Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Before, you said it was advice. Now you say you are expecting to be paid as a journalist. What are you selling as a journalist? A book? A report? You still won’t answer the question.
I’ll do the journalism work that needs to be done.
I pointed out an error in a retirement study on the morning of May 13, 2002, and that study has not been corrected to this day. I think it would be fair to say that there is a mountain of work that urgently needs to be done in this field. I’ll do what I can do.
I’m selling what journalists always sell — a better understanding of the world around us. Had we been discussing the how-to implications of Shiller’s amazing research at every site ever since the day it was published, not one person at the Motley Fool site would have placed any confidence in the Greaney retirement study. That’s the world that we should all want to live in, a world in which the ethical standards that apply in every field other than the investment advice field apply in the investment advice field as well.
I think that stock investing matter. It matters enough that we should all want to get it right. I felt like a creep during those three years when I was afraid to point out the error. Now I don’t feel like a creep. It’s clear from our discussions that a good number of the experts in this field who are afraid to speak out today feel like creeps as a result. I don’t want them to feel like creeps either. I want to see us all benefit from Shiller’s amazing research findings. If we are not going to permit the discussion of peer-reviewed research, why even have peer-reviewed journals?
The leverage here is completely off the charts.
Rob
“ I’m selling what journalists always sell — a better understanding of the world around us. ”
And no one is offering to pay you a single dime for that despite all your posts for the last several decades.
You need to find a different “job”.
I don’t agree, Anonymous. There’s huge interest in the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. It’s not a majority of the population that is interested today. It’s not anything close to that. It’s about 10 percent. But once we pull together as a nation of people to do something to rein in the abusive posting (I believe that that may happen in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis), I believe that we will be able to get that 10 percent up to 20 percent and then up to 40 percent and then up to 80 percent.
I believe that Buy-and-Hold is the past of investment analysis and that Valuation-Informed Indexing is the future. We’ll see, you know?
My best wishes to you.
Rob
And not a single person in that 10 percent (you claim) has offered to give you even one cent.
If you didn’t believe that there were millions who would give me a lot more than 10 cents, you wouldn’t have devoted so much energy to making sure that those millions don’t get to hear the story.
Rob
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, HAVE read your stories. You have even bragged as such. Despite all those prolific posts, no one sitting here offering you even one dime. No one has for over 2 decades.
We need to change that, Anonymous. When people can earn as much promoting research-based strategies as they can promoting the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff, the world will be a better place for all of us.
Where i’m coming from.
Rob
I think I should be paid millions for being a professional actor. Unfortunately, no one wants to pay me for being an actor. As such, I found work that I could do that people said they would be willing to pay me for doing. You need to do the same.
The amount of interest that I have seen in Valuation-Informed Indexing during the first 23 years of discussion shows me that there is a lot of money to be made with it, Anonymous. 10 percent of the population of investors is millions of people!
Yes, you Goons have been able to stop me and others from making money with it with your insanely abusive behavior. I see that as desperation tactics. If you had genuine confidence in Buy-and-Hold, you would welcome challenges to it. If even you Goons don’t really believe in it on a deep level, what does that say?
I think it says that we need to explore other possibilities. The first place to look for other possibilities is the peer-reviewed research, in my view,
Please take good care.
Rob
No, it shows that there is no money to be made in promoting your VII. Despite hundreds of thousands to millions of people that have read your posts, not a single person has said that they want to pay you for anything. If you really thought you could make money right now, you would have finished your book a very long time ago. If not a book, you could have written up a couple quick reports. The truth is that you know that no one sees any value in what you have to say and, as such, you don’t want to waste your time putting out anything to sell.
Okay, Anonymous.
Hang in there, old friend.
Rob