Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that that I sent on November 19, 2012, to a fellow who posts on the internet as “George Washington”:

George:

Thanks for all of your help. You put in efforts
well beyond the call of duty!

I have one more favor to ask. Do you have any
suggestions for places I could post to get my
message out?

The placement at “The Big Picture” was perfect. The
people who visit that site are heavy-hitter economist
types. I was of course discouraged that there were
not many endorsements of the VII concept forthcoming. But I saw
it as good news that no one attacked the idea or made
much of an effort to defend Buy-and-Hold. I view that as
a sign that the change in thinking we need to see is taking
place underneath the surface.

You must be very well-connected (certainly compared
to me!) to get an article placed there. If there is anyone to
whom you could recommend me or refer me, I would
be most grateful.

Another need I have along the same lines is for access
to a site that does mostly politics but that views the
economic crisis and its cause as a political issue worthy
of exploration. For a long time, I had a weekly column at
the “Death by 1,000 Papercuts” site. I wrote over 100 columns
for them and I loved the column because it was the only
place available to me where I could write about the political
aspects of this. That site went under earlier this year and
it has been hard for me to find a replacement.

I have found some personal finance blogs that are willing
to run occasional guest posts. The problem is that many
bloggers don’t feel confident in their ability to challenge
the “experts.” That of course is not so at a place like
“The Big Picture.” My guess is that the problem with the
readership at a place like “The Big Picture” is that they
themselves are economists and challenges to the orthodoxy
are perceived (on some level of consciousness) as challenges
to one’s ability to make a living.

Political bloggers would not have these concerns. The problem
with political bloggers is twofold. One, they don’t immediately
see this as a political issue (I see it as the most important political
issue of our day). And, two, there is no liberal/conservative dynamic
to this. I had one conservative blogger tell me that he agreed with
what I was saying but that he didn’t think it was newsworthy because
I was not blaming the government for the problem! That one blew
my mind. My personal thought is that it would be refreshing to pursue
an issue without engaging in finger pointing. But I worry that finger
pointing has become a reflex action with some of us.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. My ultimate goal is to create
a community of people who are pursuing a better path and showing
others BY EXAMPLE how to handle these questions. When the next
crash hits, we are going to need to act quickly to avoid falling into
the Second Great Depression. I would like to have a community
in place when the time comes. The internet is of course the perfect
place to form communities. But I have had a very hard time establishing
one around this issue. The “bulls” tune it out because it makes
them uncomfortable and angry and scared. The “bears” take the view that we are doomed as a society and there is no purpose served by taking constructive steps outside of achieving self-preservation in a doomed society. I am very much in the middle of those two extremes. My aim is to
acknowledge the good work of those who came before us and to
begin a rebuilding effort that all will be welcome to join at any time
they are ready.

You have already done a bunch. I am deeply grateful. But I have
to ask. If there is anything at all that you can suggest, it might end
up turning a key somewhere down the road. I have had several
occasions during this ten-year journey in which a chance connection
led to something big.

Also, just in case you are wondering about the craziness of all this
in your own mind, you might be interested to know that Wade Pfau
commented on my blog entry for yesterday. If you are good at
reading between the lines, you may be able to pick up some clues
to solving the mystery by reading his words. It takes some skill
in this case! I like to think that not much gets past me on this one
anymore, but even I needed to read his words several times to
feel confident that I understood what was going on with them.
The core difficulty with this one is not that people are deceiving
others. What makes this one so special is that people are putting
so much energy into deceiving themselves!

The Big Picture Blog Reports on Wade Pfau’s Research Showing the Superiority of Valuation-Informed Indexing Over Buy-and-Hold

Take care, man. You truly have made a big difference.

Rob

 

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

Are they guilty of fraud by not running your weekly column?

No. I mentioned up above how Jacob Wolinsky (the owner of the ValueWalk.com site) is a hero for running so many columns. He put himself on the line by doing that. He helped a lot of people by doing that.

