Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on December 19, 2018, to Leora Smith, author of an article titled How a Dubious Forensic Science Spread Like a Virus.

Leora:

My name is Rob Bennett. I much enjoyed your article on “How a Dubious Forensic Science Spread Like a Virus.” If you discussed “Making of a Murderer, Part Two” in the article, I somehow missed the discussion (I apologize). But I just finished watching that and your article certainly bears on the case made by the lawyers in the show. Anyway, lots of detail in there. It was a serious article but also fun and easy to read. And it’s an important topic because the issue has a bearing on how we mete out justice. That’s a compelling combination.

I want to share with you an article that I have written that in my eyes also makes a compelling case (please know that there are some who disagree very, very strongly!). It’s called “Buy-and-Hold Is Dangerous.” Does that sound boring? The most exciting stuff is often found hiding behind a boring title (because people do not know about the explosive material that has not thus far been revealed to them).

I ask that you give it two or three paragraphs to see if it pulls you in and then feel free to leave it for other pursuits in the event that it does not. However, if it does pull you in enough to get you reading to the end, you must tell me your reaction. That’s only fair.

Please keep doing the good work that you demonstrated in your fine article.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on December 19, 2018, to Helen Andrews, author of the amazing Shame Storm article at First Things.

Helen:

My name is Rob Bennett. Your “Shame Storm” article at First Things was astounding. Holy smokes! You did what journalists are trying to do all the time and rarely pull off — you told an important story with balance and detail and a scary level of honesty. It’s unfortunate that you had to live through a lot of personal pain to get there. But, hey, that’s the job, right? I haven’t come across an article that made me just sit back and think that much in a long time. And I know that I am not the only one because it was a rave write-up at the National Review that caused me to check it out.

I want to share with you the sad story of my own bit of internet personal pain (that’s a joke — kinda, sorta). I write about personal finance and have been doing so for a long time. The great thing about the internet is that it allows ideas to spread in ways that they never could before. The bad thing about it is that many people see the spread of ideas as a threat and see that their best strategy for fighting back is through personal attack rather than through intellectual debate. I was a widely loved figure in the days before I pointed out the grave problems with the Buy-and-Hold investment strategy. Today I refer to myself as “the most hated blogger on the internet.” Read the article and you will see that that is not an empty brag.

I really enjoyed your article. In the event that you do read mine, please know that I would love to hear your reaction. And please don’t let the bad guys get you down!

Rob

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on December 19, 2018, to Annie Lowrey, author of the book Give People Money:

Annie:

My name is Rob Bennett. Thanks for your friendly “say hi on annie@theatlantic.com” message at Twiiter. I see it as one of the big pluses of the internet that it permits communication with the authors of articles. But most people seem to discourage contacts (I understand why, but still…) I was reading something else at the Atlantic and ended up at your Twitter feed and saw that message and felt that I had to send you a note.

I have added your book “Give People Money” to my Wish List at Amazon. I cannot promise to read it just because I rarely find time to read books anymore. But I love the topic and I am sure that it would answer some of my questions about it (or at least cause me to think harder). I very much approve of the concept. I have reservations, though, that I know a lot of people share that it would undermine people’s self-respect for them to cover their costs of living through means other than their own work effort. I have a friend who is active in the Catholic Worker Movement. We had a long conversation about the guaranteed income concept. He was enthusiastic about it (and he is a very smart and kind person — my favorite type!).

I have attached an article (“Buy-and-Hold Is Dangerous” that I wrote on my own pet issue. I completely understand if you are not able to read it. People either are interested in this topic or they are not. And the article is long. I can promise, though, that it tells a story that you have not heard before and one that is likely to have great impact on millions of ordinary people. I am a reporter too and I see this as the biggest story that I have ever come upon. On the one hand, that makes it irresistible to me because I want to be the one to help people re this matter. On the other hand, it makes it very hard to get the word out because people wonder why they haven’t heard about the matter before. Whachagonnado?

Read it if you like but only if it pulls you in within about three paragraphs. If you do take the time, please let me know your reaction. That would be super.

My best and warmest wishes to you.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on December 10, 2018, to Summer Anne Burton, author of an article titled PETA Is Right and All of You Need to Stop Revving a Dead Porsche.

Summer:

My name is Rob Bennett. I read your article titled “PETA Is Right and All of You Need to Stop Revving a Dead Porsche.” I eat meat. I have occasionally given a tiny bit of thought to not doing that. But I have never engaged in much effort in that direction. I strongly share your belief that “what we do to animals to achieve cheap meat at massive scale is wrong.” But I just wish that different practices were followed by the corporate farms (I of course understand that that would cost me some money). You are probably on to something when you say that this ambivalence — which is probably experienced by a lot of people other than me — “is why it’s so appealing to draw attention to vagans and animal activists who seem kooky, annoying and tone deaf — it’s a way of changing the subject and of keeping away the creeping feeling that you just might be on the wrong side of history.”

