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

So an old fat white male with an inheritance is claiming persecution.

I am claiming that I have the right to post honestly re SWRs and scores of other critically important investment-related topics at any discussion board or blog on the internet at which I desire to do so.

And that my good friend Jack Bogle possesses that same right.

And my good friend Bill Bernstein too.

And my good friend Larry Swedroe too.

And my good friend Scott Burns too.

And my good friend Wade Pfau too.

And my good friend Mike Piper too.

And my good friend J.D. Roth too.

And my good friend Todd Tresidder too.

And my good friend Robert Shiller too.

And my good friend Bill Bengen too.

And my good friend Bill Schultheis too.

And my good friend Carl Richards too.

And you Goons have the right to go to prison if you are absolutely doomed and determined to do so (and I think it would be fair to say at this point that you are).

Don’t let the bad guys get you down, Critter.

Rob

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

You give no real consideration to anything that doesn’t fit your script.

That’s not an accident.

My script is the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field, Anonymous.

I believe that it is better to follow the research than to follow your emotions. I see the benefit of following research as being that research is objective while emotions are subjective.

I don’t say that the Buy-and-Holders do not believe subjectively in what they say. My take is that they do believe. That is, they lie to themselves before they lie to others.

I don’t want to lie to myself OR others. So, yes, I follow the script of the peer-reviewed research in this field.

That’s the source of all the conflict. The Buy-and-Holders SAY that they follow research. But the claim is a lie.

There was once research that seemed to support Buy-and-Hold. But that research was discredited by subsequent research 33 years ago.

My work is rooted in TODAY’S research, not the research that was available to us 33 years ago.

The Buy-and-Holders want to continue to claim that their strategies are rooted in research. But they do not want the people who hear their message to know what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research says.

I call b.s.

I call deception.

I call financial fraud.

I want no part of it. I intend to continuing following “the script.”

It is not a script set by me. It is a script set by the academic researchers in this field.

Show me the URL for a study showing that price discipline is not necessary and I will write a column about it.

You cannot do it. There is no such study. It doesn’t exist.

Buy-and-Hold is a lie, the biggest lie ever told in the history of personal finance.

It was not a lie in the beginning. It was a mistake. That’s something different.

But I think it is fair to refer to a mistake that has been covered up for 33 years as a lie.

I don’t tell lies about the numbers that people use to plan their retirements.

Please try to find someone else.

I can’t go for that.

No can do.

It’s not my particular cup of coffee.

I’ll stick with the script until I see some peer-reviewed research backing up the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage.

The full truth is that I don’t at this point expect ever to see it.

My best wishes to you and yours.

Rob

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

How will you be rich? You already told us that our significant net worth’s are all “cotton-candy nothingness” and that it will go away in the next crash. If your fantasy is correct, how will you collect money from anyone if they don’t have anything left?

It is your goonishness that is causing all the problems you have understanding what the research says, Anonymous. You exaggerate all the time. You state things more strongly than I said them. You take things to extremes. Please try to calm down.

We are a very rich country. That’s actually a big part of the problem here. We have been following gravely flawed investing strategies going back to the beginning. Not because we are dumb. Because mankind was not put on Earth knowing everything and because we had not yet figured everything out. We have suffered because of this lack of knowledge in the past. But as we become richer, we have more wealth invested in stocks and the suffering grows ever greater. Fortunately, we now know what we need to know to stop the suffering. Unfortunately, we have not yet as a society worked up the courage to stand up to those who have refused for 33 years now to acknowledge that we had it wrong before.

We are heading to a stock crash of roughly 65 percent. Some of that is a real loss (the portion that gets us down to a fair-value P/E10 of 15) and some of it is the product of the irrational depression that follows whenever we realize our mistake in having pumped prices up so much (the portion that takes us from from 15 to 8).

We will perceive ourselves to be far less wealthy following the crash. Stock prices will no longer be pumped up, they will be pumped down. So the perception will be that things are very bad. But the perception will be an exaggeration (undervaluation is every bit as goonish and foolish and non-research-based as overvaluation). Things will look bad. There will be lots of scary articles in the newspapers. But the deep reality will remain that we are a rich people. It will be a struggle to get people to acknowledge that (just as it is a struggle today to get people to acknowledge that at times of insane overpricing their portfolio statements do not reflect their real wealth). But responsible people will do what they can to get the message heard and understood.

