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 have convinced lots of people. Thousands of people.”

I think you have convinced yourself, but that is about it. If you tell yourself a lie long enough, eventually, you will believe it. None of us have anything to gain or lose regarding what you do or not do to secure your financial future. That gives us the luxury of not having a bias and give you honest feedback. If you look at any of the major financial boards, this is just common practice. You don’t see other people making wild claims of goons, prison and $500 million windfalls. Instead, it is routine questions, answers and general comments/observations. There aren’t mass conspiracies.

The fact that lots of people don’t talk about the criminal stuff illustrates the problem. The core idea on which Buy-and-Hold is built is that investors are 100 percent rational. If that were so, prices would be set properly and market timing really would not be required. Death threats are emotional. So are acts of extortion. When we don’t talk about that stuff, we make Buy-and-Hold look plausible. If we all talked about that stuff whenever we saw it, we could as a society get our emotions under control and we would’t have a CAPE value of 33 hanging over our heads.

It’s never the Valuation-Informed Indexers behaving this way, only the Buy-and-Holders. I wonder why.

Rob

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

You are not blocked because of you opinion on investing. You are blocked because of your poor behavior. Using this last post as an example, you make allegations of a criminal act, yet fail to provide proof of such. You claim Wade’s job was threatened when it was not. Wade also asked you to stop posting damaging comments about him, yet you continued. You keep repeating the failed lie about “honest” posting that is actually dishonest.

All these people stopped talking to you 15 years ago, yet you still won’t admit that you are the problem versus everyone else.

I am banned for one reason and one reason only. I am the person who pointed out the error in the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site. Before my famous post on the morning of May 13, 2002, I was the most popular poster at the Motley Fool site. Greaney himself had a post that served as an introduction to all newcomers to the Retire Early board in which he urged them to read my stuff before looking at anything else because it was “seminal” material. From the moment that I put forward the post pointing out the error in the Greaney study, it has been relentless attacks from Greaney and his Goon pals for 20 years running.

Wade LOVED doing honest work. I have 16 months of e-mails in which he over and over again expressed how excited he was over the research he was doing with me showing how big an advance it was to move from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing. You have a tiny number of posts that he put forward with a gun to this head (figuratively) because you Goons threatened to get him fired from his job is he continued doing honest work. Gee, I wonder what was going on there.

Wade is going to flip back in the days following the next price crash, presuming that stocks continue to perform in the future somewhat as they always have in the past. We will all pull together, open every site on the internet to honest posting re the past 41 years of peer-reviewed research, and live better lives from that point forward as a result.

My sincere take.

Rob

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

“When he saw the article in the Wall Street Journal saying that I had been right all along, he gave me a call. I told him about the bans. He was shocked. He said that he was going to put up a post at the Bogleheads Forum telling the story. I told him that he would be banned if he did. He made a bet with me that he would not be banned. Of course he was banned within 30 seconds of advancing the post.”

First of all, I have no doubt that everything in that paragraph is a lie. Which of course is nothing new.

Will you ever get past your Greaney obsession? It’s been 20 years and you’re just as pissed as on day one. Constantly ripping on him only reflects on you. Your current real-life isolation and squalor should have clued you into that by now. Greaney is nobody, except presumably to Mrs. Greaney. Comparing Bengen to Greaney is like comparing Elvis to the third backup Elvis impersonator in Pig’s Knuckle, Arkansas. Yet you just can’t help yourself.

It’s not really Greaney that is the problem. The problem is that many Normals TOLERATE Greaney’s behavior. So behavior norms that apply in every other field of life endeavor do not apply in the investment advice realm. Hence that CAPE value of 35 that applies today. I can handle Greaney so long as everyone around me enforces the same laws in the investing advice field that they enforce in every other field of human endeavor.

Rob

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

You didn’t answer the question.  When are you going to take legal action?  There is the issue of time and statute of limitations.

The statute of limitations doesn’t begin running until every site has been opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research because the fraud remains an ongoing matter until that happens. So that is not an issue.

When a large and well-respected law firm that wants to take the case on a contingency basis contacts me, I will sit down with them and see what they have to say.

Rob

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

You have been telling people they are going to prison for over 15 years.  You have also been talking about legal settlements of $500 million.  When are you going to start taking all this legal action?

Our laws are set up to protect us as a community. Under ordinary circumstances, there would be universal agreement that criminal behavior by Buy-and-Holders should be no more tolerated than criminal behavior by anyone else. But we are not living under ordinary circumstances when the CAPE level is 35, two times fair value.

