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

If you’re going to keep claiming you were threatened, don’t you think at some point you should supply some evidence? Or at least come up with an answer slightly less lame than “we’ll have to wait to see how it all plays out”?

Rhetorical question of course. You truly believe that you don’t need no stinkin’ evidence of anything. You are the only person I know of who expects to be taken seriously without even attempting to back up his claims.

The entire site is the evidence, Anonymous.

I put forward my famous post pointing out that Greaney had failed to include a valuations adjustment in the retirement study posted to his web site on the morning of May 13, 2002. It should not have taken more than 15 minutes to check whether the claim was accurate or not. But the study has not been corrected to this day. Huh? What the f?

There’s no way that cover-up could continue for 16 years without heavy reliance on intimidation tactics, right? Your common sense tells you that. Those who are open to knowing what happened know in general what happened. They can look to the documentations supplied at the site to learn the details. But the general sense of things is not even a tiny bit hard to grasp.

Say that you are someone who knows nothing of the Greaney matter. Would you know? If you read the article on the front page of the New York Times reporting on how Fama and Shiller were awarded Nobel prizes on the same day, you would know the general story. The article noted how odd it is that two researchers saying opposite things were both awarded the highest award in the field on the same day. In ordinary circumstances, there would be huge amounts of effort being put into the project of figuring out which of the two Nobel Prize winners is right and which of them is wrong. We haven’t seen that. It doesn’t take an I.Q. of 140 to figure out that there is some sort of cover-up taking place.

We have a puzzle on our hands. How has the cover-up remained in place for 37 years now?

People don’t want to know, Anonymous. If people accept what the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research in this field tells us all about how stock investing works, they are going to have to accept that their stock portfolios are worth 50 percent less than what they today think they are worth. That is a painful realization. So people tune it out. One woman said when my board banning at one site was being debated: “Rob is the sweetest and most polite poster that I have ever encountered on the internet and he irritates me to no end! — I vote for banning him!” It doesn’t matter how nicely I put things. Most people don’t want to hear the message and they will side with you Goons no matter how offensive they find your tactics.

In the days after the next crash, people will no longer be trying to lie to themselves about their portfolio values. It won’t serve any purpose any more. The gig will be up. If anything, people will be angry about how they were tricked and will be looking for ways to hang those who worked this con on them from the highest tree in the neighborhood. I will tell them, you know? I am not going to recommend hanging anyone from any tree. To the contrary, I am going to point out how you Goons couldn’t have gotten away with what you got away with if the majority of investors didn’t desperately want to be defrauded. I am not going to say that you didn’t do what you did. But I am going to try to spin it to the greatest extent possible in a direction positive for you. That’s all that I can do for you without going to the wrong side of the law myself but that much I will indeed do.

We’ll see how it plays out, you know?

The evidence of the cover-up and the evidence of the use of intimidation tactics is omni-present. I couldn’t possibly have a more rock-solid case. But the sad reality is that bull markets are liar’s markets and we are living today through the tail end of the biggest bull market in history. We have seen a mountain of lies over the past 16 years!

I can’t tell lies about the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements. It’s not in me. We will have to wait to see how it all plays out in the days following the next crash. I will do what I can to help you Goons out and the rest will just have to work itself out.

I wish you the best of luck with it, in any event. I hope that helps a small bit.

Bull-Market-Skeptic Rob

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

“But a board or blog that does not permit honest posting is a corrupt enterprise.”

It’s been years since you even tried to post at any other board or blog. But you’re calling them all corrupt anyway. Does that sound fair to you?

The corruption affects everyone alive in the United States today, Anonymous. I have been a victim of it. But it is not just about me.

Look at our friend John Greaney. Greaney has been a victim of the corruption.

The reason why Greaney freaked out when I pointed out that his retirement study does not contain a valuation adjustment is that he was embarrassed for people to see that he got the numbers wrong in his study. Greaney took his methodology from the Trinity study, a peer-reviewed study. The purpose of peer review is to ensure that studies do not contain obvious errors. The Trinity contains the most obvious error possible — it lacks a valuations adjustment! Shiller had published his research showing that valuations affect long-term returns many years before the Trinity study was submitted for peer review. Yet it passed! What the f? Is that not corruption?

