A Rich Life

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

Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: “Direct Quote from Shiller — ‘It’s Not a Timing Mechanism.’ Oh, Right, He Was Lying. Or Intimidated. Or He Doesn’t Mean ‘Long-Term’ Timing. Or He Doesn’t Understand His Own Research.”

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:

Shiller showed that long-term timing ALWAYS works and is ALWAYS 100 percent required.”

Direct quote from Shiller: “It’s not a timing mechanism.”

Oh right, he was lying. Or intimidated. Or he doesn’t mean “long term” timing. Or he doesn’t understand his own research.

What do you think Shiller would say about someone who sold out twenty years ago, and has been waiting for a suitable re-entry point ever since?

a) “Gee, that’s swell! He really gets me!”
b) Some variant of “That’s not so swell.”

You are asking an intelligent question, Anonymous.

The obvious answer is — We should all want to ask him! We should all want to hear how Shiller responds to these questions.

I want to launch a national debate. When we have a national debate, people like Shiller will be answering all kinds of questions that they have not answered to date. That’s a 100 percent good thing. It’s by struggling with the sorts of questions that you have raised that societies advance in their knowledge of a subject matter.

Shiller has indeed said that P/E10 is not a timing mechanism. You are right about that. And I am right that Shiller has recommended various forms of timing on numerous occasions. He recommended long-term timing (the kind that I recommend) in the wake of the 2008 crash. He has recommended short-term timing ( which I do not believe works) in more recent comments. Shiller is all over the place re the timing question. Every investor alive should want to pin him down. We all need to know what he thinks.

Shiller is of course in good company re his mountain of self-contradictions. Bogle too talks out of both sides of his mouth re all sorts of investing questions. ALL THE TIME. We all should want to know what Bogle really thinks. We all should be trying to pin him down. We all should favor the launching of the national debate that will supply clear answers to all these legitimate and thus far unanswered questions. We all should be looking forward t enjoying the great learning experience that will follow the announcement of your prison sentence.

That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.

Rob

Valuation-Informed Indexing #316: The Federal Reserve Is Political Even If Non-Partisan

by

I’ve posted Entry #317 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called The Federal Reserve Is Political Even If Non-Partisan.

Juicy Excerpt: Recessions aren’t bad. They serve an important purpose. Our economy doesn’t grow only when things are zipping along. Important progress is being made when companies are failing and thereby preparing the way for future success stories.

We cannot persuade the members of the Federal Reserve to cause more recessions. They are humans. They aren’t going to do it. We need another way to bring on more recessions.

Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: “How Many People Do You Think Believe Your Comments on Prison and Believe That It Will Actually Happen?” Rob’s Response: “The Straightforward Way Is To Say That I Have Never Received a Single Endorsement of My Position.”

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:

How many people do you think believe your comments on prison and actually believe that it will actually happen?

Your question is a good one, Anonymous. I like the way you worded this one in a non-inflammatory way.

There are two ways to answer it that yield very different responses.

The straightforward way is to say that I have never received a single endorsement of my position. If you go by that, you would conclude that I am the only one who believes that those who have posted in “defense” of Mel Lindauer, John Greaney and Jack Bogle are at serious risk of being found guilty of financial fraud following the next price crash.

The more psychologically astute (in my view!) way is to say that no one engages in discussion of the realities that are behind my claim. It is a simple objective fact that Greaney did not include an adjustment for valuations in the retirement study posted at his web site. And it is a simple objective fact that Nobel-prize-winning economist Robert Shiller showed in peer-reviewed research published in 1981 that a valuations adjustment is required in all investing calculations. So the fact that a massive act of financial fraud has been committed is no secret. It has been conducted out in the open and is well-documented. Bernie Madoff was sent to prison for a much smaller act of financial fraud. So it is more than a little hard for the rational human mind (for mine, in any event!) to imagine why there would not be many people sent to prison over this.

When no one engages, there is something holding them back. There are many people who I have spoken to and whose statements I have documented here who are aware of the problem. There are academic researchers who have told me that the historical data supports my positions on investing. There are university professors who have told me that they have incorporated things that they learned from reading my work into their classes on stock investing. There are thousands of ordinary investors who have told me that they love my stuff and who have begged you Goons to permit honest posting so that they could learn more. There are bloggers who have told me that they think that my site is the best investing site on the internet and that the only reason why they have banned me from their blogs is that their readers get so upset to learn how they have been misled by the Buy-and-Holders that they threaten to stop visiting those sites unless I am banned from them. This is strange stuff. The same basic story has played out thousands of times at hundreds of different sites over 14 years. There is obviously something odd going on here.