I’d like to see him do even more. I would like to see him post an article in his own name saying that he has witnessed the tactics of you Goons and that he is appalled by them. He knows about how Wade Pfau was threatened. Why not speak out about that? He would be helping Wade by doing that. Wade wants to get back to telling the truth. If someone spoke up in support of him, that would change the world for the better in a very big way.

He’s afraid. I know how it feels. I was once afraid. I didn’t speak up about the errors in Greaney’s retirement study for three years because I was afraid of what you Goons would do to me if I did. And of course hundreds and hundreds of others have shown that they are afraid. Bogle is afraid. Shiller is afraid. Kitces is afraid. And on and on and on.

That’s what needs to change, Zippy. We all need to work up the courage to stand up to you Goons. You Goons HAVE engaged in fraud and that needs to be addressed. Every responsible person in this field who fails to speak up about it is hurting themselves and their communities and their friends and their profession and their country.

It took me a long time to work up the courage to speak up. I have never regretted it. I have taken lots of hits as a result. But I have also learned amazing things and have experienced the gratification that comes from passing those things along to lots of others. So I opened doors when I worked up the courage to advance that fateful post of the morning of May 13, 2002.

Will we as a society work up the courage to demand that Bogle give an “I Was Wrong” speech and that it be written up on the front page of the New York Times?

I believe we will. If we don’t, we all go down. Our economic system cannot survive unless we find some means to get accurate and honest information about the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research out to the millions of middle-class investors who need to obtain it. So I think we will do the right thing when we are left with no choice, when the next price crash hits and we are looking at the Second Great Depression descending upon us.

I believe that we will have Bogle working with us at that time.

I believe that we will have you Goons working with us at that time.

I sure hope so!

But we will have to wait a bit to see how it all plays out.

I wish you the best with it. That much is for sure.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted at the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site:

Rob,

Just to help you out, here is the link. Your “question” was actually addressed in less than 90 minutes, as pointed out by Wade. It seems the embarrassment of that has lasted all these years. Here is a helpful link:

http://retirementresearcher.com/valuations-and-withdrawal-rates/

Wade never wrote any words of that nature until you threatened to send defamatory e-mails to his employer. Words that are said as the result of intimidation tactics don’t count, Sammy. Wade said what he really believes about safe withdrawal rates and about Valuation-Informed Indexing and about me in hundreds of e-mails that he exchanged with me, many of which I have reported on at my site.

Neither the Greaney study nor any of the other Old School SWR studies have been corrected to this day, Sammy.

There have been scores of articles published in all of the top-name publications pointing out that the infamous “4 percent rule” that came from those studies is likely not going to work for millions of retirees who employed it in their plans. Those people will be suffering one of the worst life setbacks imaginable. All of that could have been avoided f the studies had been correctly promptly once the errors in them had become public knowledge (this happened on the morning of May 13, 2002).

Correcting the studies also would have led to a great learning experience. People who cannot admit the possibility that they have made a mistake can never learn anything. If you think that you already know everything, how can you ever expend effort to move forward?

The safe withdrawal rate is not always 4 percent. It is a number that varies, depending on the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. In 1982, the SWR was 9.0 percent. In 2000, the SWR was 1.6 percent. For a retiree with a $1 million portfolio, that’s the difference between living on $16,000 per year and living on $90,000 per year. That’s no small difference.

The Buy-and-Holders did a great thing in trying to turn investing analysis into a science. There’s too much subjectivity in this field. People need to use numbers to plan their financial affairs. The job of an investing analyst is to supply those numbers to people.

But it is inevitable in a new science that people are going to make mistakes. In the early days of Buy-and-Hold, people thought that the market was efficient. If the market was efficient, Buy-and-Hold would be the ideal strategy. If the market was efficient, the SWR would be a constant (and that number would indeed be “4”).

But Shiller showed in his “revolutionary” (his word) research of 1981 that the market is NOT efficient. He showed that risk is not constant but variable. It follows that the safe withdrawal rate CHANGES as valuations change.