Somehow those words made me want to share with you my pet (ha!) ethical cause — the need to tell people about the dangers of the Buy-and-Hold investing strategy. Buy-and-Hold has been discredited by 37 years of peer-reviewed research. Wall Street continues to push it because there’s money in it and because it appeals to our human weakness for Get Rich Quick schemes. In the event that Nobel-Prize-Winning Economist Robert Shiller is right about how stock investing really works, the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold will probably cause another economic crisis, causing hundreds of thousands of businesses to fail and millions of people to be thrown out of work. It makes me sick that as a society we are permitting this to happen at a time when the knowledge needed to help so many people live better lives is so easily available to us. So I see at least a sliver of a parallel to the vegan issue (I admit that the issues do not seem at all similar on the surface).

Anyway I wanted to send you the attached article, which tells the story in some depth. If it pulls you in at all, please let me know and I will be thrilled to answer any questions that you might have. If it does not hold any interest, I of course understand (I have a hard enough time getting people who work in the field interested). Please know that I also sent the article to the “Tips” editors at Buzzfeed.

Please continue your good efforts re the vegan stuff. Perhaps someday you will wear me down. The odds are probably against you — but stranger things have happened in this mixed-up world.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on December 10, 2018, to the editors at Buzzfeednews.com:

Buzzfeed Editors:

>
My name is Rob Bennett. I have been working for a long time on a story that has huge public policy implications and that has been covered up (in some ways but not in other ways) for many years now. The question is whether the Buy-and-Hold Model for understanding how stock investing works is legitimate or not.

Buy-and-Hold is rooted in research that was published in the 1960s. That research was discredited by research published in 1981. The author of the more recent research, Robert Shiller, was awarded a Nobel prize for his work, so he is obviously a very serious person. But people who try to share their thoughts on the implications of Shiller’s research are intimidated into silence by advocates of the Buy-and-Hold Model. So most investors have no idea how dangerous the Buy-and-Hold strategy is.

I have attached an article telling the story in some detail. It is long. In this case I think the length is justified because it is only by reading multiple accounts of the same basic story that one can come to appreciate the amazing realities. Shiller’s model (I called it “Valuation-Informed Indexing”) is far superior to the Buy-and-Hold Model. It reduces risk dramatically while also increasing returns dramatically. And it greatly mitigates the boom/bust cycle in the general economy.

Everyone benefits if we make the move to the new model. But academic researchers are threatened with career destruction if they publish research making the case for the switch. Why? The benefits of the advance are so great that it makes the advocates of Buy-and-Hold look bad for people to learn what the new research shows. We can only escape the dangers of Buy-and-Hold by educating the public re what really works. But education efforts threaten the Buy-and-Holders, who possesses the power to block progress because today’s high stock prices make Buy-and-Hold temporarily look appealing.

Please let me know if you have any questions or require documentations of any aspect of this story. Thanks for the good work that you do.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on December 10, 2018, to James Peltz, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times who wrote an article titled The Stock Market’s Severe Drop: Normal Pullback or an Ominous Sign?:

James:

My name is Rob Bennett. I read your article “The Stock Market’s Severe Drop: Normal Pullback or an Ominous Sign?” This is of course a question that many investors are pondering today. I ask that you consider — to what extent is our collective answer to that question determined by our core belief as to whether stock prices are determined by economic developments (as the Buy-and-Holders believe) or by investor emotion (as Nobel-prize-winning economist Robert Shiller argues in his book “Irrational Exuberance”)? 90 percent of today’s investors are Buy-and-Holders. So they tell themselves that we are working through a rational process. But, if Shiller is right, all of the arguments that we come up with for why what the market does makes sense are rationalizations. The one thing that matters is the extent of the emotional content present in stock prices because that tells us the extent to which we are kidding ourselves. Today’s P/E10 level tells us that the influence of investor emotion in stock prices is very high today indeed.

I explore this aspect of the question in a good bit of detail in the attached article. In the event that it pulls you in, I would love to hear any reactions.

