Set forth below is the text of a comment that I posted to the Out of Your Rut site:

Every researcher in this field should be looking at what we see on this thread and reporting on it.

Investing is not only a numbers game.

It is partly a numbers game. It is also an emotions game.

Get the emotions wrong, and you cannot possibly get the numbers right. Get the emotions wrong and you will direct all your energies to telling lies to yourself (and others).

Get the emotions right and the numbers part comes easy.

When Buy-and-Holders elected to ignore valuations, they elected to ignore emotions (all mispricing is caused by emotion). When Buy-and-Holders elected to ignore valuations, they insured that every number they produced from that point forward would be in error.

It’s a mess.

The good news is that, when we fix the error, we transform stock investing into something close to a risk-free endeavor.

The risky thing is the possibility that you might ignore the emotions.

The risky thing is the possibility that you might follow a Buy-and-Hold strategy.

When we bury Buy-and-Hold 30 feet in the ground, we bury investing risk 30 feet in the ground.

The future is bright.

It all starts with a group of us getting together and persuading our good friend Jack Bogle to stand on a stage and say the magical words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.”

From that point forward, it’s downhill sledding.

We cannot learn anything without accepting the possibility that we did not know it all a long time ago. ALL learning experiences start with a willingness to acknowledge one’s fallibility.

Valuation_Informed Indexing is what Bogle INTENDED to create when he created Buy-and-Hold. I have made Jack Bogle’s boyhood dream come true.

When he is able to work up the courage and grace to say “Thank you, Rob!” , we will all be in a much better place.

And I will shake the man’s hand with great enthusiasm when he stops hating himself for having made a mistake and starts working to learn what he needs to learn to give far better investing advice in the future than he has ever given in the past.

Jack can thank me and move forward or he can spend the remainder of his days covering up a mistake that caused the greatest economic crisis in U.S. history.

I know which path I am hoping very much that my good friend will choose for himself (and for all of us).

Rob

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to a discussion being held at the Goon Central board.

An earlier comment of mine stated that: “I have had more than one e-mail recipient tell me that he or she is going to change the course that he or she teaches as a result of what he or she learned from reading my e-mail and then corresponding with me about it. I think it would be fair to say that Jack Bogle has never received a response of that nature to one of his e-mails.” Drip Guy quoted that response and stated: “With all that unfounded and bizarre hubris stuffed into Rob’s belly, one wonders how there is any room for anything else. A very sick man.” I wrote the words set forth below in response to Drip Guy’s comment.

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:

Could you please provide us a list, by name, of everyone you believe should go to prison as well as for those that you believe should be paying you your requested $500 million.

I will be suing those who have done harm to my business, Deleted. If someone says that Buy-and-Hold is the greatest strategy ever known to humankind, that is of course 100 percent positive and constructive and life-affirming. If someone threatens to kill my wife and children if I continue posting honestly on safe withdrawal rates, that person pays me damages. If someone demands that I be banned from an investing site solely because I pointed out an error in a retirement study, that person pays me damages. If someone advances tens of thousands of acts of defamation as a means of intimidating me or people who have expressed support for my work, that person pays me damages. If someone threatens to send defamatory e-mails to an academic researcher who has co-published Nobel-prize-quality research with me, that person pays me damages.

The names will be listed in the legal papers. I will meet with a legal team following the next price crash and will share the Post Archives with that team. The lawyers will make decisions as to who should be sued and for how much. That’s their job.

I don’t feel comfortable expressing a personal opinion re who should go to prison and who should not. The matter of civil liabilities is personal to me. So I feel that I can express a view re that one. The matter of prison time is something we need to debate as a society. My personal view is that we want to keep the prison sentences as limited as possible. If we start getting involved in revenge stuff, we will tear our society apart with negativity. There obviously have to be prison sentences. The 11-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School SWR studies is the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States and people went to prison over much smaller things. So we are going to need as a society to make a statement that includes prison sentences. But I think it would be a mistake to get carried away with that aspect of things.

I’ll give one example to illustrate the point.

Jack Bogle is a hero to me. I learned what I needed to know to report on the errors in the Old School SWR studies by reading Bogle’s book. There has never been anyone in this field who cared as much about the ordinary middle-class investor. My dad loved Bogle and taught me to love him. There would be no Valuation-Informed Indexing but for Bogle’s many huge contributions.

All that said, the reality is that Bogle has committed financial fraud in an objective sense. He knows about how Mel Lindauer uses threats of physical violence and smear campaigns to keep people from talking about the 11-year cover-up at the Bogleheads Forum. He has an obvious responsibility to take action. He has not done so. For many years. The fact pattern here is not good for Old Saint Jack.

