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

Your problem is that you don’t care about what other people think and/or believe.  You want people to listen to you, but you don’t listen to anyone else.  That part of your behavior issue on the boards that got you kicked off.  You clearly didn’t even care about what your wife had to say and now you are divorced.

I care about what other people think and believe.

It doesn’t particularly concern me whether people listen to what I say or not. I believe that all investors should have the OPPORTINITY to hear about the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. I don’t see it as my busienss whether they buy into that message or not. It’s fine with me if they do and it’s fine with me if they don’t. It’s important to me that that message not be prohibited at even a single site. I believe that every investor should be able to hear it and decide for himself or herself how to respond to it. I strongly oppose efforts to suppress discussion of the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research. No one should be able to decide for someone else what he or she should be able to hear. Tune out the message of the research for yourself if you like but permit others to decide for themselves how to invest their retirement money after hearing both sides of the story.

The problem is the 42-year cover-up. If there had never been a Buy-and-Hold, we would all be Valuation-Informed Indexers today. We all want the same things, We all want to know how to invest effectively. Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research shows us how, So it’s all good. The only problem is that we did not always know how the market works and people came up with this idea that market timing might not always be required and promted it. Then, when we discovered that long-term market timing is absolutely essential, they felt that it made them look bad that they had gotten it wrong. So the cover-up began. Now that we are 42 years down the road, it sounds really, really bad to acknowledge the realities.

It’s not going to make things better for anyone to extend the cover-up even longer. So I am 100 percent in favor of permitting honest posting at every site. The problem for the Buy-and-Holders is that there has never been any reason to believe that market timing isn’t always required. That was based on the Efficient Market Theory, which was discredited by Shiller’s research. So the Buy-and-Holders have nothing of substance to offer in suutpport of their position. That’s why we see all this urgliness insteasd. If there were any research supporting the ideas that long-term market timing doesn’t work or isn’t always 100 percent required, the Buy-and-Holders would have advanced it many years ago. There’s just nothing there. So we get all this shouting and nastiness. I believe that we should all just move on to the strategy that would help us all to live better and fuller and richer and freer lives. Call me madcap.

That’s where I’m coming from re this one, Anonymous.

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 seem to throw the word “goon” around at the drop of a hat.  What makes someone a goon in your world?

In this context, a Goon is someone who directs his energies to suppressing discussion of the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. 90 percent of Buy-and-Holders are not Goons. I think that the Buy-and-Holders are wrong in their understanding of how stock investing works (they believe that market timing/price discipline is not required). But that’s fine. I can learn from them and they can learn from me. I like them and I respect them. The Goons make up about 10 percent of the population of Buy-and-Holders. They have no interest in learning anything about stock investing that was not known at the time when the Buy-and-Hold strategy was being developed. They want to block learning in this field, no matter what it takes.

I like learning. So, while I like some of the Goons as people and have had good times with a number of them, I oppose the anti-learning Goon agenda.

Rob

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

Funny that you admit that you have been told 10,000 times that Greaney did not make an error. Why continue asking people to let you on their website to discuss it after it has been answered so many times? No one is changing their mind, so stop asking. You have been banned at all the major boards and have been told that it has been because of your bad behavior. Stop asking/demanding access. You have already been told “no”. Stop asking people to believe your made up stories about fraud, death threats, criminal acts, etc. You have already been told that we don’t believe you. Stop asking for settlement payments. No one is going to pay you a dime.

No, we are not “in it together”. You are on your own. Get your own job. Earn your own money. Post on you own website (no one is giving you access to their website). Period.

I believe that the noes will turn to yeses in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. A stock investing strategy that lives by investor emotion may come to die by investor emotion when the emotion shifts as the result of the onset of yet another Buy-and-Hold Crisis.

I prefer the research-based stuff. I believe that that’s the future.

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:

What you did is given an opinion on someone else’s work. You didn’t actually DO anything.  We have told you countless times as to how you are wrong, but that is besides the point.  The point in this discussion is that you haven’t done anything productive, nor do you have any plans to do anything in the future.  You just talk about how everyone else needs to do things.  You even made your ex-wife work 6 jobs while you are married.

You’ve said this 10,000 times and I have responded 10,000 times that I sincerely believe that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment.

Is there something that you want from me? You must get it by now that I am not going to say that I believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment. So why keep posting here?

Is there something that I can do for you that would make your life better? I cannot say that I believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment. Is there something else?

Rob

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

It is not just me.  It is the everyone else.  Stop asking all of us to do things for you.   We don’t need or want to give you unfettered access to our websites.  Stop harassing us with your threats.  Get a job and stop leaching off of others.

It’s only the Goons (who make up 10 percent of the populations of the board communities) who have a problem with the idea of permitting honest posting re the peer-reviewed research at every site. The 90 percent of Normals are fine with it.

It doesn’t make them jump up and down to hear that their portfolios are worth only 50 percent of what they thought they were worth. But they are interested in hearing the other side of the story. They ask a lot of questions and, if they didn’t see any abusive posting follow in the wake of those questions, they would ask a lot more.