I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on December 2, 2018, to Matt Yglesias, a senior correspondent at Vox.com:

Matt:

My name is Rob Bennett. I have attached an article titled “Buy-and-Hold Is Dangerous.” It explores an issue that I think is a big deal — the intimidation tactics that have been employed by advocates of the Buy-and-Hold investment strategy to keep people from learning about the implications of Nobel-prize-winning economist Robert Shiller’s research. If the pre-Shiller research on which Buy-and-Hold was built is right, the numbers on today’s portfolio statements are rooted in economic realities. If Shiller is right, 50 percent of today’s portfolio numbers are the product of irrational exuberance and will be going “Poof!!” in the next price crash. When millions of people suffer those sorts of losses, we will see a big economic contraction because trillions of dollars of spending power will be removed from the economy. I expect that we will even be seeing increased political unrest as middle-class people see a lifetime of saving effort wiped out.

My personal take is that this is the biggest public policy issue  before us today. I would love to hear your thoughts.

I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on November 29, 2018, to Will Davies, the author of an article titled “Why We Stopped Trusting Elites.”:

Will:

My name is Rob Bennett. I enjoyed your article “Why We Stopped Trusting Elites.” This is a terribly important issue re which I have greatly mixed feelings. I don’t think that our system of government (I live in the United States) can continue to succeed without a good bit of trust in elites remaining in place. But I certainly feel that there have been cases in which the elites have failed us and thus I cannot help but be somewhat sympathetic when people turn against them.

I have attached an article title “Buy-and-Hold Is Dangerous.” It reports on a project re which I have done a great deal of work and one that illustrates the problem with elites well. Robert Shiller is an elite. He is a professor at Yale and has been awarded a Nobel prize. I don’t see how you can get more establishment than that. But it is not possible to discuss the implications of his ideas on how stock investing works at any major web site today. I find this reality amazing.

The problem of course, is that there is another group of elites (those who developed and who promote the Buy-and-Hold Model) who oppose him. The elites who teach the dominant theory are not willing to give up any of the turf that they won in earlier days. This is a violation of the social contract by which elites gain the respect of the general public. Elites are supposed to possess at least a degree of interest in the general welfare. Otherwise, they should not be granted the respect that in the past has been bestowed on them.

I am grateful for the good work that you have done and continue to do.

Rob

Will sent a response e-mail later that day saying:

Thanks, Rob. Interesting issues to consider here.

Will

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on November 27, 2018, to the editors of the Empty Wheel site:

Empty Wheel Editors:

My name is Rob Bennett. I was pulled to your site today by a link to the article “Mueller Just Guaranteed He Can Issue a Public Report.” A quick look indicated to me that you are doing important work — non-fluff journalism on subjects otherwise not widely covered. Thanks for that.

I am trying to get people interested in a story that I believe is of great consequence and that is not being covered hardly at all in a frank way. I have attached an article titled “Buy-and-Hold Is Dangerous.” It sounds to me that this might be of some interest to Ed Walker.

I understand that the article is too long for publication at your site. My intent is to present enough background to make the story fully understandable and thereby to get you interested in it. If there is interest in the story, I can of course write something that focuses on one or two angles or we can together come up with some other way to work together.

I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent on November 21, 2018, to Libby Emmons, who wrote an article titled Writing for Quillette Ended My Theater Project.

Libby:

My name is Rob Bennett. Your article titled “Writing for Quillette Ended My Theater Project” was much needed. People need to know that this sort of thing is going on. Thank you for having the courage to do what you have done, particularly for not being willing to apologize when there is nothing to apologize for. Inappropriate apologies give the apology concept a bad name. At least now the word is out. It’s up to the world to figure out what to do about the story you have told. You never know where the world will take things once you get the word out. It may take time but I think that it is entirely possible that your brave acts will do some good in the long run. It makes me happy to know that you gave it a shot.

I have a similar story to tell. I write about the long-discredited Buy-and-Hold investment strategy. Millions of people have their life savings riding on this strategy and have never even been told about the downside attached to it. It is maddening that it is so hard to get the word out about this. But you hit on the big problem in your article. People do not want to discuss these matters. They want to prevail and they believe that participating in an honest discussion lessens their odds of prevailing. I have in my writings used the catch-phrase that “I love my country” and that is why I refuse to keep quiet. I say that because I believe that it is a core value of our country to talk things out. I accept that I could be wrong on substantive issues. But I have a core belief that the only positive way to work out differences is through civil and respectful discussion. I am not able to give up that one. I don’t apologize for my good work, which has been recognized by many good people (although not quite enough of them just yet!).

I of course understand that this topic might not be of interest to you. If that’s the case, I understand. But if my article pulls you in and you are able to relate a tiny bit, I would be grateful if you would let me know. I have had a good number of others tell me that sort of thing from time to time. It helps me to appreciate that I am not the crazy one. My guess is that you know what I am getting at when I say those words.

Please keep doing the good work you do. I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.

Rob

I received a response from Libby on February 1, 2019, saying;