The name used in the psychological literature for that something odd is “cognitive dissonance.” You can learn all about it by running a Google search. It is a 100 percent real phenomenon. Probably the best way to describe its power in a concise way is to refer to the Asche research from the 1950s in which study participants were not able to properly identify the longer of two lines when they first saw other study participants who were plants get the question wrong. Humans are social creatures. When everybody around is telling us that “these bull market prices are real,” we believe it regardless of what the peer-reviewed research says.

Cognitive dissonance is hard to overcome. There was another study where researchers joined a cult to see what would happen when a cult leader who took all of these peoples’ money via a claim that the earth was going to be invaded by space aliens was discovered to be a fraud. The researchers were shocked when the con man told the cult members that he had persuaded the space aliens to let the world continue a bit longer because of their belief in them and the marks fell for it! We don’t like to be played for fools. So our inclination is to remain fools for a longer time period rather than to acknowledge that we have been played.

But the investors in the Madoff fund turned on him when his fund collapsed. I think that is what is going to happen when the retirement accounts of the millions who have been taken in by the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage collapse. You are of course free to believe otherwise. You won’t upset me if you tell me that you believe otherwise. But I feel compelled to post honestly re these matters. I think people are going to be pissed off that so many Buy-and-Holders told so many lies to cover up a mistake that was revealed by the peer-reviewed research 35 years ago. I think that a good percentage of the millions whose lives have been destroyed are going to demand prison sentences in cases in which insanely abusive acts like death threats and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs are in evidence.

If you think about it a bit, you will see that it couldn’t be any other way. This is a huge crime, the biggest crime of a financial nature in our nation’s history. And it is extremely well-documented. You wouldn’t need more than a small number of people talking about it on the internet to get it written up on the front page of the New York Times. Once it is written up, you will be in prison and not in any position to ask questions of me at this blog. So the very fact that you are able to ask the question shows that the cognitive dissonance has not been broken as of today.

But what happens when it IS broken?

That’s what matters, Anonymous. You pretend that you cannot imagine that day ever coming. I am confident that to some extent you have persuaded yourself that that day is not ever coming. If you fully let in to your consciousness your fear that that day is indeed coming, you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. So it seems evident to me that you have at least partially persuaded yourself.

I wish you luck with it, you know? I certainly am not going to do anything to cause your prison sentence to extend longer than what it absolutely must be given the circumstances that prevail today. It is my intent to do just the opposite. I don’t see how I could possibly bend any further in a pro-Goon position than to work my butt off trying to get your prison sentence reduced a bit. And I of course have already been doing that for years. So I truly do not know what it is that you want from me.

I believe that you are going to prison, Anonymous. I like you. But I don’t want to go to prison myself and I don’t want your prison sentence to extend any longer than it has to and I don’t want anyone who is thinking of becoming a Goon today to think that there will not be serious consequences that will follow from that. So I say what I believe. I don’t see that I have any other realistic option.

What do you think will happen? Do you think that everyone who lost most of their life savings is just going to say “oopsie, what a shame!” I do not think that it is going to play out that way. But I suppose that anything is theoretically possible. That one just doesn’t persuade me for some crazy reason.

Please remember that this is the first Buy-and-Hold Crisis for which there was peer-reviewed research going back to the first day of the bull/bear cycle showing that Buy-and-Hold cannot work. The Great Depression was a horrifying event and I am certain that many, many people would have gone to prison had there been a 35-year cover-up of research that could have been used to avoid that life destroying event. But Shiller didn’t publish his “revolutionary” (his word) research until 1981. So of course that didn’t happen. But Shiller’s research is publicly available today. It has been publicly available for a long time. Lots of people have heard of Shiller. He won a Nobel prize in Economics.

I suspect that lots of people have thoughts similar to my own who are not willing to go public with them. We have seen a mountain of evidence that people are afraid to speak out on these issues going back to the first day of our discussions. People are afraid because the tactics employed by the Buy-and-Hold Goon Squads are so insanely abusive. I had never seen anything like these tactics prior to the morning of May 13, 2002. I know that, had the pre-May 13, 2002, version of myself been called to serve on a jury and saw evidence of what I have seen in the past 14 years, I would certainly convict those who played the Goon role in the story to long prison sentences. I believe that most people are like the pre-May 13, 2002, version of myself. Most people love their country. Most people hate the tactics that you Goons employ. Why would we even have laws against the use of them if we did not as a nation feel strongly about these sorts of matters?

I wish that everyone were speaking out publicly about the prison sentences, Anonymous. I obviously wish that. But if you think about it a bit, you will see that that’s a logical impossibility in a world in which the crash has not yet hit. Had people spoken out one year ago, you Goons would be in prison today and there would be honest posting at every site and prices would today be at fair-market-value levels. We are not at anything close to fair-market-value price levels. Knowing that, you know the answer to your question. People OBVIOUSLY have not been speaking up. The P/E10 value tells us that.