Now –

There IS a risk that the risk will cause a complete economic collapse. It happens. Since it happens, it is obviously theoretically possible that it could happen to us.

If we have a complete collapse, then what you are suggesting here is so. We will all go down together and I will NOT be a very rich man, I will be a very poor man. So will everyone else. That would break my heart, Anonymous. I don’t want to see it happen. I acknowledge that it is a possibility. I do not believe that it will happen. But I acknowledge that it is a possibility.

The other possibility is that the hearts of the Buy-and-Holders will melt and we will all move together to the far better world that awaits us on the other side of The Big Black Mountain. Shiller’s breakthrough is the biggest breakthrough in the history of economics. If we move forward, we are ALL going to be richer people. Even you will be richer. You will be in prison for a time. But prison sentences eventually come to an end. When you are released, you will be released into a country of even greater wealth than it possesses today. You will be part of that. Good for you.

This is a win/win/win/win/win, Anonymous. Everyone benefits. That’s what is so cool about it. This debate is not like the debate over the budget deficit, where going with what one side wants means taking something from the other side. This is a debate where everyone wins at the same time. Huge advances in understanding of important subjects are like that.

The problem we have today is that one side THINKS it loses if we permit discussion of the peer-reviewed research of the past 33 years. Some people have their egos tied up in Buy-and-Hold and they cannot bear the thought of acknowledging that they made a mistake. But that is foolishness. Time moves forward, humankind learns things that it did not know in the past, and we all end up better off. That is a core principle on which our nation was built.

By behaving in ways that land you in a prison cell, you are GIVING UP many of the benefits that you would otherwise obtain with the advance. That’s an amazingly stupid thing to do. But that’s the path you have chosen. You have let a phony pride count for more than your own desire to live a better and richer life. Yuck! You know? Yuck and Double Yuck!

I have played it the other way. I have generated hundreds of amazing insights into the realities of stock investing over the past 12 years. Those insights will make me one of the richest people in the United States following the crash. I don’t like all the nasty stuff I had to endure. I don’t like it one little bit that things played out that way. But I think it would be fair to say that it is largely because of the nasty stuff that I was able to do this. If things hadn’t been so nasty, there are thousands of smart and good people who would have developed these insights long before I came on the scene. Your nasty stuff cleared the field of competitors and left it to me to pick up all the prizes. Um — Thanks, man!

We will be a very rich people following the crash. There will be plenty of money remaining to make me a very, very wealthy man. If we mess up and we continue the Ban on Honest Posting following the crash, we will all go down together. It is my opinion that Jack Bogle’s heart will melt following the next crash and we will all achieve some wonderful advances together. My personal guess is that Jack will be the lead figure in seeing that the check for $500 million is promptly delivered to me. I will say “thanks, man” and tell everyone how I learned about the errors in Greaney’s study by reading Jack’s book and how there wouldn’t be any Valuation-Informed Indexing if not for the hugely important efforts of the Buy-and-Hold Pioneers. And we will all live happily ever after.

Until the next time the humans mess up and find themselves in a pot of burning troubles!

I hope that helps a bit, my old friend.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of the response that I offered at the Quora forum to the question “Why Is Rob Bennett Opposed to the Buy-and-Hold Strategy for Investing in Equities?”:

Finally a question re which I can feel confident that I possess the expertise needed to rise to the task of venturing forward with a response!

The backstory here is that I was a Buy-and-Holder myself until the evening of August 27, 2002. The Buy-and-Holders did something very important that had never been done before — they developed a long-term investing strategy suitable for use by ordinary people (non-experts) that was rooted in the peer-reviewed academic research in this field. The idea of doing that was a hugely liberating idea for all of us. We all owe the Buy-and-Holders a huge debt of gratitude.

I came into the story on the morning of May 13, 2002. I had been posting on saving strategies at the Motley Fool site for several years and had become the most popular poster at the site as a result of those posts. I posted at a board at which a fellow who had published a retirement study also posted. I noticed that his study did not include an adjustment for the valuation level that applied on the day the retirement begins. There was at that time 20 years of peer-reviewed research showing that such an adjustment is needed. I put up a post pointing out that there appeared to be some problems with the study.

