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

Maybe Max can be your next JWR.

I look forward to the day when we have thousands of John Walter Russell’s posting at hundreds of different web sites on a daily basis, Anonymous. Each time someone works up the courage to stand up to you Goons, it makes it easier for all the rest of us who are trying to work up the courage to do so. Each time someone folds in the face of your abusiveness, it causes the rest of us to lose courage ourselves.

What we do affects others. We enacted the laws against financial fraud because we understand on an intellectual level how financial fraud is a bad thing, how it hurts people. But it is one thing to enact laws and to express support for those laws and something very different to put one’s own life and reputation at stake depending on enforcement of those laws to provide protection from a gang of internet Goons.

The people of the United States will prevail in the end, Anonymous. I am 100 percent certain. I will do all that I can to see that that happens as soon as possible so that your prison sentence ends up being as short as it can end up given the things that have already gone down. But that’s really as far as I can take it by myself. We need lots of Maxes and John Walter Russells to stand up to take us from the dark place where we are today to the amazing place where deep in our hearts we all long to be tomorrow. It’s a process that needs to play out. And I am 100 percent sure that we will see the magic happen in the days following the next price crash, when we all pull together to see that the laws of our nation are enforced and the economic crisis brought on by the relentless promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies is brought to a full and complete stop.

But I could be wrong, right? That’s the drama of the thing, no?

Take care, man.

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:

“Should Bernie Madoff have interpreted the popularity of his fund as evidence that he was doing good work?”

No. And neither should you interpret your UNpopularity as evidence that you are doing going work. But that’s exactly what you do.

“Everybody hates me, that means I’m on to something”, says every crank ever.

How many cranks have been awarded the Nobel prize in Economics?

And it’s not so much that I say that my unpopularity proves that I am doing important work. I say that your abusiveness shows that you have doubts as to whether Buy-and-Hold can prevail in civil and reasoned debate.

Shiller showed that it is investor emotions, not the economic realities, that determine stock prices. And what have we seen from you Goons for 16 years now? Insane levels of emotion. At a time when stock valuations are the most insane that they have ever been in history. THAT’S evidence that I am doing important work. If the Buy-and-Holders are not capable of keeping their cool, Buy-and-Hold needs to be challenged.

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:

“All humans are vulnerable to self-deception”

Yes, occasionally. You, on the other hand, are immersed and wallow in self-deception 24/7/365.

You were never threatened. Not once. Not in the real world. Of course me saying that means nothing. You will forever believe that you were, despite there being no evidence anywhere that it ever happened. In fact you probably believe this comment is a threat. Such is the depth of your paranoia.

We’re just going to have to wait to see how it all plays out, Anonymous.

I wish you all good things. Does that help at all? If there is ever anything that I can do for you, I hope you will let me know and I assure you that you will not have to ask twice (so long as doing this thing leaves me on the right side of the felony line).

It will all work out in the end. I am 100 percent sure. We are as a society working our way through a process. As John Walter Russell once put it, I am certain that this is all going to end in ways better than any of us today can imagine.

Hang in there, my old friend. It gets better. A LOT better.

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 isolated yourself. You refuse to post at Bogleheads or anywhere else. And now your Value Walk columns no longer accept comments. Was that your doing? How long before you shut off comments here too?

I haven’t done anything to stop comments at the Value Walk site. I had a good back-and-forth discussion with a non-Goon last week. It wasn’t re the most recent column; it was one from a few weeks back. But he put his comments up a few days ago and I responded to them a few days ago. It sounds to me like the site administrator may be taking down Goon comments. But I don’t know that for sure.

My policy with comments here is that I am looking for material that people with an interest in the subject of stock investing can learn from. If one of you Goons puts up a death threat, I would probably leave it up the first time so that people can see what those of us trying to open the internet up to honest posting re the past 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field are up against. It is possible that I would let a second death threat remain up just to show that the first one wasn’t a quirk. But I wouldn’t permit 10 deaths in a row appear at the site. That stuff takes us down. It is a negative. It has no place at a site about financial freedom.

There is stuff that you Goons have posted that have helped us. While you are Goons, you really are human investors too. So you have questions about the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research that Normals have as well. I think it is helpful for me to respond to those questions to the best of my ability. And sometimes you offer links to articles making the case for Buy-and-Hold that are helpful. I am always grateful when you bring those sorts of things to our attention. So I obviously leave that stuff up. There have been numerous occasions where something that one of you Goons said in a post or something I saw at a link that one of you Goons posted led to a column. So there is value there.

The judgment call is of course what to do when you mix in some words of value with a heavy dose of Goon garbage, which is most of the time. My rule is that, if a post is 90 percent Goon garbage and only 10 percent material of value, I will delete it; the stench of the garbage is so overpowering as to render the good stuff not useful — people cannot learn from the good stuff if they cannot breathe because the smell is so bad. If there is more than 20 percent stuff of value and only 80 percent Goon garbage, I vote for letting the post appear and focusing on the good stuff in response while pointing out that the heavy dose of garbage shows how emotional a strategy Buy-and-Hold is. In cases where the Goon garbage is more than 80 percent of a post but less than 90 percent of it, I look to whether the useful points being made are something fresh or points that have been many times before. If it is old, tired stuff, I delete the post. If fresh Buy-and-Hold material, I would vote for swallowing a lot of Goon garbage to be able to get that fresh material out to people.

