Retire Early board would today be the most successful investing board on the internet instead of a shell of what it once was.

Having those laws is a solid first step. But we need to ENFORCE those laws to get the job done.

My sincere take.

Point-Pushing Rob