The discussion that followed has over the years become the most controversial debate on a personal finance topic ever held on the internet. There have been MILLIONS of posts advanced on both sides. If Nobel Prize Winner Robert Shiller is right that valuations affect long-term returns, just about everything we hear about how stock investing works on the internet and in books and in speeches and in calculators is wrong. Shiller’s breakthrough findings turn the world of investing analysis on its head. On the other hand, if Nobel Prize Winner Eugene Fama is right, then Buy-and-Hold is the ideal strategy and there is no problem. But which is it?

We saw scores and scores of amazing threads back at the old Motley Fool board. It was the greatest learning experience that any of us at that board had ever enjoyed. At some point, the Buy-and-Hold camp decided that they couldn’t bear being challenged any more. On the night of August 27, 2002, the author of the study that I questioned threatened to kill my wife and children if I continued to “cross” him by posting about the Shiller research. 200 community members (people who had been friends of mine) endorsed his post. I found this very, very, very, sad. I concluded on that night that Buy-and-Hold is the most emotional investing strategy ever concocted by the human mind (unintentionally so, but still….).

I believe that Shiller is right. I believe that investors need to take valuations into consideration in every strategic choice they make. I don’t believe that it is possible to invest effectively in the long term if you don’t do this. I am now the co-author of peer-reviewed research showing this to be so in a most compelling way. Wade Pfau (Wade has a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton) and I spent 16 months together developing research showing that investors who are willing to take valuations into consideration when setting their stock allocations are thereby able to reduce the risk of stock investing by nearly 70 percent while also dramatically increasing returns. That’s the fountain of youth for stock investors! That’s investor heaven!

A good percentage of the Buy-and-Holders who see that research end up converting to Valuation-Informed Indexing as a result. The abusive Buy-and-Holders were so upset by how people reacted to it that they threatened to send defamatory e-mails to Wade’s employer in an effort to get him fired from his job. Wade agreed to stop promoting the research in an effort to appease these people.

All bull markets are the result of investor emotion. People naturally want to see their portfolio values rise and so most applaud during times of rapidly rising prices. But the entire 140 years of stock market history shows that we always pay back any gains experienced beyond those justified by the economic realities (the economic realities support a gain of 6.5 percent real per year). So all that we are doing in bull markets is borrowing from our future selves.

When we borrow too much from our future selves, we bring on an economic crisis by putting such a payback burden on our future selves. There has never been a single exception in the 140-year history of the U.S. market. In 2000, stocks were overpriced by $12 trillion. As that money disappeared from our portfolios (it usually takes about 10 years for this process to complete itself), we became less and less able to spend on goods and services and thousands of businesses failed and millions of workers lost their jobs. Bull-market fantasies hurt lots of people in very, very serious ways.

Lots of people know this, at least in part. Shiller was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work. But most people who have tried to tell the story have found that the Buy-and-Holders become very, very upset to hear what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research says. So most tell the story in tentative ways that don’t persuade too many people. We need to make those who believe in Shiller’s version of the story to feel every bit as comfortable expressing their sincere views as we make those who believe in Fama’s version of the story.

It is fair to characterize me as the most severe critic of Buy-and-Hold alive on Planet Earth today. But the totally fair way to tell the story is to say that the reason why I am so opposed to the version of Buy-and-Hold promoted today is that it conflicts so sharply with the original aim of the Buy-and-Hold Project. The initial idea was to root one’s strategies in the peer-reviewed research. When the research findings changed, the strategy should have been updated to reflect the new findings. John Bogle still recommends the same strategies he recommended in 1980, the year before Shiller published his “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) research.

I oppose Buy-and-Hold as it is promoted today because Buy-and-Hold as it is promoted today is anti-research. Valuation-Informed Indexing incorporates every aspect of the Buy-ad-Hold strategy but one, the one that has now been discredited by 33 years of peer-reviewed research. I promote Valuation-Informed Indexing, the NEW Buy-and-Hold, Buy-and-Hold 2.0.

It’s not possible to believe in both the old Buy-and-Hold and the new Buy-and-Hold because they are opposites. Whether you take valuations into consideration when setting your stock allocation or not makes a HUGE difference. Sticking with the strategies that have now been discredited by 33 years of peer-reviewed research will cause you to delay your retirement by many years while taking on far more risk than is necessary, according to the peer-reviewed research of the past 33 years.