There’s yet another factor that needs to be considered. There is a wealth of evidence indicating that Bogle is suffering from cognitive dissonance. He did not wake up one morning and say to himself: “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could bring the U.S. economy to its knees by promoting the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick scheme in U.S. history?” If Bogle took a lie detector test and was asked “Do you think Buy-and-Hold caused the economic crisis?”, I think he could answer “No” and not cause the buzzers to go off.

To have financial fraud, you have to have bad intent. Does Bogle have bad intent? He does and he doesn’t. It’s a sign of bad intent that he says positive stuff about Lindauer. He empowers the Goons when he does that. But Bogle’s views about stock investing are just misinformed (in my view!), not evil. So there are different ways to look at this question.

There’s no one other than me talking today about Bogle going to prison. So he is safe for the time-being. But what happens following the next price crash? I can see things getting very, very ugly at that point. For prices to crash, people need to give up on Buy-and-Hold. When millions of people give up and lose most of their retirement money, they are gong to be angry and they are going to be looking for people to hang from a tree. I think it would be fair to say that Old Saint Jack is an obvious candidate.

My guess is that I will be the one trying hardest to save Jack’s neck at that time. Partly that’s because I love the guy. Partly it’s because I just don’t like to see ANYONE go to prison. And partly it’s because I think our nation is going to be in dire need of healing at that time. But I cannot dismiss the idea of prison time for Jack out of hand. If I do that, I lose credibility with the millions of middle-class people whose lives are in the process of being destroyed because of Jack’s continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold and because of Jack’s continued support for the Goons who are responsible for the 11-year cover-up.

I need to evidence balance in all I say re these matters. My hope is that Jack will do things that put him in a better light and that the millions of people who have lost money because of his mistakes (that’s truly what I think they are at the core) will be appeased by positive actions on his part. If that doesn’t happen, that doesn’t happen. But I sure don’t want to say anything here that serves to diminish the chances that it will happen.

The motto that I follow is to be as honest as it is possible to be without crossing the line and being uncharitable while also being as charitable as possible without crossing the line and being dishonest. I believe that if we all (including my good friend Jack!) followed that motto that we would end up in a good place at the end of the day. We have seen some ugly stuff over the first 11 years of our discussions. We have seen ten times more magical, wonderful, amazing, exciting stuff. So I want to encourage all who are reading these words to focus on the positive side of the story. We jeopardize getting to the good place where deep in our hearts we all truly want to be when we let our negative emotions gain the upper hand.

I hope that helps a bit, Deleted.

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

Rob, the Fellow Working His Butt Off to Get Jack Bogle’s Prison Sentence Reduced or Possibly Even Eliminated Altogether (And Getting Precious Little Support From Old Saint Jack for His Efforts to Do So!)

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to a blog entry at this site:

Mel is real scary – not.

We disagree, What.

Mel is scary.

Not because of anything that Mel brings to the table himself. On his own, Mel is just some internet Goon, one of thousands of social misfits who gained some temporary fame on the internet and let it go to his head.

Mel is scary because of his connection to my good friend Jack Bogle.

Bogle is a respected figure in this field. He has money. He has fame. He has power. He has connections.

I think it would be fair to say that, if Jack owned a barber shop here in Purcellville and he learned that Mel Lindauer was using his name to promote some discussion board at which the most insanely abusive practices known to Planet Internet were employed on a daily basis to keep people from posting honestly about the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research, Bogle would be on the phone to the Purcellville police and to his legal team within 20 minutes demanding that something be done to protect his good name.

Bogle has not made any such calls, What. That’s what scares people like Wade Pfau and Bill Bernstein and Scott Burns and and Larry Swedroe.

Wade has financial responsibility for two small children. He wants to tell the truth. He also wants to be able to make a living in this field.

Bogle’s failure to speak up about the Lindauer matter is a national scandal, one that we will be working through as a nation for many years to come in civil and criminal proceedings and in congressional hearings.

Yes, Bogle is a Hero of the First Rank to millions of middle-class investors and properly so, in my assessment. He has also let himself and all his followers down in a very, very big way.

It is a tragedy of King Lear proportions for all Buy-and-Holders and for all Valuation-Informed Indexers. For our entire society, really. Our entire society has been affected in a serious way by this economic crisis.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to a blog entry at this site:

Do you talk with your family about how you have 500 million coming your way? You may want to mention it.

I’ve made reference to “hundreds of millions” on a small number of occasions. I don’t believe I have ever referred specifically to the $500 million figure.

My wife doesn’t count the $500 million (or whatever amount) as real. It’s not her style. If I said that a friend of mine promised to give me ten bucks he owed me, she wouldn’t count it in the books until it was reduced to dollars bills. She’s a “Show Me the Money!’ kind of gal.