Every investor need to know this. We should be discussing this at every discussion board and blog on the internet. We should be having a national debate re the implications of Shiller’s revolutionary findings. This is huge. And it is very, very, very positive news that we can now reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent just by letting that national debate take place.

That’s my sincere take, in any event.

I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, Sammy.

Rob

 

Yesterday’s blog entry contained a link to an article by Wade Pfau in which he referenced me as “one internet blogger” without referring to me by name or linking to my site. Set forth below is the comment that I advanced in response to the Goon post linking to Wade’s article:

I’m grateful to you for letting me know about the article, Pink.

I take a very, very, very different view of Wade’s words than what you are advancing here.

Of course Wade is scared. He shows that in the words he puts forward. Nothing could be more clear. You Goons can pretend to believe that he does not sound scared. But only until the next price crash. After the next price crash, nobody is going to be pretending. Wade is going to be on trial for financial fraud and you Goons are going to be on trial for financial fraud. I will not be on trial. I haven’t committed financial fraud. I will be testifying at your trial and at Wade’s trial. I will be pointing the juries to articles set forth at this web site, including this one and including the scores of articles in which Wade sang the praises of Valuation-Informed Indexing and expressed his discomfort at the insane abusiveness of you Goons. I have a funny hunch that I know how those jury verdicts are going to go.

Why the the heck do you think Wade put forward those words? He did it for the same reason why you Goons visit this site on a daily basis. He is scared to death, just as you Goons are.

How the heck would Wade know how “the concept” should be applied? He didn’t even know about Valuation-Informed Indexing until he learned of my work. Valuation-Informed Indexing is the investing strategy rooted in the peer-reviewed research of Nobel-Prize-Winning Economist Robert Shiller. Wade learned nothing about it when earning his Ph.D. at Princeton. He learned about it by asking me hundreds of questions about it and then researching what I told him. He reported to me on numerous occasions that all his research supported everything I said. He flipped only when you Goons threatened to send defamatory e-mails to his employer in an effort to get him fired. Gee, I wonder what the jury is going to make of that.

Wade is going to prison, Pink. So are you. So are a good number of others. There’s nothing that I or anyone else can do about that at this point in the proceedings. The best that I can do is to try to get Wade’s prison sentence reduced a bit. To do that, I need for him to come clean today. Presuming that he doesn’t do that, his jury will determine the length of his prison sentence. It is not for me to say. I will testify honestly and completely and in a balanced way. That’s my duty. When I have done that, can walk away with a clear conscience.

You are right that Wade does not mention me as co-author. What do you think the jury is going to think about that? And what do you think his jury is going to think of the fact that he wrote the article in such a manner that you Goons feel comfortable citing it and linking to it? If the article were an honest piece of work, that obviously would not be possible.

There was one time when I made a prediction that the crash would come by the end of 2015. I now say that I expect to see it by the end of 2016. What of it? I have also said that short-term predictions do not work. I have the same track record as Robert Shiler, who predicted in 1996 that we would see the first crash by 2006. I feel in good company to be in the company of a Nobel Prize Winner.

Did Wade explain all this to his readers? Or did he try to mislead them? If he tried to mislead them, why did he do that? What will his jury conclude?

Why does Wade refer to me as “one internet blogger” rather than referring to me by name and by providing a link to this web site? His obvious concern is that, if he did so, readers trying to determine the truth of the matter could learn about his long history of financial fraud re these matters (that, in fairness, began on the day that you Goons threatened to get him fired from his job if he continued to do honest work and when Jack Bogle signaled that he would be supporting you Goons, not Wade, if Wade continued to do honest work).

Wade is going to prison. You are going to prison. Bogle is going to prison. I am not.

That’s the bottom line here.

Yes, he is afraid. Yes, you are afraid. Yes. Bogle is afraid.

I am not afraid re going to prison. I am afraid re the continued destruction being done to my country with each day that this massive act of financial fraud remains unexposed. I will continue doing all that is in my power to expose it. I have a funny feeling that that job will become a whole big bunch easier in the days following the next price crash.

But we will see, you know? Time will reveal all things.