I of course believe that we all should feel gratitude to our Buy-and-Hold friends for the many wonderful insights they have developed and shared with us. But I very strongly believe that we need to move forward. I believe that deep in their hearts that’s what our Buy-and-Hold friends want us to do. I believe that it was a belief that the peer-reviewed research can help us that got them started on their journey. So I believe that moving forward by correcting the perfectly understandable errors that were made in earlier days helps us all.

Rob

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

The difference is that Todd states his opinions and they are just that. The rest of us have opinions as well. With you, there is a strong agenda and you want to be the center of attention, have everyone agree with you and then to be considered some kind of financial expert to the level of someone like Bill, Jack, etc. the fact remains that you have been proven wrong time and again and this has resulted in your display of ongoing bad behavior. This behavior has been mentioned time and again, yet you persist. As such, there has been no choice but to deal with you in order to restore some level of community versus have each site filled with “hocomania”.

People have tried to reason with you, but that has never worked. You are looking for the whole world to change, when perhaps you should consider what you are doing wrong.

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

That sounds reasonable. Did the same person also write:

Yes, the same person wrote both things.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about these things and I have strongly held views. But I am a flawed human. I get things wrong from time to time. There are millions of good and smart people who do not agree with me. Everyone who hears my words needs to know that. I DO believe what I say. I AM sincere. But I am also FLAWED. I could be wrong.

I’ll give a silly example of me being wrong and realizing it at a later time of life.

When the Beatles single “Hey, Jude” b/w “Revolution” came out, I thought that “Revolution” was amazing. I did not care for “Hey, Jude.” It made me crazy that “Hey, Jude” was picked for the A side. I kept saying: “Why is Hey, Jude” the A side? What were they thinking?”

Today I rank “Hey, Jude” as my favorite Beatles song. I either was wrong in my first reaction or I am wrong today. There was something in “Hey, Jude” that I just didn’t see when it first came out. So I obviously am capable of developing a wrong take on things.

I am NOT perfect. I do not say that I am.

But say that I am right in what I think about investing?

If I am right, I have an obligation to share what I believe with my friends, do I not?

Would I not be an awful person if I believed these things and just kept them to myself? I would be letting you ruin yourself and not even trying to warn you beforehand. Wouldn’t that be pretty darn low behavior?

I care, Anonymous.

I care about you and I care about the experts and I care about the boards and blogs and I care about my country. That is the driver here. I care. If you care, you cannot say something other than what you believe about so important a matter.

I don’t ever say anything to hurt people’s feelings. Not once have I done that. I know that things I say DO hurt people’s feelings. I have seen that happen many times. But I can take an oath that that has never once been the intention.

Rob

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

From today’s post by you on this exact topic, which you agree can’t be proven one way or the other:

I am telling you what I believe, Anonymous. I stand by those words. If I said anything different, I would be telling you a lie.

I am not able to imagine any circumstance in which the promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies would not cause an economic crisis. Once you tell people that there is no need to exercise price discipline, you have taken the brakes off the car and you are going to end up with a crash. Are you able to imagine a scenario in which you can drive a car without brakes to a happy conclusion?

I will acknowledge that these views are extreme if you go by the continuum of viewpoints held today. I have not heard anyone else saying what I say here. It’s fair to point that out.

But it is not right for me not to express my sincere views. It may be that there are many people out there today who share this view and are afraid to express it because they feel that they will be attacked for being too extreme. If the idea is going to be explored, we need to have people giving voice to it.

If everyone who holds this view says to himself “I’ll keep it zipped until lots of others are saying this,” the view will never be publicly expressed. I have a duty to say what I truly believe at every board and blog at which I post. Someone has to be the first to say these sorts of things. I wish it could be someone other than me. But. if no one else steps up to the plate, it becomes my job to do so. Someone has to get the ball rolling here. Shiller didn’t publish his research last week. It has been 33 years.

But I do NOT express this view or any other view in a dogmatic way.

I hold my views strongly but I do not hold them arrogantly. I often acknowledge that there are million of smart and good people who hold very different views. I often acknowledge that the Buy-and-Holders should be heroes to all of us and that we should feel respect and affection for them and be grateful for the important insights they have generated for our benefit. I often acknowledge that I have been wrong many times in my life and that it may be that I am wrong again. Those are not arrogant words, Anonymous.