Now —

If you want to say that the members of the peer-review committee for the Trinity study were Buy-and-Holders who were suffering from cognitive dissonance and did not appreciate the extent of the problem of the failure to include a valuation adjustment, I can go along with that. I think that’s probably the case. So you might say that the corruption here was not deliberate. It still hurt millions of people in very, very serious ways, right? It’s still something that we need to talk about, something that we need to fix.

I didn’t intend to embarrass Greaney. I just wanted to report the numbers accurately. But because of the corruption that had gone on before I even came on the scene, Greaney was embarrassed. Do you see how it works?

It works that way for everyone. Wade Pfau wasn’t trying to hurt anyone’s feelings when he co-authored our amazing peer-reviewed research paper showing that investors can reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent by being willing to abandon Buy-and-Hold strategies. But he did, didn’t he? Because of the mountain of corruption that was in place before Wade ever came on the scene.

Shiller published “revolutionary” (his word) research findings in 1981. A national debate on the implications of those findings should have been launched within one week of the publication of that research. We didn’t see that. We are all today suffering the effects of the delay in the launching of the national debate. It is that delay that caused our economic crisis. It is that economic crisis that caused a lot of the political frictions that we have seen in recent years.

We need to fix the problem. To do that we need to expose the cover-up. But of course that embarrasses all the people who have gone along with it for all these years. That’s just about everyone who works in this field. Because those who speak out about the corruption see their careers destroyed and are never heard from again.

It’s quite a little pickle that we have gotten ourselves into, isn’t it?

We all have played a role in this massive act of corruption. I did so myself in the days prior to my famous posting of the morning of May 13, 2002. The only way to bring the corruption to an end is to EXPOSE it. And everyone who is part of it (which is everyone in the field) fears what will happen to their reputations when the corruption is exposed.

I’m being fair. It doesn’t take an I.Q. of 140 to figure out that retirement studies that do not contain adjustments for valuations cannot possibly get the numbers right in a world in which valuations affect long-term returns. If the boards were not corrupt, we would be seeing write-ups in all the papers every day talking about how the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold caused the economic crisis. I haven’t heard of those sorts of stories being published. So, yes, I think it is fair to say that the corruption is ongoing whether I have recently posted at any of the boards or not.

The 37-year cover-up of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) findings is the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States. When the corruption comes to an end, we are all going to hear about it. We are all going to know. It is going to be in all the papers.

My sincere take.

Rob

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

Hey Rob

After reading most of your posts and Pods , and using the calculators, I have this comment I am just a middle class person, but the evidence is undeniable Value based investing is so much more superior to buy and hold that I challenge these people out there to do this When they buy a house I guess price doesn’t matter ? Or lets do this lets buy a house that is 100% overvalued? Do we just buy when the housing market is at the top and hold forever to see maybe it keeps going up?
Or do we look for good deals prices on houses at fair market value?
Not to even have a intelligent conversation on this is crazy But to say “Here is a better explanation:
Narcissistic personality disorder” I guess this looks like to me people who are employed by the Financial Markets so they have a vested interest to keep the scam going. Wall Street is powerful but not more powerful than the people
There are a lot of us who appreciate what you have done, I guess we are silent

Max

I almost agree with everything that you are saying, Max. There’s one caveat that I would add to the message.

I think it is fair to say that Buy-and-Hold is a scam. That’s so today. I do NOT think that it is fair to say that Buy-and-Hold was INTENDED to be a scam. My sense is that it was intended to be something real and that the people pushing it got caught up in their pride and over time it was transformed into a scam. Also, I think it is important to note that the people advocating Buy-and-Hold really do follow it themselves. They deceive others about a matter that is very important and that’s a horrifying reality. But the fuller reality is that they deceive themselves first. The damage done to others is just as real. But the distinction is one that should be noted in fairness. This is not a case where people woke up in the morning and said “oh, let’s see how we can screw people over today.”

