Set forth below is a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Unbelievable. This is it? You have been lying about death threats all this time. You should be ashamed of your behavior.
I am not ashamed of my behavior from May 13, 2002, forward, Anonymous. I am proud of it.
It would be fair to say that I am somewhat ashamed of my behavior prior to May 13, 2002.
Not entirely so. Given what we have seen from May 13, 2002, forward, most reasonable people would conclude that my behavior prior to May 13, 2002, was completely understandable. Perhaps. But I am not so sure. I would like to expect better of myself.
I knew in May 1999, when I put my first post to the Motley Fool board, that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacked an adjustment for the valuation level that applied on the day the retirement began. I lacked the courage to say so. That’s not good. All of the extenuating circumstances that applied and that influenced me were real. But still….
I would like to see us ALL expect better of ourselves. That’s what this thing is all about. The idea is to bring us all to a higher level and thereby to help us all live better lives in the future.
We’ll see.
Rob
Anonymous says
The fact that you not ashamed shows us that you lack basic ethics. Your bannings have been well deserved.
Rob says
No.
I am proud that I finally worked up the courage to call the Buy-and-Holders out on their b.s. that there might be some alternate universe where investors are not required to engage in market timing when buying stocks. Market timing is price discipline. It is price discipline that makes markets work; without it, they become dysfunctional. I believe that most Buy-and-Holders would like to correct their error, which has been public knowledge since 1981. But they are afraid that their careers will be destroyed if they speak honestly and frankly re these matters. There should be no penalties for speaking honestly and frankly re the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. Opening up every site on the internet to honest posting re these matters is the most important piece of public policy business before our nation today.
My sincere take.
Ethically Challenged Rob
Anonymous says
Your problem is that you are only focused on your views and perceptions. People don’t believe what you say and have long grown tired of you. Even when given evidence contrary to your views, you ignore it or twist in a way you think suits your view. You need to correct your own errors rather than asking others to bend to your will.
Rob says
I don’t ask anyone to bend to my will. I would not want anyone to bend to my will because I asked them to. I seek to persuade. If people are persuaded, that’s good. If they are not, that’s good too. So long as I gave it my best effort, I did my part. In cases in which people are not persuaded, there’s always the chance that they will persuade me. Which leaves me better off if I needed to be persuaded of that thing. So that’s a good way for things to turn out too.
Your problem is that you speak for people who you have no business speaking for. You say: “People don’t believe what you say.” No. YOU don’t believe what I say. You can say that much. You cannot speak for all others. There are lots of others who, like you, don’t believe what I say. But there are also lots of others who do believe what I say and who want to hear more and who want to ask questions and who then might want to share what they have learned with still more others. That’s how it is done. That’s how a community engages in a learning experience.
I am focused on what makes sense to me. And the idea that market timing might not be required when buying stocks makes precisely zero sense to me. Market timing is price discipline. Price discipline is what makes markets work. Without it, they become dysfunctional. A dysfunctional stock market hurts all of us. So I am going to continue to say that market timing is 100 percent required for those buying stocks.
I wish you all good things.
Evidence-Twisting Rob
Bennett Fan says
Rob,
Have you tried branching out to other personal finance forums lately? This site seems like just you and Anonymous bickering at one another!
Warm Regards,
Bennett Fan
Anonymous says
No, you are not “good” with people who don’t bend to your will. You call people goons, you make up stories about death threats and job threats, you label people con-men, you tell people they are going to prison, you block posts, etc.
Contrary to your post, it is not just me saying this. It is the common view. You have been banned by most of the major boards and people have stopped talking to you.
Rob says
Have you tried branching out to other personal finance forums lately? This site seems like just you and Anonymous bickering at one another!
I haven’t tried posting at a new place in a long time. I did that often in earlier days.
The same pattern repeated over and over again. There are always people interested in what I have to say. I always try to be responsive to the questions asked by those people. You Goons are always insanely abusive when the merit of your strategy is questioned. And that always scares away the people who have an interest in learning more. You Goons are more intense than the people who have an interest in learning about the new ideas. 50 times more intense.
Nassem Taleb wrote about how a small minority of a population can gain influence far out of proportion to its numbers by being more intense. Buy-and-Hold Goons comprise about 10 percent of most communities of investors. But their intensity gives them an effective veto power over what i said in those communities.