I don’t know for absolutely certain that there will be a crash in 2015 or in 2016 or ever. What I know for absolutely certain is that there has never been a bull/bear cycle that resolved itself without the P/E10 level falling to 8 or lower and, starting from today’s levels, that’s a fall of more than 65 percent. If it doesn’t happen, it will be the first time in history that things have gone this new way. It’s the longest of all possible long-shots.

I don’t want my name attached to promotion of an investing “strategy” that causes those kinds of consequences over and over and over again. The promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies has caused four economic crises (the only four that we have suffered in the past 145 years). There was no peer-reviewed research showing that Buy-and-Hold caused the earlier crises at the time they took place. That’s how this one is different. This is the first one that took place at a time when we all had 34 years of peer-reviewed research available to us showing how things really works.

Wade won’t be going to prison because he doesn’t understand all this stuff. He is in good company there. I certainly didn’t understand all this stuff on the morning of May 13, 2002. John Walter Russell didn’t understand all this stuff when he started working with me. Shiller doesn’t understand all this stuff.

Wade will be going to prison because he participated in the cover-up, because he incurred a responsibility to help us all learn what we need to know and chose to join in the corruption rather than to expose the con because he felt that those involved in the con could offer him more enticing personal rewards.

Not this boy.

Find someone else.

I can’t go for that.

No can do.

It’s not my particular cup of tea.

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

Rob

 

Set forth below is the text of a post that one of the Goons recently posted to another blog entry to this site. I will post my response as tomorrow’s blog entry.

Speaking of “big shots”, here is a big shot expert that is taking direct aim at you, Rob. I think you know him well as his name is Wade Pfau. Here is his article:

http://retirementresearcher.com/is-a-high-cape-cause-for-alarm-part-2-valuation-based-asset-allocation/

Note this particular quote:

” One internet blogger has been using PE10 to predict a 65% drop in the S&P 500 by the end of 2015. This is not how the concept should be applied.”

Wow, Rob. He doesn’t pull any punches, does he. It doesn’t look like he is scared one bit. Further, he has reminded the investment community about your prediction and when we come to the end of 2015 without that big drop you predicted, it just doesn’t look so good for you.

Not only that, he takes full credit for his research without even mentioning your name as an author:

“I have also investigated this matter in two published articles: “Long-Term Investors and Valuation-Based Asset Allocation,” from the August 2012 issue of Applied Financial Economics, and “Safe Withdrawal Rates, Savings Rates, and Valuation-Based Asset Allocation,” from the April 2012 issue of the Journal of Financial Planning.”

Hmmmmm……….doesn’t look good, Rob.

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

If they are anonymous, they have no need to be afraid.

I answered this above, Anonymous.

They are ASHAMED.

Wade Pfau spent years studying economics. He was awarded a Ph.D. He went on to co-author the most important research published in this field in three decades. He was looking forward to being awarded the Nobel Prize.

Then some Internet Goons threatened to get him fired from his job. Jack Bogle indicated that he and the other Wall Street Con Men were going to support the Goons. Wade has two small children for whom he provides financial support. He loves them. So he folded. He agreed to betray himself and his family and his profession and his country.

Do you not see how that makes him feel ashamed of himself?

He could post anonymously. You are right about that.

He doesn’t want to think about what he has done. He sold out. He sold out his country.

Now he rationalizes. He says: “Oh, maybe things won’t go so bad, maybe stocks will perform in ways in which never before in history have they performed and I won’t end up being responsible for the destruction of millions of middle-class lives. You never really can tell with 100 percent certainty, can you?”

Wade is in pain. Just like you Goons are in pain. Just like Bogle is in pain. Just like all Buy-and-Holders are in pain 34 years after the peer-reviewed research showed that there is precisely zero chance that this smelly Get Rich Quick garbage could ever work for even a single long-term investor in this or any other solar system.

People who have sold out themselves and their profession and their country do not like to be reminded of it. They are not interested in posting anonymously at web sites. They try to forget what they have done to the millions of middle-class investors whose lives they have destroyed.