I believe what I said. I believe it strongly. I have a right and duty to say precisely what I believe. A board community cannot achieve its potential unless every community member shares his sincere views. It is the interaction among a wide range of differing views (some on the extremes of the continuum and some in the middle of it) that creates a solid learning experience for all.

So there is nothing even a tiny bit wrong with me stating that opinion. If the opinion is foolish, it will be exposed as such. If the opinion has merit, that will become evident through the ongoing discussions. But the opinion that is sincerely held must be expressed accurately and in full strength for all the magic to happen. It would be wrong of me to state a view other than the one that I actually hold.

Dogmatism hurts us. I would be wrong to say “no one else may express a different opinion because it is so clear that I am right.” That crosses the line. I should respond to those who express other points of view with respect and warmth.

But I should of course NOT respond to those who engage in deception or intimidation tactics with respect and warmth. Those who post abusively hurt all of us. We all should be united in speaking out strongly against that sort of stuff.

I respect you for holding a different viewpoint. I do NOT respect you for posting abusively. When you post abusively, you degrade yourself. As your friend, I am compelled to urge you to stop doing that.

Rob

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

Rob, grand conspiracy theories are an indicator of mental illness, nothing more.

I pointed out the errors in the Old School SWR studies in a post dated May 13, 2002, Anonymous.

Today’s date is April 21, 2014.

Not one of the studies has yet been corrected.

That tells the tale.

I don’t call it a “grand conspiracy.” I think it would be reasonable to call it a “conspiracy of ignorance.” That’s something different than what people signify when they use the phrase “grand conspiracy.” There were no people who met in a smoke-filled room and agreed to give bad investing advice until the U.S. economy collapsed.

That said, the reality remains that today’s date is April 21, 2014, and not one of the Old School studies has been corrected as of this morning.

That’s a big problem.

It’s not just that we are going to see millions of failed retirements. That part alone constitutes one of the biggest social crises we have seen as a nation. We are going to have millions of old people left homeless because the Big Shots in The Stock-Selling Industry were not honest enough to acknowledge a mistake they made for 33 years after the peer-reviewed research uncovered it. We obviously cannot as a society leave those people homeless. So there is going to be a government bailout. That is going to explode the Federal budget deficit at a time when most people believe that we should be trying to lower it. This part of the question alone constitutes a catastrophe.

But the massive bailout that will come about as result of the millions of failed retirements is the relatively SMALL problem here.

The bigger problem is the hundreds of people who have participated in the 12-year cover-up, the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States. My good friend Jack Bogle knows about this. He has done nothing. Motley Fool knows about this and has done nothing. Index Universe knows about this and has done nothing. Morningstar knows about this and has done nothing. Lots of my blogger friends know about this and have done nothing.

I am telling, Anonymous.

I only have two choices. I can participate in the cover-up myself. Or I can tell. Participating in the cover-up myself means that I go to prison too. ZERO INTEREST. Telling means that a good number of my friends go to prison. I don’t like that outcome. But that is what I have been left with, presuming that I don’t want to go to prison myself. So we are back to ZERO INTEREST.

You call it whatever you like. Call it a conspiracy if you must. Call it a Conspiracy of Ignorance if you want to be more accurate. Call it something altogether different if doing so makes you happy.

But please don’t ever pin any hopes on the thought that I might add my name to the long list of people now associated with this massive act of financial fraud.

I am telling.

If you can stop me, stop me.

If you cannot stop me, word will get out.

That’s where it stands. There will be no negotiation on this point.

I naturally wish you all good things.

Rob

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

There IS no such such Ban, as you well know. The only applicable ban is the one regarding a single mentally ill persistent troll, for his rotten BEHAVIOR, not for his bizarre beliefs. Shiller can post, Easterling can post, etc.

Any of a host of perma-bears, timers, wave-speculators, kooks, cranks, swindlers, and nuts can post on pretty much any board out there. In fact, right up until his demise, even that twisted old codger, the irascible JWR was perfectly free to post.

The only major ban I know of is for YOU, personally, at more than a dozen finance boards.