The big picture here is that as a society we are in the process of learning how markets work. We just did not know that much about the subject a number of decades back. The Buy-and-Holders taught us tons of amazing stuff. We should be grateful to them for that. And, while there certainly is money being made from the promotion of Buy-and-Hold, there is no reason why the people advocating it couldn’t make just as much money or even more promoting Valuation-Informed Indexing. The unfortunate reality is that Shiller did not publish his “revolutionary” research findings until 1981. So, until recently, Buy-and-Hold was just a mistake, it was just one of those things. Had Shiller showed that valuations affect long-term returns in 1961 rather than in 1981, I am 100 percent certain that we would all be Valuation-Informed Indexers today and that the Buy-and-Holders would all be our good friends.

The Buy-and-Holders want to invest effectively. They want to be able to retire early. They don’t want to see their country suffer from an economic crisis. They don’t want to see the political frictions that we have seen develop in recent years as the result of the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold for 36 years after we learned that there is precisely zero chance that it could ever produce good long-term results for even a single investor. But they are human. It hurts them to say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” And they suffer from cognitive dissonance. They so much want to believe in Buy-and-Hold that their minds cannot take in the message that the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research is trying to tell them.

We need to change things. You know that I believe that. I believe that more than anyone else alive on Planet Earth.

And we need to talk straight to bring about change. Pussy-footing around has not gotten the job done. We need to make use of words like “error” and “fraud” and “prison” when those are the only words that can convey the realities facing us. But we also need to be as charitable as we can possibly be without crossing the line and becoming dishonest. The Buy-and-Holders are good and smart people. They have offered many wonderful contributions to our understanding of how stock investing works. Deep down inside, they love their country and, if they could see clearly all the human misery they have caused, they would be horrified to realize what they have done.

We all want the same things. We are all in this together. The Buy-and-Holders are our friends, not our enemies. Our goal is not to defeat them but to reach common ground with them. So long as they follow the laws of the country they live in, their opposition to our ideas helps us sharpen our own thinking and we should be grateful for their respectful and yet spirited challenges to our ideas. This is a Learning Together project. We know some important things that the Buy-and-Holders do not and we need to insist on our right to speak honestly. The Buy-and-Holders also know some important things that we do not and we need to be grateful for their willingness to point it out to us when we wander to the wrong side of the tracks.

I hope that all makes at least a little bit of sense to you (and, in time, to a good number of others as well).

Thanks for dropping by. I am always glad to hear your thoughts.

Rob

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

“If I say that I believe that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacks a valuation adjustment, that’s honest posting.”

No one has ever once asked you whether Greaney’s study lacks a valuation adjustment. You are physically incapable of making it through a comment thread without taking an off-topic shot at him. Even though he hasn’t mentioned you in years.

Why is that? He moved on, and you can’t. Which means he won and you lost.

If the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research is legitimate research, there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for a single long-term investor.

Greaney is not the only person who has ever offered investing advice based on the Buy-and-Hold Model for understanding how stock investing works. There are thousands who have done so. His connection with me is that he and I both posted at the same discussion board, the Retire Early board at the Motley Fool site. I happened to post honestly re safe withdrawal rates (noting that the peer-reviewed research shows that valuations affect long-term returns) and Greaney flipped his lid.

In ordinary circumstances, everyone who looked at Greaney’s insanely and indeed criminally abusive posting would have condemned it. But many condemned me for pointing out the errors in his study rather than condemning him for failing to correct the errors for 15 years now. Bogle did not acknowledge his mistake when Shiller revealed it in 1981. He covered it up. And everyone who makes a living in this field has learned in the 36 years since that, if you don’t want to see your career destroyed by Bogle’s Goons, you will keep your mouth shut about the contradictions you see between the Buy-and-Hold concept and the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.

I don’t keep my mouth shut. So I am Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of many Buy-and-Holders.

I believe that the Buy-and-Holders will all be supporting me in the days following the next price crash. They are good and smart people. They want to help their clients and their readers. Once they see you Goons put in prison, they will feel safe posting honestly, all the nasty stuff will be brought to a full and complete stop, and we will all be free to live far better lives than we ever thought possible before Shiller published his “revolutionary” (his word) research findings.

I hope that helps a small bit, my dear Goon friend.

Rob

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

http://www.aaii.com/journal/article/insights-on-using-the-withdrawal-rule-from-its-creator#comments

Bengen is asked about and comments about Wade, Shiller, Michael Kitces, FIRECalc, CAPE. There’s even a link to one of Wade’s papers (sadly, not the one you wrote.) This is an active comment thread, so there’s no excuse for you not jumping in.