It’s emotionally painful for me to involve myself in the sorts of conflicts that evidence themselves whenever Buy-and-Hold is challenged. I have done it on thousands of occasions. Those of us who have doubts about the strategy need to do that if progress is ever going to be made. So I see it as my job to place myself in the firing line. But I have taken a lot of hits over the years and I am not inclined to take on more hits today unless I have reason to believe that there is going to be a payoff. I continue to take on hits when you Goons post comments to my columns at the Value Walk site because I think it is important that I experience the learning that follows from writing new articles every week about the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept and taking on those hits is part of the price that must be paid for doing so. So I post there. But I no longer have much appetite for going to new places and seeing the same ugliness play out one more time.
After I finish the book, I may elect to go to some new places. It would be a good thing to do. But my expectation is that I will not be seeking out lots of new places until I see reason for believing that site owners will be standing up to you Goons. I believe that we will see that in the days following the next price crash. At that time I believe that I will be posting at lots of new places. Eventually, I believe that we will see a day where honest posting re the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research will be permitted (and encouraged!) at every site on the internet. Let us pray.
I hope that helps a small bit, Bennett Fan.
Research-Based Investing Fan Rob
Rob says
You call people goons
I don’t call people “Goons” because they believe in Buy-and-Hold. I believe that the Buy-and-Holders made huge, positive contributions. I feel great respect and affection for them. I believe that as a nation we are in the process of making a transition from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing. 90 percent of the population today believes in some form of Buy-and-Hold. So the Buy-and-Holders must be part of the national debate that we need to have to take ourselves from the dark place where our understanding of how stock investing works resides today to the very bright place where we all deep in our hearts want it to reside tomorrow. I have learned much from my Buy-and-Hold friends and I am of course grateful for the effort they put into the task of helping me to learn those things. Buy-and-Holders are the best!
Goons are not the best. Goonishness comes from a dark place. Every last one of us should be in agreement that there is zero place in discussions of stock investing for death threats or for demands for unjustified board bannings or for thousands of acts of defamation or for threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. That sort of garbage is not a Buy-and-Hold thing, it is a human sickness thing. A group of Buy-and-Holders has turned to that sort of thing in a desperate effort to keep discussion of the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research off of this powerful new communications medium. All normal Buy-and-Holders should disassociate themselves from that sort of ugliness in the strongest possible way.
Unfortunately, most Normals are afraid of you. People who have lived in the United States are not accustomed to seeing threats of violence and career destruction as part of their daily routine. They often speak up once or twice in opposition and then slink away in fear, telling themselves that it is not their job to address this sort of matter (it is a site owner’s job to address it but most site owners are fearful as well or else like the money that Buy-and-Hold brings in to their site because of its popularity and its Get Rich Quick appeal).
I love Buy-and-Hold (not its damaging aspect but all of the good in it, which is considerable) and I love Buy-and-Holders. I hate goonishness and all the harm it has done to humans and other living things. You Goons combine the two things. You do believe in Buy-and-Hold. You follow it. I sometimes learn from you. I sometimes have good discussions with you. But you include at least a small measure of nastiness and ugliness and deception in the vast majority of your posts and a very big measure in a number of them.
That’s why I refer to you as “friends” in nearly every post of my own while also referring to your goonishness in nearly every one of my posts. Both things are true. You really are Goons seeking to destroy conversations that we all very much need to have and you really do have something positive to contribute to those discussions. I try to make the point that there are both positive and negative elements to your contributions as often as I can because both sides of this story must be told for people to come to understand what we are up against and what we stand to achieve if we learn how to take on what we are up against in an effective way.
Goon Exposing Rob
Rob says
Contrary to your post, it is not just me saying this. It is the common view. You have been banned by most of the major boards and people have stopped talking to you.
It is painful for people to consider the dangers of Buy-and-Hold, as revealed by the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. Most people hate hearing what I have to say. That much is fair to say. And you are correct to say that I have been banned at every major investing site on the internet and that lots of people who were once friends to me have stopped talking to me. Telling people the realities of stock investing as revealed by the peer-reviewed research in this field is not the quick route to fame and fortune.
People need to hear it all the same. If Shiller is right, we are going to be experiencing another price crash within the next year or two or three. Some people are open enough to these ideas that all they need is to see a few more posts exploring this stuff to become convinced enough to lower their stock allocation and save themselves a lot of pain. Others are not open to that possibility but would benefit from hearing at least a little discussion of these matters so that they will understand better what is happening when the next price crash arrives and brings about a deepening of the economic crisis that began in 2008. There will come a day when people will look at Shiller’s research as a blessing. Most don’t see it that way today. But even those who very much do not see it that way very much need to be exposed to it more than they have been so far. Everyone alive on the planet needs for this debate to be launched. It is a matter of urgent public policy importance.