You said you hoped to veer off into writing at political boards next, and I very much suspect that the pattern will repeat itself there, as well, even in the wild-and-wooly world of internet political wrangling. That would be quite a feat for even you, Rob, to attain multiple bans in that freak show.

You are making a legitimate point, Helper. Thanks for being frank in your comment. Frankness always helps to bring real issues to the table.

John Walter Russell was ultimately banned at one or two places. But it was an exceedingly rare thing for him to be banned. During the time we were working together on a daily basis, there were several places where he was praised on a daily basis and where I was banned. He would get into trouble only when he talked about me. And John always got more comments posted at his site, even though I had more traffic at my site. When I would post at John’s site, there were people who would be turned off, even though the two of us were saying the same thing (obviously in somewhat different ways).

I also agree with you that lots of kooks and cranks and nuts are permitted to post at just about every site at which I have been banned.

I half agree and half disagree with what you say about Shiller and Easterling. Whether they were banned or not would depend on how strongly they stated their views. I can imagine them being tolerated and I can imagine them being banned at some places if they spoke frankly.

The basic point you are making — that there is something special about me that does not apply in the case of other people who have investing beliefs in many ways similar to my own — is legitimate. I’ll give you that one.

We all should be trying to figure out what that extra factor that I bring to the table is. Knowing what that extra factor is is important. When we identify that extra factor, we are on our way to resolving not only the problem of the friction at the boards but the problem re what we all need to do to become far more effective investors in the future than we have ever been in the past.

There are numerous people who have acknowledged that I am 100 percent kind and polite and warm in my dealings with all my fellow posters, even those who have threatened to kill my wife and children. So it is obviously not that I am in any way abusive in the way that that word is ordinarily interpreted when people are discussing who should and who should not be permitted to post at discussion boards and blogs. I have never violated a posting rule and I am the last person in the world who ever would do so. But there is something that I am doing that bothers lots of people in a big way. It would be constructive to figure out what that something is.

I believe it is five things.

One, I root everything I say in the academic research. Mot of the kooks you refer to do not do that. Buy-and-Holder sincerely believe that their strategy is rooted in the academic research and that gives them comfort. If some kook comes along and offers a different take, it does not bother the Buy-and-Holders too much because they believe that their strategy is rooted in research and the kook’s strategy is not. I am different. I insist that people look at the research. I never back away from that. I say both that VII IS rooted in research and that Buy-and-Hold is not. I pose more of a threat to Buy-and-Holders than the kooks who are not challenging their positions re what the research says.

Two, I not only advocate something new, I also say that Buy-and-Hold does NOT work. This touches emotional hot buttons. I think this is the difference between me and John Walter Russell. Russell’s usual practice was to present his research and offer little discussion of what it meant. He rarely said the words “Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work.” People felt they could tolerate what he was saying on grounds that everybody is entitled to an opinion. And lots of people believe that valuations matter. So they liked it that he was exploring how valuations matter. The obvious implication of his research was that Buy-and-Hold does not work. But so long as he didn’t say those words, people didn’t feel that they had to respond to him. When I say “Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work,” Buy-and-Holders feel compelled to respond and it annoys the piss out of them that I say that over and over and over again.

Three, I make grand claims about how wonderful Valuation-Informed Indexing is. This is what Scott Burns was getting at when he said that my approach is “catastrophically unproductive” and that my claim that there is a “New School” of SWR analysis is “self-aggrandizing.” He feels that it makes him look stupid that there was this huge potential to offer better investing advice all these years and that he missed it. I am not only saying that there were little mistakes made, I am saying that the mistakes that were made ruined millions of lives. It is hard for people to accept that. It makes them feel that they are bad, that they steered their friends wrong and that they let their families down and that they let their clients down and that they let their readers down. It makes people feel badly about themselves.

Four, I do not seem qualified to make such grand claims. I do think it is possible that Shiller would be tolerated if he said the same things I say because people would say “well, he won a Nobel prize, I have to respect that.” I am some fellow whose only claim to expertise in this field is that I happened to figure out how to get words posted to the internet. People feel that it is an outrage that I make such grand claims. As one fellow put it, it sounds “grandiose.” It rubs people’s fur the wrong way when I say things like “I know more about how stock investing works than Jack Bogle,” who is a well-loved (properly so) figure in this field.