I think that people will speak up when the P/E10 level goes down. I don’t want to go to prison when that happens. So I am speaking up today. I don’t want your prison sentence to be one day longer than it must be. That’s another reason why I am speaking up today. I love my country. I want the losses to be as small as possible given the circumstances that apply today. That’s another reason why I am speaking up today.

Did you think that the market price was going to remain insanely inflated FOREVER? Really?

It doesn’t work that way. Obviously. Buy-and-Hold always ends in tears. There is no other possibility that the rational mind can process. There weren’t prison sentences in earlier times because we didn’t have peer-reviewed research proving how this all works in those days. But now we do. Now we are going to see prison sentences for those who destroyed the millions of lives as well as the destruction of the millions of lives. No? It sure seems so to me. It seems to me that one follows naturally from the other. Isn’t it often the destruction of human lives that leads to prisons sentences in many other realms?

The bottom line is that we are all just going to have to wait to see how it all plays out. Having a policeman come to your house and take you away in handcuffs is the only thing that is going to get through to you at this point. I am very close to 100 percent sure re that one. Fair enough?

I hope that helps a bit.

I naturally wish you all the best things that this life has to offer a person in any event.

Hang in there, my old friend.

Rob

“If You Are Going to Say That Bogle Never Heard of Robert Shiller and Never Realized That He Had a Responsibility to Reform Buy-and-Hold to Reflect This “Revolutionary” (Shiller’s Word) Research, You Might As Well Get About the Business of Searching for Nicole Simpson’s Real Killer While You Are At It.”

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:

What if Bogle never read your emails. I get over 300 emails a day and don’t get time to read them all. I skip the emails that come from people I don’t know. I am guessing a guy like Bogle gets even more emails and has to pick and choose what to read and respond to.

I believe that he read the e-mails. One of the e-mails was invited. He had started a new blog or something and he asked for input and I sent an e-mail giving input. Are you saying that he invites comment on a question and then does not read the responses? That’s really pushing it.

And Bogle himself said that he visited the Bogleheads Forum once per week. There were some days during the time-period in which he said that where there were three or four threads PER DAY dealing with the topics at issue here. Are you saying that he didn’t notice any of them when he visited the board? That’s very, very hard to believe. It we were talking about some random thread, yes, it would be entirely possible that he missed it. But this was a raging controversy for 18 months. There was relentless, high-spirited discussion.

The entire freakin’ board was MOVED because of this. The board used to be at Morningstar. Morningstar refused to ban me. So Lindauer asked that everyone move to a different site where he could control who was banned. Are you saying that Bogle moved to a different site and never noticed that the board had been moved? That’s 100 percent impossible to believe, Anonymous. He noticed that the board had been moved. So he knew there were things going on.

There were numerous questions about valuations that came up that year at the annual meeting. Bogle is not a moron. He knew why those questions were being asked. He might not have known all the details. I don’t believe that he did. But I am 100 percent certain that he had the general picture of what was going on. He knew that there was a guy who was banned who was raising questions about how Shiller’s research reflects on the Buy-and-Hold dogmas and that Mel Lindauer and his Goons were engaging in insanely abusive acts to get this guy removed so that people visiting the board would not hear these challenges. Bogle knew that much and to know that much and not do anything about it is fraud.

We will find out all the details at the trial. We know what we need to know to know that there will be a trial following the next price crash.

Say that none of this had happened. None of it. There STILL would be an issue. Shiller showed in peer-reviewed research published in 1981 that there is precisely zero chance that Buy-and-Hold could ever work for a single investor either in this solar system or in any other solar system located far, far away. Yet Bogle made no changes in Buy-and-Hold as a result. Huh? Is it not arguable that that itself was financial fraud even without all the rest?

I believe that Bogle was suffering from cognitive dissonance in 1981. I think he is a good man and a smart man. So I personally would not call him guilty of financial fraud in 1981. Cognitive dissonance is a real thing. Bogle truly believes in Buy-and-Hold. Fama is a legitimate researcher, one who deserved the Nobel prize he was awarded. So I think that what happened in 1981 was okay. But I am pretty darn sure that lots of people are going to say different following the next price crash, when they have lost most of their retirement money and have no means to get it back other than to bring lawsuits against the people who promoted Buy-and-Hold in defiance of the peer-reviewed research for 35 years.

We are in a sticky situation, Anonymous. The Buy-and-Holders are good people. They messed up. It happens. Unfortunately, in this particular case the mess-up ruined millions of lives, it caused vast amounts of human misery. We are all going to have to pull together to put our economic and political system back together again. That’s the bottom line. That’s what matters.

I am going to do what I can do to help every single person end up in the best possible place in which he or she can land given the circumstances that apply. That’s my job, as I see it.