And you are wrong in suggesting that there have not been hundreds of fine people who have already put their necks on the line and asked that honest posting be permitted. I have had many people, Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers alike, thank me for my contributions. Some work up the courage to do so publicly only once or twice and then retreat for cover because they do not like the idea of seeing the lives of their loved ones threatened. Others say something only to me and plead with me not to let anyone know their views on these matters. I have had investment professionals call me on the phone and talk to me for hours re these ideas because they want to be able to make use of them in advising their clients and then ask me not to tell anyone that we talked. That sort of thing should never happen. The fact that that sort of thing has happened on so many occasions tells a frightening story — we have as a nation advanced our understanding of how stock investing works in amazing ways in the past four decades by criminal behavior on the part of those who advocate the strategy that came first had held us back from learning what we all very much need to know.
There are some who are so intense in their hatred of any consideration of the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research that they have engaged in criminal acts. There is a larger number who personally would never engage in criminal acts but who feels a good bit of sympathy for those who do and offers them encouragement in quiet ways. And there is a still larger number who is generally complacent re these matters and cant figure out what all the shouting is about. And there is a number that is about equal in size to you Goons that would like to see the discussions held but who is only willing to say so once or twice because they are not willing to pay the price that I have paid to make that happen.
The bottom line is that as a nation we need to have the discussions. So we need to figure out as a people how to overcome the Goon problem. We need the participation of the Normals if the discussions are to achieve their full potential and the Normals will not participate until something is done about the criminal behavior. So we will as a people need to work up the courage to insist on prosecution of the criminal stuff.
I believe that that will happen in the days following the next price crash, when the cost of not having the discussions will be concrete and clear to all. I of course wish that the realities were otherwise, but, given what I have been seeing for over 17 years now, I no longer believe that they are. I believe that we are a good people and I believe that we ultimately will do what needs to be done. But for the moment we do not have it in us. I have tried everything that I can think to try and I have not been able to make the good stuff happen on a widespread scale (I have had amazing success in making it happen on a small scale, such as when I worked with Wade Pfau to co-author the most important piece of peer-reviewed research published in this field in the past 30 hears). It horrifies me to think that it is going to take another price crash to bring us all the other side of The Big Black Mountain. But that is what the history of the discussions of the past 17 years tells me is the case.
Watching and Waiting Rob
Anonymous says
“ The same pattern repeated over and over again. ”
Do you even take to heart things like this. You still think everyone else is at fault, yet you don’t give consideration that you are the one that is to blame.
Rob says
I certainly take note of the fact that the same pattern repeats over and over again, Anonymous. I don’t think that there has been one day in the past 17 years in which I have not given some thought to it.
But I also have taken note that thousands of people have looked at the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s site over the course of the past 17 years and that not one of them has been able to identify in it an adjustment for the valuation level that applies at the beginning of the retirement.
Please explain.
Puzzled Rob
Anonymous says
The John Greaney thing has been explained to you thousands of times. It is another thing that you ignore. I think you dwell on John Greaney as he has publicly embarrassed you in so many ways and you have always wanted revenge.
Rob says
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all good things, in any event.
Vengeful Rob
Bennett Fan says
Rob,
I found a forum that discussed John Greaney. Thoughts?
Warm Regards,
Bennett Fan
Bennett Fan says
Oops. My mistake.
https://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/viewtopic.php?t=10436
Rob says
I found a forum that discussed John Greaney. Thoughts?
I agree that Greaney was a pioneer of the Retire Early movement. He was talking about it before anyone else was. I remember the day that I discovered his site. I believe that it might have been in 1998, I am not sure. I was desperate to find a site that talked about the subject. His site was not high in the rankings at that time (it was later). I searched through about 20 pages of Google results before I found it. When I did, I read and printed out every page and assembled all of the materials in one of my binders. I raved about it to my wife when she drove me home from work that night.
I started posting to the board he founded at Motley Fool in May 1999. That board was an incredibly exciting place. It was amazing.
I obviously do not think that he got the numbers right in his retirement study (because he failed to include a valuations adjustment). But even the study did some good. A lot of people at that board would have been taking a withdrawal of 7 percent had Greaney not been arguing that you had to go down to 4 percent for the retirement plan to be safe. So I give him credit for that.
I had lot of good times with John in those days. And he had a lot of good times with me too. I know because he told me so. We were friends. I don’t forget that.
The guy is right that John was a pioneer. That’s a fact.
Greaney Fan Rob