Five, many of the things that I say sound like thinly veiled attacks on the personal integrity of the biggest names in this field. Probably the most extreme case is where I say that Jack Bogle is at risk of going to prison for financial fraud. That claim is so far outside the realm of what most people think is reasonable that they cannot accept or even tolerate hearing me say it. A somewhat less extreme case is when I say that the errors in the Old School SWR studies have been covered up for 12 years. When I say something like that, I am not just offering a different view on investing. I am not saying “Oh, I would use a withdrawal rate of 3 percent rather than 4 percent.” It sounds like I am saying that people of considerable accomplishments lack integrity. That’s a very serious charge. The general reaction is to respond with the thought: “Where the heck does he get off with this stuff?” Those sorts of claims make even supporters of my ideas angry because they see it as a nasty business for me to make such claims.

I think those are the big five factors in why I am perceived differently than others who say that valuations matter or who in some other way take issue with core Buy-and-Hold principles: (1) I focus on the findings of peer-reviewed research rather than just express a personal point of view; (2) I attack Buy-and-Hold as well as advocate Valuation-Informed Indexing; (3) I make expansive claims that strike most people as grandiose and even impossible (Wade said “it all seems so implausible”); (4) I do not possess the credentials that would make people respect even less expansive claims; and (5) I seem to be questioning the personal integrity of a good number of people who have stellar reputations built up over a long period of time.

I have not worked hard on the political side. But I have tried a few things there. The reason I have not worked those fields harder is that I have generally experienced the same reactions there that I have seen on the investing sites. I have hopes that that things will be different at political sites. But I wouldn’t bet a big bunch of money on this turning out to be the case.

I hope that helps a bit, Helper.