But you don’t. How can you just sit on the sidelines? You say you have the most important job in the world. This is right in your freakin wheelhouse. If you stay silent now, then obviously nothing will ever rouse you from your hibernation.

I’m grateful for the link, Anonymous.

I have commented at hundreds of places. The problem is certainly not that I have not commented enough.

We have a problem as a society. Shiller provided us the last piece of the stock investing puzzle in 1981. Had he published his “revolutionary” (his word) research findings in 1961, there never would have been any Buy-and-Hold. But it didn’t happen that way. By the time Shiller showed that valuations affect long-term returns, we already had an entire industry built around Buy-and-Hold. All of the powerful and wealthy people who were making their living promoting Buy-and-Hold did not want their clients and readers and friends to realize that they had made a mistake. So they kept quiet about the far-reaching implications of what Shiller had done. They praised him, they patted him on the head, they patronized him, down the road a piece they even awarded him a Nobel prize. But they didn’t change any of their strategic recommendations to reflect his research findings. And, as time passed, it became harder and harder for them to acknowledge their mistake and thereby bring the cover-up to an end. It’s now been 36 years. It’s now not just hard to admit the mistake, as it would have been in 1981. It’s now very, very, very, very hard.

I did not cause any of this. I came along in 2002, when I saw that Greaney got the numbers wrong in his retirement study and told my friends at the Motley Fool’s Retire Early board. Hundreds of them saw right away how important that post was. They said that I had started the most important discussion ever held in that board’s history. Greaney threatened to kill family members of anyone who continued to post honestly and eventually he got the discussion shut down. Motley Fool made clear that they would not do anything to Greaney or any of his Goon supporters but that they would ban anyone who got on his bad side. So everyone who cared about the subject of early retirement left the board and a board that was once the pride of the site became a wasteland of nonsense. Similar things happened at lots of different places. And here we are.

I don’t think that we have any choice but to open the entire internet to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and lots of other critically important investment-related topics. Shiller predicted in his book that the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies would lead to an economic crisis late in the first decade of the new Century, and, sure enough, we saw one. The economic crisis stirred up political frictions on both the left and the right that we still are suffering from today. Stocks are still priced at two times fair value. So we are still looking at a 50 percent price drop or more than that in the event that stocks continue in the future to perform anything at all as they always have in the past (every other bull/bear cycle in our nation’s history did not end until valuations dropped to one-half fair value). So we have a situation on our hands. We stand on the threshold of the biggest economic advance in our nation’s history. The peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with Wade Pfau shows that we can reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent just by permitting honest posting on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.

I’ll tell you what. Go over to that thread and ask the people there if they would like Rob Bennett to come over and share his thoughts about how safe withdrawal rates work in a world in which valuations affect long-term returns. If Wade Pfau or Robert Shiller or Bill Bengen or Michael Kitces asks me to come over and join the discussion, I will be there in a jiffy. I love my country and I love all those friends of mine and I am 100 percent happy to help. I am not going to go over there uninvited so that you Goons can engage in your trickery and stir up trouble one more time. It serves no constructive purpose. Every person alive on Planet Earth benefits if we all learn how stock investing works in the real world. Show that you want to advance the discussion and that the other people participating in the discussion want to generate a learning experience for everyone involved and I am 100 percent in. I am not inclined at this moment in time to get involved without some assurances along those lines.

We are all in the same boat. We all benefit from learning about the new research. How about you show that in your posts? How about these experts that you refer to show that they want to see responsible behavior on the part of the people participating in the discussion and make clear that they will not tolerate death threats or demands for unjustified board bannings or thousands of acts of defamation or threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs? When we begin doing this the right way, we will make more progress in 15 hours than we have made in 15 years of letting you Goons run wild with your hate. We need civil and reasoned discussions for the discussions to bear good fruit. There are rules of civility that are followed in every field of human endeavor other than stock investing and that are reflected in our laws against financial fraud. Those rules are going to need to be given recognition in our discussions of what the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research teach us about stock investing if our discussions are to bear good fruit in this area.

