Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site:
Can’t you post without lying? You even documented on your own website an email in which Wade said you cause 1000x more harm to him than any goon could.
Of course, you want to talk about Wade as a distraction to avoid your continued lies about comparing portfolios (which you didn’t), the death threat claims you made up as well as the job threats claims you made as well.
Wade did indeed say that in an e-mail, Sammy. I do not deny that.
What I say is that he wouldn’t have said it had there never never been any efforts made to intimidate him. Wade loved exploring Valuation-Informed Indexing and then telling people what he learned about it. That’s why those 16 months were the happiest days of his life. He did not love hearing that his penalty for continuing to do honest work would be to see his career destroyed. He had family responsibilities. He wanted to be able to fulfill those responsibilities. No one should ever be placed in the circumstances in which he was placed.
I don’t want anyone ever again to be placed in those sorts of circumstances. If Shiller had published his Nobel-prize-winning research last week, every last one of us would be excited to learn what it teaches us and we would be talking about Valuation-Informed Indexing on every web site on the internet. Because he published it 39 years ago, we are all afraid that talking about it makes our Buy-and-Hold friends look bad because of the long cover-up.
I do not want to make anyone look bad. But there is no way to talk about this stuff without making some people feel funny. Shiller changed our understanding of how stock investing works in a fundamental and far-reaching way. We are not going to ease the discomfort by having the cover-up stretch on for another year or two or three. We need to all pull together and bring it to an end by the close of business today. Doing that is in the best interest of every single person affected by these matters, and that is every last one of us.
That’s my sincere take, in any event. I do wish you all good things, dear friend.
Rob
Anonymous says
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
That describes this website.
Rob says
That’s true today, Anonymous. I wish it wasn’t so. The reality pains me. But that’s where we stand today.
If Shiller is right, there will be another price crash within the next year or two or three, Millions of people will lose a large percentage of their life savings. Do you think that we will need to as a nation come to terms with what has happened? I do. I am going to do what I can. If the materials at this web site help in that regard (I believe that they will), I will be proud to be able to say that I remained true to what I believe and to the principles reflected in the laws of our nation.
I can do no more and I can do no less, you know? Integrity matters. Yes, even in the investment advice field. That is Rob Bennett’s sincere take, in any event.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Buy-and-Hold Critic Rob