I’m not that way. I am a conceptual thinker (nice way of putting it) or a dreamer (harsh way of putting it). I see things that do not exist in concrete form and watch them take shape. The Myers-Briggs personality assessment system refers to my personality type as the “Seer.” We don’t use crystal balls. We see into the future because we see connections that other personality types miss. These connections are every bit as tangible to us INFJs as numbers are to the INTJs. We seem to be able to see into the future because we see things going on today that others do not see and we are able to see where those things are leading us.

I didn’t ask to possess this ability. But I don’t apologize for it. We all possess something. This ability to be a “Seer” is the gift that I was given. My job is to make good use of the power.

Anyway, my wife and my boys certainly know that I expect a big payday. They love me but they do not possess the confidence that this is how things will turn out that I possess.

I acknowledge that there’s a chance that the payday will not come. If Bogle never works up the courage to say “I Was Wrong” we all go down together. I don’t want that to happen. But it’s not like there’s anything I can do about it that I have not already done.

Bogle doesn’t want us to go down either, you know. That’s a comforting reality for me. When things get so bad that he sees no other option, he will say the magic words. I want him to say those words NOW. But it’s not my call. I get one vote, like everybody else, like it or not.

When I am up on that stage with my good friend Jack working with him to turn this around, there’s not going to be one person saying “oh, don’t give that fellow $500 million, he should only get $495 million.” The $500 million figure sounds big when you don’t understand what is going on. Once it all clicks for you, you will see that it is a trivial number in relative terms.

Bogle is not a bad person. He will be the first one to sign off on the $500 million payday, in my assessment.

I don’t think you’re an entirely bad person either, What. You may not be the second person to sign off. But I believe that there will come a time when you will sign off. I sure hope so. We will be friends then. Good!

Rob, the Fellow Waiting Patiently for His $500 Million Payday

Rob

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:

We see time and again by countless studies that market timing has been a failure. The market is unpredictable and we can see that is the case for you as well. Look how long you have been telling everyone about a market crash and we see that you have been wrong. If you really were able to predict the market, you would be one of the wealthiest people alive today. Stop peddling you get rich quick scheme.

Every word of your comment is false, Pink.

Wade Pfau and I published peer-reviewed academic research SHOWING in very compelling terms that it is false. Your response was to threaten to send defamatory e-mails to Wade’s employer in an effort to get him fired from his job if he continued publishing research showing the dangers of Buy-and-Hold strategies.

Have you asked my good friend Jack Bogle to comment on that study?

If not, why not?

If you are afraid to show the study to Jack Bogle, why are you afraid?

How can learning something ever hurt you?

How can learning something ever hurt Jack?

If you are afraid to show the study to Jack and to listen to his reaction, all of the words you have heard promoting Buy-and-Hold have not been enough to make you confident inside that this strategy will work in the long term.

That’s not good, Pink.

True and legitimate and scientific research inspires confidence.

Mumbo-jumbo marketing garbage obviously does not.

Rob, the Fellow Who Dislikes Mumbo-Jumbo Marketing Garbage As Much As He Likes True and Legitimate and Scientific Research

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted at this site’s blog:

Mel is scary.

Not because of anything that Mel brings to the table himself. On his own, Mel is just some internet Goon, one of thousands of social misfits who gained some temporary fame on the internet and let it go to his head.

Mel is scary because of his connection to my good friend Jack Bogle.

Bogle is a respected figure in this field. He has money. He has fame. He has power. He has connections.

I think it would be fair to say that, if Jack owned a barber shop here in Purcellville and he learned that Mel Lindauer was using his name to promote some discussion board at which the most insanely abusive practices known to Planet Internet were employed on a daily basis to keep people from posting honestly about the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research, Bogle would be on the phone to the Purcellville police and to his legal team within 20 minutes demanding that something be done to protect his good name.

Bogle has not made any such calls, What. That’s what scares people like Wade Pfau and Bill Bernstein and Scott Burns and and Larry Swedroe.

Wade has financial responsibility for two small children. He wants to tell the truth. He also wants to be able to make a living in this field.

Bogle’s failure to speak up about the Lindauer matter is a national scandal, one that we will be working through as a nation for many years to come in civil and criminal proceedings and in congressional hearings.

Yes, Bogle is a Hero of the First Rank to millions of middle-class investors and properly so, in my assessment. He has also let himself and all his followers down in a very, very big way.

It is a tragedy of King Lear proportions for all Buy-and-Holders and for all Valuation-Informed Indexers. For our entire society, really. Our entire society has been affected in a serious way by this economic crisis.

Rob