Think that would happen if I were granted my desire to see every site on the internet opened to honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. Most investors would act in their rational self-interest and would lower their stock allocation. That would bring stock prices down by 50 percent. Millions of people would suffer failed retirements. People would cut back on spending and hundreds of thousands of businesses would go under. Millions of people would be thrown out of work. Political frictions would increase.

Who needs any of that, right?

So the bull market continues. Buy-and-Hold survives another day.

I believe that, when we all experience the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, there will be a larger number of people who will work up the courage to stand up to the Buy-and-Hold Goon Squads. We now have about 10 percent who believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research. If we get to 20 percent, I believe that that will be enough to get the ball rolling. Eventually, we all will be living better lives.

I will not be pushing for prison sentences for you Goons. I intend to take it the other way. I am going to make the case for why we should show mercy to you Goons. For example, I am going to point out that a lot of people at the Motley Fool board would have been taking a withdrawal rate HIGHER than 4 percent if it had not been for Greaney’s study. That study helped people (that’s not all it did, but it did do that). If my words are enough to get you off, that will make me happy. I don’t think that my words are going to have enough power to do that. But we’ll see, you know? There has never before been a situation like this. So I don’t think that anyone can know in advance precisely what is going to happen.

My job is to steer us as a nation to a place where we are all living betters lives from that point forward. I don’t believe that the answer is for me to start saying that I believe that the Greaney retirement study contains a valuation adjustment. So I am not going to do that. I am going to do the best that I can do for every single person involved, including you Goons, without going to the wrong side of the felony line doing it.

I hope that that makes at least a tiny bit of sense to you, Anonymous. I naturally wish you all good things.

Rob

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 say that it needed a valuation adjustment.”

And no one else is saying that. Are you the dictator of the investing world? Do you even pay attention to why everyone says you are wrong? Of course not. Perhaps the fact you are ignoring that, while pushing your timing scheme is fraud.

Lots of people have said it. Shiller’s research was published in a peer-reviewed journal and was considered so important that he was awarded a Nobel prize. I have had numerous top-name experts tell me that my stuff is top-notch material. We have seen thousands of our fellow community members express a desire that honest posting re the peer-reviewed research be permitted at every site. Wade Pfau described the Greaney study as “dangerous.” The Wall Street Journal had an article saying that the Buy-and-Holders are telling only half the story and describing the idea that stocks are always the best asset choice as “hooey.” William Bernstein, who is a confirmed Buy-and-Holder, said that the Buy-and-Hold safe withdrawal rate studies were off by two full percentage points at the top of the bubble.

I am going to continue saying that it is not possible to calculate the safe withdrawal rate accurately without taking valuations into consideration. A 4 percent withdrawal is not always “100 percent safe” (Greaney’s phrase) and we shouldn’t lie to people about the numbers they are using to plan their retirements. A failed retirement is a serious life setback.

My sincere take.

My best wishes to you and yours.

Rob

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

“And Greaney included a valuation adjustment in his retirement study after all. “

You are the only one who thinks that.

You acknowledged a few months ago (19 years late) that the Greaney study LACKS a valuation adjustment, Evidence. I have never heard Greaney himself say that. Have you?

Rob

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

Ten Characteristics of someone that is suffering from delusions:

1. They continue claim to be in the top ten of known experts in the investment world, despite lacking any education or experience in the field.
2. They believe that everyone opposed to their ideas must be part of a mass conspiracy.
3. They push market timing schemes, despite lacking even one successful outcome.
4. They refuse to get a job, despite having family members and clearly pleading them to provide for the family.
5. They make claims about being famous, making famous posts and/or be an author of material actual written by someone else.
6. They make up stories about criminal acts and fail to back up claims with proof.
7. They refer to well known experts as “con-men” .
8. They send out thousands of emails full of lies to people they don’t know.
9. They make up stories about getting future riches, like $500 million windfalls that are not based on any facts or reality
10. They repeat the same lies about an error is a study, despite the fact that there was never an error.

Yeah, yeah.

And Greaney included a valuation adjustment in his retirement study after all. He’s just been too busy to craft a post pointing us to the section of his study containing it. For 20 years now.

Rob

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

You are the one making all the claims.  The obligation of proof sits with you.

Greaney never made a claim that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent?

Rob

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

You keep telling us about criminal acts, yet never provide links to those acts.  Why would anyone believe you without proof?

The easiest way to find out if there has been some funny business going on is to check how long it took Greaney to correct the error in his retirement study after it was pointed out to him.

Rob