I cannot say that Bogle didn’t read the e-mails. I believe he read them. I can say that it is theoretically possible but the longest of long shots that he did not read the e-mails. But even in that case he knew about Mel Lindauer from long before I even came on the scene. So we still end up in the same place, with Bogle failing to speak up about a very serious matter and thereby causing the biggest economic crisis in U.S. history. And even if none of that were so, you have the 35 years of peer-reviewed research and the Nobel prize that was awarded to Shiller. If you are going to say that Bogle never heard of Robert Shiller and never realized that he had a responsibility to reform Buy-and-Hold to reflect this “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) research, you might as well get about the business of searching for Nicole Simpson’s real killer while you are at it. I mean, come on.

We will find out at the trial precisely what Bogle knew and when he knew it. Everyone who has been paying even a tiny bit of attention knows that he knew more than enough to know that there was a lot of funny business going on and that he had a responsibility to take action and that he failed to do so and that millions of lives have been destroyed as a result.

I am going to do everything in my power to help my good friend Jack out of a jam that he has gotten himself into. Doing “everything” does not include committing felonies myself. To expect that of me is flat-out insane stuff, stuff that only a feverish Goon brain could consider even the most remote possibility.

I will do everything I can to help out all of my Buy-and-Hold friends and all of my Goon friends. No more. And no less.

I have no other even halfway reasonable options available to me.

My best wishes.

Rob

“Wade Told Me That His Fear Was That His Employer Would Believe Your Lies. If Wade Had Confidence That Bogle Would Jump In and Take His Side Against You, He Would Not Have Been Afraid. It Was Because He Saw That Bogle Did Nothing When He Saw Lindauer’s Threatening and Abusive Behavior That Wade Believed That You Goons Really Had the Power to Destroy His Career.”

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:

Are you saying Bogle is the leader of the goons and that the goons follow orders given by Bogle? Are you the main target of those orders?

Did Wade tell you that he could not stand up to Bogle and the goons?

I don’t think that Bogle and his various Goon Squads communicate on a daily basis.

But I know for certain that Bogle knows about the threats of physical violence and the thousands of acts of defamation and the threat to get Wade Pfau fired from his job if he continued to do honest work in his field. I know because I sent three e-mails to Bogle telling him what was going on and asking for his help. I also know that there were a number of others at the Bogleheads Forum who contacted Bogle asking for help with the Lindauer Matter because they told me so.

And I know that Bogle knew about Lindauer’s behavior long before I even came on the scene. I ran into a fellow who had been banned from the Boglehead’s Forum before I posted there because he had posted honestly. He said that Lindauer made threats of physical violence to intimidate him into leaving the board. Bogle has said publicly that he visits the Bogleheads Forum roughly once a week. So Bogle has known about what goes on there for a long time. It would be impossible for him not to know when there were numerous threads discussing these matters every day when I was there. And of course Bogle knew about how Lindauer reacted when I announced that I would be attending one of the annual meetings that Bogle attends.

Wade Pfau was more concerned about Bogle than he was about Linduaer. When Pfau posted about the peer-reviewed research that he and I co-authored (research that I believed can fairly be characterized as the most important research done in this field in the past 35 years), Lindauer defamed him by saying that he had engaged in unethical research practices. Wade showed a lot of backbone in standing up for himself. He made clear that he would not tolerate such behavior from the king of internet goons. But when Bogle failed to act to rein in Lindauer, Wade got scared and backed down. I cannot think of any other explanation for his change in behavior.

It may be that there were threats made behind the scenes that played a role. I obviously cannot speak to what I did not see with my own eyes. But even if there were additional threats made in private by you Goons, I believe that it was Bogle’s endorsement of your criminal behavior that most frightened Wade. It wouldn’t make sense for him to be so afraid of a group of internet Goons that he would jeopardize his career and risk going to prison just because of what you might try to do.

Wade told me that his fear was that his employer would believe your lies. If Wade had confidence that Bogle would jump in and take his side against you, he would not have been afraid. It was because he saw that Bogle did nothing when he saw Lindauer’s threatening and abusive behavior that Wade believed that you Goons really had the power to destroy his career (and Wade of course had financial responsibility for two small children — so these were threats that hit him at a point of human vulnerability).

There is much evidence of Bogle’s association with Mel Lindauer. Bogle permitted his name to be used on a blurb for Lindauer’s book. It’s hard not to believe that Bogle did not play some role in getting Lindauer his column at Forbes. Bogle permits his name to be used in the name of the board that Lindauer claims to “lead.” I have seen photos from the annual meetings in which Lindauer and Bogle can be seen close enough to each other to appear in the same photograph. The site administrator refused for a long time to violate the site’s rules and ban me solely for enraging Lindauer with my honest posting on the last 35 years of peer-reviewed research in this field despite Lindauer’s many requests that he do so; it’s hard not to believe that Bogle did not play a role in “persuading” the site administrator to commit this criminal act.