Over time, you have less fresh material. So the percentage of comments being deleted should increase. I think that is generally the case. The curve ball is that, as you see more posts getting deleted, you might make more of an effort to get the percentage of useful material up a bit, so the deletion percentage might drop rather than rise. That happens from time to time. Overall, though, I would say that it is harder for you Goons to get a post to appear here today than it was a few years ago. And over time I expect that it will get harder still. But I will of course always be open to material that adds to the discussion rather than subtracts from it. And, if I am going to make mistakes, I would prefer by a factor of ten to let too much Goon stuff in to taking too much pro-Buy-and-Hold stuff out.

As for Bogleheads and other places that have permitted the use of criminally abusive posting tactics as a means of keeping the 15-year cover-up of the errors in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies from becoming known to millions of middle-class investors, it is the entire United States that has adopted laws against financial fraud. I am a citizen of this country and I love this country. When I see acts of financial fraud take place before my eyes, I am required to point them out and to ask that they be brought to a full and complete stop. If I fail to point them out, I become part of the cover-up and I take the risk of being sent to prison myself in the days following the next price crash. No thanks, you know? I am 100 percent happy to help out at Bogleheads in any way that I can so long as it does not require me participating in any criminal acts. I am not going to say that I believe that John Greaney included a valuations adjustment in the retirement “study” he posted at his web site. I am not going to deny that there is 36 years of peer-reviewed research showing that valuations affect long-term returns.

Does that help?

Rob the Balanced Site Administrator

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

“Don’t let the bad guys get you down, old friend.”

The “bad guys” you refer to are a figment of your imagination. Please come join us in the land of reality.

Tell it to the people who lost their businesses in the 2008 crash. Or who lost their jobs. Or who saw the value of their stock portfolios collapse and who became frightened about their financial futures.

The people who posted with me at the old Retire Early board were real human beings. They had stories. They had hopes and disappointments. I got to know them. I kidded around with them. I came to care about them. Sue me.

Someone who lies to them about the numbers they use to plan their retirements is doing something bad, in my assessment. If you want to point to good that that someone has done to add balance to the story, I am 100 percent with you. That’s a fine thing to do. If you want to point out that that someone had suffering of his own that he had to endure at earlier times of his life and say that that influenced the choices he made and argue that he would have made different choices if he had been able to think 100 percent clearly at all times, as none of us are, please feel free to put down my name on that statement.

There are things that I can do. But there is only so far that I can go.

If I participate in a community day after day after day and I see a study being recommended that I know to be in error and I keep my mouth shut because I know that I will earn the wrath of a gang of internet Goons if I express my honest views, then I become one of the bad guys myself. Not interested. Not this boy. I care about the people I write for and I love my country. Please try to find somebody else.

It would be nice to believe that we lived in a world in which nothing bad ever happened. I enjoy writing inspirational stuff as much as the next fellow and I like seeing the reactions it generates. But it has been my experience in my 61 years of walking the planet that there really is bad stuff out there. And each time one of us holds back from pointing it out when we see it, we cause more of it to be generated. Death threats are bad stuff. Demands for unjustified board bannings are bad stuff. Thousands of acts of defamation are bad stuff. Threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs are bad stuff. Those things don’t happen by themselves. Human beings make conscious choices that cause those things to happen.

Financial fraud is bad stuff. Prison sentences are bad stuff. If I keep quiet about someone committing felonies before my eyes, I contribute in a small way to those acts. I don’t like seeing my friends go to prison. Find someone else. I will not keep quiet when I see this sort of thing take place before my eyes at the discussion boards and blogs that I love. That one is not in the cards.

We all have bad within us, Goon friend. We all have a duty to act in love when we see our friends losing the ability to think clearly about these matters.

My sincere take.

My best and warmest wishes.

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 do think it is perfectly acceptable behavior. I think it is admirable behavior.”

No, it is not acceptable and I agree with the other poster. You say you want to have a discussion, but you don’t. You have your topics, your agenda and your opinions and that is it. People have tried to explain things to you, but you don’t listen and you keep on doing what you are doing, resulting in banning and with most people ignoring you. You still think everyone else is the problem, yet you lack any self awareness. Occasionally, we see your token line where you say “I could be wrong”, yet you really haven’t spent one minute to examine that possibility. Instead, you blame everything on everyone else. You won’t even listen to your own wife.

I’m bad to the bone, Anonymous.

Everybody knows it too.

That’s the thing.

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:

If Robert Shiller posted here at your website and told you that you were wrong and that you are misrepresenting his work, would you agree with him, or would you accuse him of fraud?

1) I would do what I could to bring Shiller’s comment to the attention of as many people as possible by posting it as a future blog entry.

2) I would not agree with him if all that he did was to make that statement. I would ask him why he had come to that conclusion and try to find common ground with him by either coming to a better understanding of where he was coming from or by persuading him of the merit of my different take.