Each time another person sells out his country, we all go down another step into the darkness.

I love my country.

It is my intent NOT to sell out.

We will see what happens.

My best and warmest 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:

“Why did we adopt laws against financial fraud but to impose a requirement that people in the investing advice speak with at least a minimum level of honesty?”

Financial fraud requires a fiduciary relationship. Look it up. Does Wade manage your money? Anyone else’s? Then he can legally lie through his teeth from now till doomsday.

I don’t think he can. I think you are wrong.

Juries will decide the matter, Stagnation.

If our economic system is going to survive, we are going to have to find a way to provide access to honest reports on the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research to millions of middle-class investors.

I am highly confident that we will figure something out. The laws against financial fraud are on the books and it makes perfect sense for us to use them.

Wade doesn’t manage my money but lots of people who advocate Buy-and-Hold DO manage money. So those people are guilty of financial fraud. And Wade is certainly helping them continue the cover-up. Wade knows about the cover-up. He talked to me about it in e-mails that I have reported on at this site. Wade liked the idea of posting honestly on safe withdrawal rates and lots of other subjects until he learned that the penalty for doing so was career death. Then he agreed to aid the cover-up. And you’re saying that that’s not financial fraud? Huh? It’s be biggest case of financial fraud in the history of the United States.

The bottom line is whether your word games will convince a jury filled with people who have lost their life savings as a result of this massive act of financial fraud. I know which side I want to be perceived to be on when that day comes. So I am going to continue posting honestly re SWRs and lots of other critically important investment-related topics. This boy ain’t going to prison following the next price crash. No way,no how.

I hope that works for you.

That’s the way it is going to be in any event.

My best wishes.

Rob

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

“Well, I an entitled to a whole big bunch of glory re this matter, no?”

No. Wade on the other hand seems to be getting a whole big bunch of glory as the leading authority on SWR, given his latest in the Wall Street Journal:

http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/01/20/how-much-can-you-safely-spend-in-retirement/

Didn’t read it, did you? It’s really a shame that your jealous rage is all you have left.

The idea here is that I should be going crazy because Wade is using what he learned about safe withdrawal rates from me to get rich and famous while not saying how he happened to learn about this stuff. There are six ways in which this is wrong-headed thinking.

1) I would not trade places with Wade for all the money in the world. I of course would like to be making the money he is making and I would of course like to be getting the recognition that he is getting. But not at the price that he was forced to pay to obtain that money and recognition. Wade betrayed himself and his family and his profession and his country. I am not interested. I don’t want to pay that price and I don’t want Wade to pay that price and I don’t want anyone else to pay that price.

2) Even if my desire for the money and recognition influenced me, I wouldn’t have any means to obtain it. I am not an academic researcher. If I wanted to sell out, how would I go about doing it? It’s not an option for me.

3) Despite the betrayal, Wade is doing good and important work. Wade doesn’t hurt me by spreading knowledge of the flaws in the Old School retirement studies. He is opening minds. The more articles of this nature that people see, the more open they are to Valuation-Informed Indexing. If people had been saying 15 years ago what Wade is saying today, there never would have been any controversy when I put forward my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002. Wade is helping. That obviously makes me happy, not upset.

4) How do people make use of Wade’s ideas without acknowledging that Buy-and-Hold is a big pile of smelly garbage? They can’t. Wade’s ideas about how stock investing works are the OPPOSITE of Bogle’s ideas about how stock investing works. The differences need to be RESOLVED if we are as a society to move forward in our understanding of how stock investing works. This site contains the materials that people need to review to understand why the Buy-and-Holders have been standing in our way for 34 years now. We know today how stock investing works. But we have to talk about it in these roundabout ways because the Buy-and-Holders freak out if we speak clearly. Ultimately. Wade’s ideas cannot prevail until we work up the courage to take on the Buy-and-Hold Mafia. So Wade and I are in an ultimate sense 100 percent on the same side.