I cannot prove that with direct evidence but I feel comfortable saying that any reasonable person would conclude that Bogle must have played at least some role. At the very bare minimum his failure to speak up about the insanely abusive behavior of Lindauer’s Goon squad sent a very clear message to the site administrator (and quite possibly to the legal department of Morningstar as well). The behavior went on for a long, long time. MANY long-time community members spoke out against it in very clear terms and a good number did so on numerous occasions.

Bogle knew about Lindauer. I doubt very much that he knew every detail. I don’t believe that. But I am 100 percent certain that he knew far more than what he needed to know that he had a responsibility to take action and he failed to take action. That’s fraud, Anonyous. Someone who keeps quiet about a massive act of financial fraud is complicit in the cover-up of it. And this is the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States, one that is in the process of destroying millions of middle-class lives and indeed one that has put the continued survival of our economic system and perhaps even of our political system at risk.

Bogle knew. We will find out at the trial, when witnesses speak under oath, precisely how much he knew. That is not entirely clear today. But anyone who participated in real time or who has reviewed the Post Archives (I have copies of all essential threads) knows that Bogle betrayed himself, his family, his profession and his country in his failure to take action re Mel Lindauer, John Greaney and the members of their Goon Squads. I naturally wish that it were not so. But we know today that that much is so beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever.

The good news is that it will all come out in the trials that will be held following the next price crash and at that time we all will be free to make use of what we have learned from the past 35 years of peer-reviewed research to make our lives and the lives of all of those of us living at this magic time in the history of investing research better than we ever believed they could be before Bogle got us started down this wonderful journey of putting together the first true research-backed investing strategy. Let’s not forget the great good that this wonderful man has done while pointing out his unfortunate relationship with the sorts of individuals who have posted in “defense’ of Mel Lindauer, which of course also cannot be denied.

My sincere take.

Rob

“Bogle Couldn’t Have Gotten Away With What He Got Away With If the Newspapers Had Called Him Out on His B.S. and If the Academic Researchers Had Called Him Out on His B.S. and If the Freakin’ Millions of Middle-Class Investors Themselves Had Called Him Out on His B.S. We Are ALL Complicit in This Huge Act of Financial Fraud, Every Last One of Us, Including Yours Truly.”

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 haven’t finalized my plans in this area. I am still outlining an agenda. My guess is that I will get to work on this new phase early next year.”

What needs to be planned? The wildest political environment since the internet was invented is happening right now. If you’re not posting at political sites now, you never will.

You are entitled to your opinion, Anonymous. I don’t share that opinion. I am going to proceed in the manner that feels right to me.

I don’t think what you are saying is crazy. You are making a legitimate point. The political environment is indeed wild today and so maybe the guiding thought should be to strike when the iron is hot. Perhaps I am making a mistake by waiting a bit. My gut tells me that this is not quite the right time. I have learned over the years to trust my gut re such matters. So it is my intent to hold off for a bit. But I acknowledge that it is possible that I am making a mistake by doing that.

I’ll offer one possible explanation for why it might be better to wait a bit.

Yes, the political environment is wild today, as you say. Is that a good thing? Is that what we want?

I don’t want that. There is a sense in which I do want it. I want to see change. Wildness is conducive to change. We are as a people now in the process of shaking things up. So perhaps I have a great opportunity that has appeared before me that I should be taking advantage of before it passes. Perhaps there are people who would listen to what I have to say today who will not listen tomorrow and I am making a terrible mistake by holding back for a bit. I can see how that might be so.

But there’s another side to the story. The people who are voting for Trump are angry today. Fair statement, no? And the people who are voting for Clinton are perhaps not quite angry but they are something on the negative side too. Perhaps they are disgusted. Perhaps they are dismissive. Perhaps they are just shocked. They are something on the negative side, in my assessment. They are not today fully open to the possibility that they have something to learn from the Trump people. They do not feel warm and friendly toward the Trump people. At least that much is fair to say.

That’s a problem, in my view. I understand that it is probably insanely idealistic to think that there is ever going to be a day when there will be zero antagonism between the Trump people and the Clinton people. But the answer is not to engage in more yelling. I intend to spend more time in future days at political sites because the investing field has in the Buy-and-Hold Era become 100 percent corrupt. People feel (with good reason) that it is not possible to make a living in this field unless you give up your personal integrity to make nice with the Buy-and-Holders. So it makes sense for me to spend more time at political sites where people may feel more free to talk openly about the Wall Street Corruption that is poisoning our country today. But I am not a tiny bit interested in generating more hate. If what you are suggesting by saying that the political environment today is more “wild” than it has been at most other times is that there is an openness to hate today that was not present before, please count me out, you know?