I am 100 percent confident that we will all pull together in the days following the next price crash. The people who you name love their country and, when they see the human misery caused by a deepening of the economic crisis, they are going to do what needs to be done. I wish they would do it today. It would be a huge plus for everyone concerned if they did it today. But you know what? I cannot make good things happen unless the laws of the United States are followed in the discussions that are held. That’s a necessary part of the equation. Show me that there has been a change of heart on the part of these people and I am in in two seconds. If there has not yet been a change of heart the best that I can promise you is that I will do the very best that I can do as soon as it appears to me that there has been a change in heart.

I hope that helps a small bit.

Rob

 

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

Scan back the last two years on your boards. Nothing about savings. Scan this site. Ditto. You continue to classify buy and hold as the biggest cause of failed retirements (a lie).

Also, to set the record straight, it was not you that made the motley fool board successful. Saw the old history on that claim and where you were set straight. The prison crap is just your fantasy.

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

All you said was “timing might make a difference”. Not why it would make a difference. Do you think anyone at Reddit ponders and deliberates and soul-searches like that before deciding to post a comment?

I certainly don’t think that anyone else at Reddit soul-searches like that.

I am in different circumstances than anyone else.

This is world-changing stuff. If I am permitted to post honestly at Reddit, then anyone who wants to will be able to post honestly at Reddit. And if it becomes acceptable for people to post honestly at Reddit, people are going to insist on recognition of their right to post honestly at lots of other places. Then the textbooks will be rewritten. Then we will be able to bring this economic crisis to an end and to prevent future economic crises.

None of that can happen without exposing Mel Lindauer and John Greaney and Jack Bogle. It’s all very, very, very, very good stuff. Everyone alive in this country today needs to have these things happen. But Lindaurer and Greaney and Bogle don’t much like the idea of being exposed. Bogle possesses great wealth and power and influence and he is not averse to using it to keep Lindauer and Greaney from being exposed. So, if the leaders of the Reddit board elect to permit me to post honestly re the errors in Greaney’s retirement study, we are going to see fireworks. You know that, I know that, the people at Reddit know that, everyone knows that.

I carry the weight of a lot of responsibilities on my shoulders, Anonymous. I would like to bring the economic crisis to an end. I would like to see the textbooks rewritten. I would like to get your prison sentence reduced to the extent possible. I would like to change the world in a very, very, very positive way.

How I play it can make a difference. So I engage in some soul-searching when I have decisions to make as to when I will put up my first Reddit post.

No one else is in these same circumstances. No one else has had a 15-year Campaign of Terror led by Mel Lindauer and John Greaney and Jack Bogle directed at him. Others are in a position where they can just dash off a post. I am not in such circumstances. My job is to play the cards that I have been dealt to the best of my ability.

I hope that helps a small bit, my long-time Buy-and-Hold friend.

World-Changin’ Rob

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

After reading this blog I learned something new. The increase in someone’s portfolio at these crazy levels are not real. When the crash comes poof ! its all gone. That’s why in 2000 and 2008 all my friends were buying new cars and homes with their new windfall. What happened after the crashes they lost their houses, jobs, marriage.

Just being an average guy with no financial education except for my extensive reading. It boils down to such a simple concept, in regards to Value investing. If I am looking to buy a new house will I want to buy at the most expensive valuation or wait until real estate comes down to fair value.? If I buy a car am I going to wait for the sale or will I buy when a new model comes out and pay top price? If I buy dividend stocks for buy and hold forever will I buy them at PE10 of 30 or 8?

Shiller is covering his ass as I like too to say. He doesn’t want to be the one to predict the crash nor does he want to be left out if the market goes up. Rob my friend you tell the truth, yet you get criticized ? The market is worth billions and with lots of money comes corruption every time

Max

Thanks for saying that, Max.

You are right that we are talking about a very simple concept. Do you know how I came to be in the situation that I am in? I first learned about how to save effectively. It’s all about recognizing value propositions. I learned that, when I spend my money on cars or clothes or vacations or whatever, I am giving up the opportunity to achieve financial freedom and all that goes with it earlier in life. It’s a trader-off. I was a horrible saver in the years before I realized that. I became a saving demon once it clicked for me.