5) Bogle and all of the other Buy-and-Holders and even all of you Goons are all on the same side too. You see me as the enemy. But that’s only because you are not capable of thinking clearly re these matters today. If we could go back in a time machine to May 13, 2002, and play it over, Greaney would play it very differently than how he played it back then. If we could go back in a time machine to 1981 and play it over, Bogle would play it very differently than how he played it back then. I wasn’t around to help Bogle out in 1981. But I tried to help Greaney out in 2002. How did I know where things were headed? I knew because I understood (in a very vague way at that time) what the peer-reviewed research in this field really says. There are IMPLICATIONS that follow from our findings of the past 34 years and they cannot be indefinitely ignored.

6) We are working through a process. Bogle has a part to play. Shiller has a part to play. I have a part to play. Wade has a part to play. Even you Goons have a part to play. We know where the process leads us. There is only one place to which it can lead us. We all want to get to the same place. So we all should be working together. We will all come to accept that eventually. Because we have no choice. I will be reconciled with Wade and I will end up good friends with Bogle and Shiller and all the others. I will be good friends even with you Goons. You will be in prison for a time. But prison sentences comes to an end. When your prison sentences come to an end, you will no longer see any profit in goonishness and we will be good friends. I have said it. So it must be true!

I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, Wade Fan.

Hang in there, man. Don’t let the bad guys get you down.

Rob

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

I am curious as to your reaction to Wade being named to Investment News’ 40 under 40 list? Among other things they state that “his Retirement Research blog (WPfau.blogspot.com), which he launched in 2010, became a big hit with advisers interested in retirement strategy.”

http://www.investmentnews.com/section/40-under-40/profile/26/Wade-Pfau

Everything that I know about Wade tells me that he deserves the honor, Interested.

Wade is smart, he is hard working, he is ambitious (I mean that 100 percent as a compliment — we need ambitious people to make good things happen in the world), and he is generous in giving compliments to those who help him out. He is a great guy all the way around. I am proud to be able to call him “friend.”

Now –

He is ALSO dishonest. Wade has played a big role in a huge act of financial fraud, the biggest act of financial fraud in U.S. history. There is a good chance that he will be going to prison following the next price crash.

Does that cover it, Interested?

If you find that mix of views strange, then there’s a sense in which I am with you. I find it strange myself.

But you know what? If you read great novels, you won’t find it quite so strange after you take some time to reflect on what is going on here. When you hear that one of the greatest investment researchers alive today may be on his way to prison, your first reaction is to think: “How odd.” But when you reflect on how humans behave in the real world, you see that this is really not so strange as it seems on first impression.

Richard Nixon achieved amazing things with his life. He opened relations with China. He brought the war in Vietnam to an end (in a messy way, but still). He ended the gold standard. He greatly increased the size of the programs adopted by Johnson as part of the Great Society. He won one of the biggest landslide victories in U.S. election history. And on and on.

Richard Nixon would likely have landed in a prison cell had he not been pardoned by his successor. As it was, he resigned from office in disgrace.

Sound familiar?

Nixon ruined himself over a stupid pride thing. No one cared about the break-in. It was a political prank. The story would have been in the news two or three days had he simply come clean when it was discovered. He didn’t want bad press for two or three days. So he went in to cover-up mode. He committed crimes. Felonies. He ruined himself. He ruined lots of people associated with him. He messed up big time.

That’s what my good friend Jack Bogle has done. Jack is one of the giants in this field. I rank him second only to Robert Shiller and there are lots of others who would rank him first. He has changed the world of stock investing in hugely important and positive ways. The work he has done will be helping millions of middle-class investors for many decades to come (because Jack’s work is the foundation for Valuation-Informed Indexing, the investing model of the future).

And Jack too may be headed for a prison cell. Jack too has committed felonies (financial fraud is a felony). Mel Linduaer was using threats of physical violence to stop posters at the Bogleheads Forum from posting their honest views since long before I came on the scene. Bogle knew about it. And he turned his head. He pretended that he didn’t see. And things got more and more and more out of control over time. Now Buy-and-Hold has caused an economic crisis. Up ahead we have another price crash coming, one that may put us in the Second Great Depression. We are looking at one of the most destructive acts in the history of the United States.