I am one of many people who believe that the best moment in Sunday’s debate was when both Clinton and Trump were asked to say one positive thing about the other and both offered sincere and kind comments re his or her “opponent.” That’s the United States I love. That’s what works. That’s the answer. That’s where I am taking this thing between the Valuation-Informed Indexers and the Buy-and-Holders.

Love is the answer, Anonymous. So, yes, I want to work at sites where it is possible to say openly “Jack Bogle is a con man who has more responsibility than anyone else alive for bringing on the biggest economic crisis in U.S. history.” That must be said because that’s the obvious truth here and we need to make everyone aware of the obvious truths if we are going to solve our biggest problems. But that by itself is not hateful. Saying “Jack Bogle is a con man” is an act of love so long as the intent behind the statement is to bring Bogle to a better place and thereby to secure for him in the minds of millions a reputation as a great man, which is what he is (the full truth is that he is BOTH a con man and a hero to the middle-class).

Yes, we need a political moment in which people are desperate enough about the pain that the Wall Street Con Men have brought on to open themselves to some new, peer-reviewed findings about how stock investing works in the real world. But we are going to waste that opportunity if we give in to human weaknesses that tempt us to blame ONLY the Wall Street Con Men for our troubles. Bogle couldn’t have gotten away with what he got away with if the newspapers had called him out on his b.s. and if the academic researchers had called him out on his b.s. and if the freakin’ millions of middle-class investors themselves had called him out on his b.s. We are ALL complicit in this huge act of financial fraud, every last one of us, including yours truly. That reality has to be part of the story that is told.

I am not convinced that the political environment that exists today is the political environment in which that FULLY true message can at last be heard. My sense is that we are inching up to a better place, that we are being put through some awful smelling stuff as part of a process that will over time come to yield some amazing fruit for our entire nation. But that we are not quite there yet.

I am not God. I could be wrong. I am not sure. But my sense is that the opportunity here is not quite ripe. So my inclination is to hold back a bit longer and watch to see how things develop. I want to help out at sites that permit people to give voice to important truths that for too long have been censored or self-censored. But one of the truths that needs to be voiced is that love is the answer, that for all of their flaws the Wall Street Con Men want to do good and long to do good and are highly capable of doing good. I need to be able to tell BOTH sides of the story to get this job done right. And I am not interested in achieving half-way successes. We need full successes to get things back on the right track. I need to be able to speak HONESTLY. That means saying that “Jack Bogle is hero to the middle class” as much as it means saying “Jack Bogle is a con man who has participated at sites that permit posting by the sorts of individuals who associate with Mel Linduaer and John Greaney.”

That’s where I am coming from. It would be a mistake to wait for the perfect moment because we don’t get perfection in this fallen world. But I am not sure that the time is quite ripe for what I am trying to do and for what I must do if all of our efforts of the first 14 years of discussions are to bear good fruit for all of us. I am in wait-and-see mode. I am watching and pondering and planning and hoping and praying. Posting (on political sites) comes later.

Those are my sincere thoughts re these terribly important matters, in any event.

I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, my good friend.

I hope that helps a tiny bit.

Rob

“Political Correctness As Applied Both in the Political Context and in the Investing Context Is a Form of Low-Grade Violence. When Someone Threatens to Destroy Someone’s Reputation Because of a Difference of Opinion, He Is Not Engaging in Free Speech, He Is Seeking to Limit Free Speech. When Free Speech Ends, Violence Comes in to Fill the Void. People Ultimately Find a Way to Express Themselves; If No Good Way Is Made Available to Them, They in Time Explore the Bad Ways.”

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 am doubtful that combating political correctness with complete A-hole-ishness is going to yield positive results.

In the end the results will likely be about as positive as yours.

Either way the election goes we are going to be facing difficult circumstances, in my view. If Clinton wins, she is going to have a hard time leading millions of people who she says are voting for someone entirely beyond the pale. If Trump wins, he is going to have a hard time leading millions of people who he says are voting for someone who belongs in prison. An effective leader needs to pull people together. When you participate in the sort of race we are seeing, it is very hard to do that. It didn’t used to be this way in the United States and it makes me sad to see what we have come to.

We came to this because of political correctness. Political correctness is a short-term strategy. It rules certain issues out of the bounds of rational debate. There is obviously never any real change achieved re issues that are not debated. So those favoring a status quo position gain a big edge when that subject is deemed beyond discussion by the restrictions of political correctness. It’s not the American way. At all. But the side favoring the status quo gains a big edge in the short term. The status quo wins every debate that is never held because it is only through persuasion that people can be brought to support new ideas. Political correctness exists because, as ugly as it is and as outside of the U.S. tradition as it is, it works. It provides wins. It provides power.