Rob

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

Rob, you seem to be alone in this VII crusade. Haven’t you ever considered that you might be wrong about this?I have considered whether I might be wrong and looked for evidence to support that view every day of the past 12 years of my life, Sensible.I am not alone. My work is rooted in the research of Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller. Shiller was awarded the Nobel prize in Economics last year. Having the support of a winner of the Nobel prize in Economics ain’t being alone. I am the co-author of the most important piece of peer-reviewed research published in this field in the past 30 years. Having your name on a piece of research that shows millions of middle-class investors how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent ain’t being alone. I have over 200 quotes posted at the “People Are Talking” section of the site. Many of the quotes are by top-name experts in the field. Having that many supportive quotes by top-name experts ain’t being alone. Jack Bogle, whom I rank as the second most important figure in this field, thinks enough of my work that he went along with having the entire Bogleheads Forum moved to another location rather than take the risk of appearing at an event with me in which he would be expected to respond in an effective way to my questioning. Impressing the second most important figure in the field to that extent ain’t being alone. Former Financial Analysts Journal Editor Rob Arnott wrote me to tell me that my investing ideas are “sound.” That ain’t being alone. Thousands of my fellow community members have expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted on our boards and blogs so that they can hear what I have to say about how investing works. That ain’t being alone. Millions of people lost their jobs in this economic crisis, an economic crisis that my work shows was caused by the reckless promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies. Those millions all want what I have to offer to become known to every person on this planet. That ain’t being alone. Thousands of entrepreneurs saw their businesses fail in the Buy-and-Hold Crisis. Those thousands want what I have to offer to become known to every person on this planet. That ain’t being alone. Millions of people from both the left (The Occupy Wall Street Movement) and the right (The Tea Party Movement) have begun to lose confidence in the ability of our political system to be responsive to the concerns of millions of its citizens because of the foolishness we saw in the wake of the onset of the economic crisis with people ignoring the obvious cause of the crisis (Buy-and-Hold caused $12 trillion in Pretend Money to be created and the loss of that $12 trillion in buying power caused the economy to collapse) want what I have to offer to become discussed at every board and blog on the internet so that we can begin to see some healing. That ain’t being alone. Millions of middle-class people are in the process of seeing their retirements fail as a result of the 12-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies. Those people are looking for the explanations of what happened to them that are contained in the thousands of pages of this web site. That ain’t being alone. I’ve written e-mails to 30,000 academic researchers letting them know about the threats you made to intimidate Wade Pfau into silence on the realities of stock investing when he “crossed” you by publishing honest research and a good number of them sent back to me exceedingly kind and intelligent and helpful responses. That ain’t being alone. I gave a presentation to the last Financial Bloggers Conference reporting on why Buy-and-Hold is the past and Valuation-Informed Indexing is the future and heard the applause of hundreds of my fellow community members learning about the truth in this area for the first time and enjoyed the hours of discussion of these issues that followed from a small group that came up to share a beer with me after the event. That ain’t being alone. I have written scores and scores of Guest Blog Entries which have inspired wonderful, thought-provoking discussions and which earned me the effusive praise of my peers. That ain’t being alone. I have done work that fulfills the boyhood dream of my good friend and hero Jack Bogle, making the change in his model for understanding how stock investing works that makes his approach workable in the real world for the first time. Thousands of my Buy-and-Hold friends have been looking for years for the resolutions to the contradictions in the Buy-and-Hold concept that were needed to make that long-deferred dream a reality and those people will be celebrating my work for many decades to come. That ain’t being alone. I am alone in only one sense. People are afraid to speak out about the intimidation tactics of you Goons. People hate seeing death threats. People hate seeing demands for unjustified board bannings. People hate seeing tens of thousands of acts of defamation. People hate seeing threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. I am not entirely alone even on that score. I share the feelings of repulsion that virtually every person living on this planet feels toward that sort of behavior. The only sense in which I am alone even in this respect is that I believe that the way to overcome you Goons is to expose your behavior to the sunlight. Most others are still too afraid to speak up. That will change following the next price crash, when they see how serious the threat is that you pose to our way of life. Then I will not be alone even on that score. You are the one who is alone, Sensible. You are the one going to prison. To be sent to prison is to have your peers reject you completely, to have the society you live in declare that your behavior is so sub-human that you can no longer be permitted to walk freely among others. That is an isolation that I don’t wish on my worst enemies (and indeed I have worked hard to get your prison sentence reduced to the extent possible). I have a battle to fight. There is evil in the world. There have always been people who see the accomplishments of others and feel drawn not to learn from them and achieve great things on their own but to equalize things by tearing down the good work that in their minds makes them look small and insignificant. But I am not the one who is alone. If I were alone, I would pose no threat to you Goons. It is precisely because there are so many millions seeking to understand for the first time how stock investing really works that you hate me with such a burning and all-consuming hate. Bernie Madoff is alone, Sensible. And you are Bernie Madoff times 5,000. I want no part of it. I offer the hand of kindness. Always. But not once in 12 years have I given a second’s thought to betraying my country. I won’t do that in the next 12 billion years either. Why? Because when I violate the laws of the United States, when I betray my country, then I truly become alone in a way that I never want to be alone. The people of the United States are traveling down some rocky road today. That much is so. We will overcome. We will prevail. It is those who doubt that our economic and political systems work any longer who will find themselves in days to come the lonely ones. We humans made a mistake. It happens. We will figure things out and we will turn things around. You are too far down the dark path to turn around. To be lost in that terrible dark place must be a lonely feeling indeed. I ask myself every day whether I have gotten something wrong, Sensible. Every day. Because I never want to find myself in the lonely place that you find yourself in today. When I discover that I have gotten something wrong (it has happened on a few occasions over the past 12 years), I quickly ask to be able to come to the front of the room and say the magic words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” Because those words end the loneliness. Once I have said those words, I no longer have anything to hide. Once I say those words, I am again playing a role in the community of people living under an economic and political system that works. I pray that I never face a temptation to play it the other way. I am a flawed human and so I cannot dismiss entirely the possibility that it could someday happen. So I pray. Not as often as I should but now and again at least. I will have to hope that that gives me enough strength to make it safely to the other side. And I pray for you, my lonesome friend. I pray that there is a spark of kindness within you for your friends and co-workers and neighbors and fellow community members that will one day save you. It happens. People tell me to give up on you Goons. I don’t feel comfortable giving up on anyone. That’s not the answer. Love is the answer. Love is the thing that keeps me from feeling alone through those times when a good number of my friends are afraid to speak up. Love prevails in the end, Sensible. You cannot fathom how, but it does. You keep forgetting that I read the last page of the story before I dared to venture forward with that crazy-brave post of the morning of May 13, 2002. I would have had to have been off my meds to have dared try that one without reading the last page first! I mean, come on! Rob