And at a time when Bogle’s ideas (one of his most important ideas was the one arguing that we should all root our investment strategies in the findings of the peer-reviewed academic research) are bearing fruit more exciting than anything he ever dreamed of when he was a young man. Huh? Bogle’s ideas take us to places he never even imagined possible and Bogle then decides to turn on them, to reverse course? To join forces with the sorts of individuals who have put up posts in “defense” of Mel Linduaer and John Greaney? Is he mad?

Yes, he is mad.

We ALL are to some extent. We are all humans. And all humans have a bit of madness within them.

Maybe Wade will be spared prison because his lawyers will cite his madness and a jury will let him off. Maybe the same will happen with Jack.

I don’t know. I cannot say.

My job is to tell the story. Straight. True. As it happened.

I love Wade Pfau. And so I am obviously going to say every positive thing I can think of to say about him.

I love Jack Bogle. So I am obviously going to say every positive thing I can think of to say about him.

But I ALSO love the millions of middle-class investors whose lives have been destroyed by the 12-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies. Those people need to know the truth about what has been done to them. They need to know who to sue to recover damages. They need to know who to send to prison so that they can make some peace with what has happened and feel that justice has been served at least to some extent. The lawyers who will bring their cases need evidence to present to the juries. My job as a journalist is to document what has gone down so that that evidence is available to them.

So I am not in a postion in which I can ignore the crimes in which my good friends Wade and Jack have participated. I need to tell the story HONESTY. Charitably too. To be sure. But honestly also. Both charity and honesty are called for here. There is no other way by which we can all get from the horrible place where we find ourselves today to the wonderful place where we all deep in our hearts hope to reside tomorrow.

I hope that helps a bit, Interested.

My best and warmest 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:

Rob,

They quoted Wade in this article:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/tompor/2014/06/15/boomers-cant-spend-too-much-too-quickly/10520085/

Why didn’t they quote you? I thought you were the SWR expert.

They didn’t quote me because I am the person who discovered the errors in the Old School SWR studies, Anonymous. I put up the post pointing out those errors on the morning of May 13, 2002. The Wall Street Journal didn’t report on them until nearly 10 years later. So I am Enemy #1 for the Buy-and-Hold Mafia.

I am still telling the truth re these matters. The Buy-and-Hold Mafia has directed everything it has got against me and they haven’t stopped me. I think it’s fair to say that the 12-year cover-up will be exposed following the next price crash. Who will be in better shape then?

Wade may be in prison then. I am going to tell people about his great research. I am going to say that he merits the Nobel Prize for the work he did with me. But I also am going to tell people that he committed financial fraud because of the threats that were made to destroy his career.

Is he better off being quoted in all these places now and getting all these big job promotions now and going to prison then or would be be better off taking his story to the New York Times today and avoiding the years of financial fraud? I think he would have been better just playing it straight. I told him so. In one of my e-mails to him I told Wade that I thought he was “insane’ to get involved in any way, shape or form with you Goons.

Wade is a grown man and he took the path he took. I still love the guy. I always will. But I wouldn’t be willing to trade places with him today for all the money in the world.

My contributions have been recognized by thousands and thousands of people (including Wade Pfau, to be sure). People fear you Goons because you have the backing of Jack Bogle and others of the Wall Street Con Men, But the whole corrupt industry will be doing down when millions of middle-class people find out what has been done to them. I am not going down. I have never posted in “defense” of Mel Lindauer or John Greaney or Jack Bogle. I am clean, Anonymous. So I will be getting a lot more recognition following the next price crash, when you are sent to prison.

It’s obviously not the way I wanted to see things play out. But there is no one on Planet Earth who has done more to rein in you Goons. So I have whatever satisfaction comes from knowing that I have put my very best efforts into this. And I will of course continue to do so.

I hope that helps a bit, Anonymous.

Rob