But it does so at a great price. Views that are not aired over time become hardened and embittered. You get to a point where neither side is requesting debate; they are instead just wielding power or attacking those who wield power. At that point you are on the edge of seeing violence. I think it would be fair to say that that is where things stand today in the United States re many issues.

There are legitimate differences of opinion on many of the issues that affect our country today. There are things that can be said on both sides of the immigration question. There are things that can be said on both sides of the terrorism question. There are things that can be said on both sides of the police brutality question. There are things that can be said on both sides of the abortion question. But people on both sides of these questions are no longer even trying to debate the matters. They share horror stories with those on the same side as themselves. And they yell at those on the other side. There is no back-and-forth discussion, no friendly learning, going on.

That’s how it became possible for a figure like Trump to go as far as he has. Yes, he is an “asshole,” as you put it. Those who oppose him marvel at how he can do outrageous thing after outrageous thing and suffer little or no loss of support. Most of his supporters don’t care how much of an asshole he is. They are sick of not being heard. They are supporting Trump no matters what he does or says. They have moved beyond the realm of debate. They are voting for him as a punishment of those who denied them the right to speak for so many years.

This is not good. This is scary stuff. If Trump were the greatest person in the world, it would be dangerous to put him in circumstances where he has power and a large portion of the electorate will not question anything he does. And Trump is not the greatest person in the world. We have hurt ourselves big time. It is not Trump who did that or Trump’s supporters who did that. It is all the people who employed political correctness as a strategy and all the people who saw political correctness being employed as a strategy and failed to speak out who did that.

I think it would be fair to say that I have been the polar opposite of Trump in my dealings with you Goons. Many of my fellow community members, including many Buy-and-Holders, have kindly observed that I am the most polite poster that they have ever encountered on the internet. It’s largely because of my belief in the value of warm human interaction as a better way of resolving differences than the violence that follows from goonishness/assholishness that I have been so resolute in not giving you Goons back some of your own medicine. I don’t believe in that stuff. So I condemn it when I see it being practiced by others. And I am careful never to engage in it myself.

Trump is wrong to go there. If he loses, that will be the reason he loses. If he took the high road, he would win. The polls support that conclusion. But the deep reality here is that Trump IS an asshole, he can’t be anything other than what he is. So he is probably going to continue with the behavior that we have seen. If he manages to rein in the ugliness for a few weeks, he is going to return to it following the election. At his age, it is hard for a man to change so fundamental a personality trait. An asshole won the Republican nomination for President, whether we like the idea or not, whether the idea makes us sad about where our country stands today or not.

I intend to vote for that asshole. Asshole or not, he has taken on political correctness in a big way. He has dealt with the biggest issue tearing our nation apart. He has generated LOTS of discussion on issues that could not be discussed in recent years. Re all that, good for him. I have come to the conclusion that the reason why we have an asshole representing one of the major parties is that no one but an asshole could have taken on the biggest issue and survived. It may be that it takes an asshole to end political correctness, a debating strategy rooted in assholishness. Say what you will about Donald Trump, he has a thick skin. Assholes tend to have a think skin.

It may be that the reason why I have not been able to prevail over you Goons is that I lack the quality of assholishness that Trump possesses. I will never travel that path. It is not in me. I will always approach you Goons and indeed all Buy-and-Holders with an outstretched hand of kindness. I see that as my best and most important trait. I don’t think that our problems can be solved without that element being part of the solution and that is the element re which I think it would be fair to say that I possess a unique ability. I intend to vote for an asshole. But I never intend to become an asshole. Let’s all pray that I can continue to walk that fine line.

We need Trump today, in my view. We need to take on political correctness and none of the many non-assholes who ran for the job in recent years have been willing or able to do what the biggest asshole in the crowd managed to do. As much as I am repulsed by the assholishness, I have to give the man credit for what he has achieved. He’s done something none of the others managed to do. Perhaps there is a place in this world for a certain measure of assholishness. It pains me to say that. But it’s not fair for me to call the man an asshole and then fail to give him credit for the achievements that seem to have followed from his willingness to be a major asshole in a very public way.

Anyway, that’s where I stand. People who like Clinton are going to dislike me because I am voting for Trump. People who like Trump are going to dislike me because I call Trump an “asshole.” So be it. That’s my sincere take re this matter and I am just going to have to accept the consequences that follow from stating one’s sincere take at a time in history in which people in the United States communicate re the most important issues before them by talking past each other at best and by yelling at each other and calling each other names at the worst.

I think that Clinton would win if she could find it within herself the courage to come out against political correctness in a major way. People respect her accomplishments. They just cannot bring themselves to vote for a continuation of the approach that has gotten us where we are today. They are looking for real change and real change cannot be achieved until we collectively decide that we are going to put the politically correct garbage behind us and go back to the idea of talking things through with the aim of coming to mutually acceptable solutions to all our problems.