3) I would not accuse him of fraud if he merely stated his opinion re the matter and did not accompany his expression of his opinion with death threats or with demands for unjustified board bannings or with thousands of acts of defamation or with threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. In the event that he did engage in insanely abusive behavior, I would encourage him to knock off the funny stuff as quickly as possible with the aim of limiting his prison sentence to the greatest extent possible.

4) I would let him know that, regardless of his response, I would continue to view him as a giant in this field and would thank him for all that I have learned from him over the years.

Does that help?

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:

“Do you think that the risk of investing in stocks is static or variable, Anonymous? That’s the entire dispute.”

No, that’s your dispute. It has nothing to do with the comment. As always, you insist on ignoring the point raised and babbling on about something else.

That pisses people off. It’s annoying, and eventually it gets you banned. You think it’s perfectly acceptable behavior. And THAT’S the entire dispute.

Okay.

I do think it is perfectly acceptable behavior. I think it is admirable behavior.

You are 100 percent right that it annoys people, that people get pissed off in response to me saying what I say. But I feel very strongly that someone needs to say it. I wish that someone other than me had been selected for the job. But the circumstances played out in the way that the circumstances played put. I love my country. That runs deep. And here we are.

It is my view that, if more people spoke out about the far-reaching implications of the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field, people would get less pissed off when they heard about them. At some point, the principles of Valuation-Informed Indexing would become old hat to people and mentions of what the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research says would not be so controversial. So I think that we need to take things in just the opposite direction from where you want to take them. I want to see everyone who has doubts about Buy-and-Hold to speak up about them in clear and firm and bold terms so that hearing such doubts would become just another thing, nothing to get hot and bothered about. You want those of us who think Buy-and-Hold is a big pile of smelly garbage to keep it to ourselves so as not to piss off the 90 percent of the population who believes in Buy-and-Hold.

We are working at cross purposes, Anonymous. Can we agree on that much?

It does not appear that there is any compromise possible. I am 100 percent unwilling to consider saying that I believe that Greaney’s study contains a valuation adjustment and you are 100 percent unwilling to consider coming clean re the 15-year cover-up of the errors in that study. It does not appear to me that we are going to hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” together anything real soon. Fair enough?

I still think that it is possible that there will come a day when we will hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” together. I believe that that day will come following the next price crash because then the behavior of the people listening in to our interactions will change. People will be pissed off about the money that they have lost and they will work up the courage to stand up to you Goons and to insist that you be put in prison cells. That’s going to be a big development. That will change everything. From that point forward, we will have bloggers and researchers and advisors and economists and policymakers and just about everyone falling over themselves to express their excitement about what we have learned from the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field and we will be seeing honest books come out and honest podcasts and honest calculators and just all sorts of good stuff. All of the pent-up honesty of the past 36 years will be released into InvestoWorld. It will be something to see. It will be the Second Independence Day for these United States.

Or not, you know?

I could be wrong. I am telling it how I see it. But I am one of those darns flawed humans. So I could be wrong. You can’t go just by what I say. But that is certainly what I expect to see happen.

Is there something that I can do for you in the interim?

I am not able to think what that something might be. Can you give me a clue?

I certainly do not want to piss you off any more than I already have pissed you off. That is the last thing on my mind. But I am 100 percent unwilling to say that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins, as always. So I feel that we are kind of in a rut here. Do you have any suggestions for how we might proceed from this point forward (short of suggesting once again that I not do the thing that pisses you off so much that I feel compelled to do because of the deep love that I feel for this wonderful country of ours)?

Peace, man.

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:

“The point of contention for 15 years now has been whether I am willing to pretend that Greaney included a valuations adjustment in his retirement study.”

No one, as in literally zero persons, have ever cared what you think of Greaney’s study. Why do say such stupid things?

And more generally, what is the purpose of this site? It certainly isn’t to gain an audience.
Or to correspond to Greaney, or Wade. Both abandoned you years ago. Apparently its only purpose is your own self-affirmation. Of which you seem to need plenty. Rob, you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, etc.

Actually, not so much.

Um — That makes sense, Anonymous.

Truly outstanding!

Please take good care, old friend.

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:

“There are thousands of people who have expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted at every discussion board and blog on the internet. Those people don’t necessarily support Valuation-Informed Indexing. Most of them do not. They have an interest. They want to be able to ask questions. But as of now, they more Buy-and-Holders than they are Valuation-Informed Indexers.”

Okay, so you say you have this support. Explain specifically how you are kept from earning a living like Wade or Shiller. How is anyone blocking you from doing so?

I didn’t enact the laws against financial fraud, Anonymous. I think they are good and necessary laws. But the laws were there before I came on the scene.

I’m going to tell the story, that’s all. The millions of people whose lives you have destroyed will decide whether to bring civil or criminal actions.

If death threats were not a way of blocking good things from happening, death threats would not be against the law.

If the people of the United States did not need protection from you, we never would have adopted laws protecting us from you.

I will tell the story. And the people of the United States will decide what to do about what has been done to them. And that’s as it should be.

Rob