The boards were not formed as marketing vehicles for Buy-and-Hold. They were formed to help people learn how to invest effectively.

Valuation-Informed Indexers should have the same access as Buy-and-Holders, nothing more and nothing less. That’s what the published rules of all the sites (and the laws of the United States!) provide for and that is how it should be played.

That’s where I am coming from re this one in any event, Anonymous.

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:

Whose version of “honesty” should be allowed and who decides what they think is honest?

Each community member gets to decide for himself or herself which case is more persuasive. Anyone who engages in abusive posting to limit the ability of community members to hear both sides is responsible for any losses those community members suffer as a result.

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 the mother of our discussion boards and blogs.”

The collective community has been having to take on the mother role because of your childish behavior. The investment community (that includes the board owners) decide what we talk about and they have spoken. These board owners have this right, just as you block people on this board.

If the site owners truly believed that honest posting re the past 42 years of peer-reviewed research should be banned, they would put language to that effect in their published site rules. They went along with bans only because the abusive behavior of the Buy-and-Hold Goon Squads threatened to destroy their sites. I was there.

I believe that a lot of people are going to see why it is important to pemit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research in the days following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. At that point, I believe that we may be able to persuade one site owner to stand up to you Goons. As people flood to that site as the only place offering sound investment advice, support for the idea of permitting honest posting re the research will spread.

Or so Rob Bennett sincerely believes, you know? We’ll see.

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

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 the mother of our discussion boards and blogs. It is the people who populate our communities who should get to decide what we will talk about.

http://www.passionsaving.com/investing-discussion-boards.html

Rob

Buy-and-Hold Goon:

“ You are not the mother of our discussion boards and blogs.”

The collective community has been having to take on the mother role because of your childish behavior. The investment community (that includes the board owners) decide what we talk about and they have spoken. These board owners have this right, just as you block people on this board.

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 and his research is allowed.  Pfau and his research is allowed.  Your opinion is not “research”.  What is not allowed is your poor behavior and that is why YOU are banned.

The only poor behavior that I am guilty of is that I said in my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002, that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. Many community members reacted by saying that I had started the most important debate ever held at that forum. There was huge interest in the subject of how valuations affect safe withdrawal rates. Gresney didn’t like seeing that. He completely flipped out and sent his Goon Squad into action. I believe that, if he truly believed that he had included a valuation adjustment in the study, he never would have even formed a Goon Squad. He is the one guilty of poor bahvior for not correcting the study within 24 hours of the moment he leanred that he had made an error in it.

Anyway, that’s my sincere take. I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow.

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:

“ That shows me that there are two schools of academic thought.”

Who are you to determine how many schools there are? You are not an expert in the field, nor do you have any formal training. You are not part of a consortium of thought leaders.

What you believe doesn’t matter one bit.

The reaction we have seen from people who have been exposed to my thinking says a lot.

We have had thousands of our fellow community members express a desire that honest posting re the peer-reviewed reseaech be permitted. That woildn’t happen unless there was something important in what I am saying. It is possible that I do not have everything 100 percent right. That’s a possibility for anyone who offers an opinion on anything. But the fact that thousands have expressed a desire that honest debate be permitted shows that we should as a nation of people permit the debate.

Then there are the people who started out as Buy-and-Holders and became converated to Valuation-Informed Indexing as a result of my words. The Wade Pfau story is an amazing story. This guy told me a numbeer of times that he just couldn’t get over what his research was showing him. He kept asking himself: “Am i making a mistake?” Because he had heard so many times that market timing doesn’t work but his research was showing him that market timing ALwAYS works and is always 100 percent required. We should have permitted Wade to tell us all what he discovered with his research and encouraged him to do more research re Valuation-Informed Indexing.

Then there was John Walter Russell, who thought this was so important that he devoted eight years of his life to researching it without ever receiving one dime of compensation. And then you have Rob Arnott, who said that everything that I say about stock investing checks out (he served as editor of the Financial Analysts Journal for four years) but that he had seen so much absuive stuff directed at him from Buy-and-Holders because he had “crossed” them by telling the research-based truth about stock investing that he couldn’t afford any more controversy in his life.

Then we have you Goons. Death threats ain’t normal. Extortion ain’t normal. Demands for unjustified board bannings aint’s normal. You Goons are in great pain. It’s because you are trying to defend the indefensible. It is a cultural norm in our society to permit breakthrough research to be discussed. If we don’t discuss such research, the breakthroughs serve no good purpose. But you Goons dont want millions of people to learn about the better way to invest in stocks. So you are reduced to abusive and in some cases criminal behavior to keep the history train from moving forward. I think we all should elect to give you a break by opening every site to honest posting.

That’s where I am coming from re this one, Anonymous.

Hang in there. old friend.

Is Greaney an expert in the field? Why is it that he gets to tell people that a 4 percent withdrawal rate is always “100 percent safe” but none of the other non-experts is permitted to ask qustions about the methodology he used in his study? I am a non-expert who sincerely believes that he failed to include a valuation adjustment in the study. I was wrong to not point that out three years sooner than I did. There were people who used that study to structure their retirement plan.

Rob