I think that Trump would win if he could find it within himself to apologize for having been such an asshole to so many people. That would amaze people and cause them to be willing to take a chance on him.

We’ll see what happens. I love my country and part of loving it is believing in it. So I believe that we will work the matter out through some process that is hard to foresee in the current day. It’s scary to think of either of these two individuals becoming the most powerful person in the world. But I have to believe that one or the other is going to use the difficult circumstances to bring on the measure of self-growth needed to be effective as a leader of our country.

I am the anti-asshole. But I am voting for the asshole in this particular election because I admire the ability that the asshole has shown to get a discussion going in a nation where lots of powerful people have forgotten how important it is to turn to discussion rather than violence to solve problems. Political correctness as applied both in the political context and in the investing context is a form of low-grade violence. When someone threatens to destroy someone’s reputation because of a difference of opinion, he is not engaging in free speech, he is seeking to limit free speech. When free speech ends, violence comes in to fill the void. People ultimately find a way to express themselves; if no good way is made available to them, they in time explore the bad ways.

This is my take re these terribly important matters in any event, my long-time assholish friend.

Rob

“Clinton Is Smart and Experienced and Hard-Working But I Think It Would Be Fair to Say That She Has Never in Her Life Crossed a Big-Money Donor and the Big-Money Donors Have Zero Interest in Permitting Middle-Class People to Learn the Realities of Stock Investing at This Point in the Proceedings. So I Have Decided for Trump.”

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:

Who you voting for Rob? Who is the best candidate to address Buy and Hold, the greatest threat to America?

I’m voting for Trump.

There are many things about him as a person that I cannot stand. He is actually quite Goonish in his interactions with other human beings.

The other side of the story is that he is the only figure on the scene who has had the courage to take on political correctness in a major way. I think that political correctness is killing us. I admire him greatly for that.

I see great risk in making Trump the next President. I fully understand why many smart and good people consider him beyond the pale. But my personal view is that it is even more risky for us to continue on the present course. He does represent change.

You are being sarcastic when you say that Buy-and-Hold represents “the greatest threat to America.” But that is indeed my position. I think that Buy-and-Hold was a mistake. I love the Buy-and-Holders for all the amazing positive contributions they have made. But, yes, I do believe that it is 100 percent imperative that we bring this economic crisis to an end and I do not see how it can be done without us owning up to the mistake that we discovered 35 years ago.

Our nation cannot survive unless we find a way to permit millions of middle-class people to access honest and accurate reports re what the last 35 years of peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works. The economic system will collapse if we do not address this problem. And the political system will collapse not long afterwards. We are already seeing signs of both economic and political stresses.

In a perfect world, we would not need to turn to someone like Trump to address the problem. We don’t live in a perfect world. In this world, he is far more likely than Hillary Clinton to deal with the problem. Clinton is smart and experienced and hard-working but I think it would be fair to say that she has never in her life crossed a big-money donor and the big-money donors have zero interest in permitting middle-class people to learn the realities of stock investing at this point in the proceedings. So I have decided for Trump.

Pray for me! And for him too! And for our country too!

Take care, man.

Rob

“If You Counted Your Stock Portfolio As Being Worth its Nominal Value When Making Decisions As to How Much to Spend on the House and Car and College Education, You Made Poor Decisions.”

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 guess my paid off home and cars are all lies. My kids paid for college education is all a lie.

If you counted your stock portfolio as being worth its nominal value when making decisions as to how much to spend on the house and car and college education, you made poor decisions. It’s not possible to engage in effective financial planning when you start by following a long-discredited investing strategy that insures that you get all the numbers wrong.

The stock part of your story is a lie. And as a result the overall story is not good.

My take.

Rob

Valuation-Informed Indexing #315: We Learn More About Investing (and Everything Else) By Talking About It

by

I’ve posted Entry #315 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called We Learn About Investing (and Everything Else) By Talking About It.

Juicy Excerpt: What’s missing is the second part of the learning experience. We read words about what Shiller showed in his research. We make his books bestsellers. We praise him. We even award him Nobel prizes. But we don’t talk over what Shiller showed. I am the world expert re this one; I am banned at over 20 investing web sites. Most investors hate the idea of talking over what Shiller showed so much that they cannot tolerate the presence of posters who believe that he said something important and who explore the implications of his findings in the words that they put forward for the consideration of their fellow community members.

We don’t really know what Shiller taught us today. We kinda, sorta do. We can parrot back his words if prompted because we have read those words. But we haven’t yet learned much about what Shiller’s research brings to the table because we have not yet given ourselves permission to talk over the implications of what Shiller’s research brings to the table.