Saving effectively led me to circumstances in which for the first time in my life I had money to invest. Given the excitement I had developed for how frugality can enhance my enjoyment of life, I naturally wanted to be frugal with my investing dollars as well. I wanted to find out where the best value propositions are. My research led me to believe that Shiller has the best answer to that one. His P/E10 is the price tag for stocks. Stocks offer an amazing value proposition when the P/E10 is low, a perfectly strong value proposition when the P/E1o value is moderate and a poor value proposition when the P/E10 value is high. Stocks are like anything else you buy. There are some prices at which stocks are worth buying and there are some prices at which they are not. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something and does not have your best interests in mind.

You humble me when you say “you tell the truth.” That is certainly my intent. I have learned from thousands of other people, including thousands of my Buy-and-Hold friends. So please don’t think that I am the only one trying to tell the truth re these matters. That is far, far, far from the reality. But I do think it would be accurate to say that I have been placed in circumstances that have permitted me to explain some important truths that most of us are not aware of and I have tried my best to take advantage of those opportunities. Lots of us are trying to do good and we are all up against some unfortunate realities and we all try to do what we can in our own ways. I hope that I have done some good with my efforts. I believe that I have.

Your corruption comment is hard to take. It is certainly true that, wherever there is lots of money at stake, there are going to be temptations to follow corrupt paths, and there certainly is a mountain of money at stake in the investing advice field. So, yes, we have seen corruption. To say otherwise is dishonest.

But it is important to be charitable as well as honest. The Buy-and-Holders are good people who want to do good things. They follow the Buy-and-Hold strategies that they recommend for others. I am 100 percent sure of that much. So, if they are working a con, they conned themselves first and others only afterwards. That reality doesn’t make the corruption go away entirely. But it does place it in a context more favorable to our Buy-and-Hold friends. They didn’t get involved in these matters with the thought of hurting anyone. The hurts that they have delivered are real and substantial. But I don’t see evidence that they started out trying to deliver hurts (and I would feel bound to say so if I did see such evidence).

The full reality here is that we just didn’t know how stock investing worked prior to 1981. Shiller’s research findings really were “revolutionary,” just as he says in the subtitle to his book. Shiller’s Nobel prize was merited. Now we know what we need to know to invest far more effectively than has ever been possible at any earlier time in history. But of course there were lots of powerful people who built their careers around the ideas that Shiller discredited with his revolutionary research findings and those people have managed to slow us from spreading the word about the first true research-based investing strategy for 36 years now. Our economic system cannot survive unless we find a way around the abusive (and, yes, corrupt) practices of these people. So we absolutely must do that. But if we are going to keep our country from being torn apart as a result, we are going to need to reach down deep and be as loving as we possibly can be toward all these good and smart people. We need to combine honesty (which tells us that there is corruption) with charity (which tells us that there but for the grace of God go we). It’s a funny kind of corruption in which those pushing the corruption hurt themselves as much as others and we need to keep that in mind at all times, in my view.

Those are my sincere thoughts re these terribly important matters, in any event.

I hope you will post again, Max. The trick to persuading lots of others to post here and to thereby advance the cause of the first true research-based investing strategy is to show them that this is not a one-man show, that there is nothing weird or odd or mentally ill or taboo about wanting to get this stuff right. If everyone who saw merit in the ideas had shown the courage to post at this site going back to the first day, the new ideas would have taken over the world by now and we wouldn’t have seen millions of people lose their jobs in the 2008 economic crisis (which was caused by the promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies, according to Shiller’s book). We need to stick together. Each time one of us dares to speak out about what we truly believe, it helps others work up the courage to do the same. Eventually, the whole world will be following these ideas. It is the pioneers that do the hardest part of the job of getting us all to that magical place where deep in our hearts we all want to live.

I know what people are going to say when we all make it to the other side of The Big Black Mountain. They are going to say” “Rob, you are so lucky to be the one receiving that settlement payment of $500 million!” I am going to punch the first person who says that right in the nose! It’s not luck. I am happy to live in a country where millions are paid to people who put themselves though this stuff in order to help out their fellow community members. But it is not luck. I earned every penny of that settlement check. I hope that the appearance of your post is a sign that as a society we are reaching a point where we will soon begin making some sustained progress.

Rob

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

I thought you said Shiller’s research was published in 1981. So somehow almost 40 years later it hasn’t changed a thing other than give you an excuse to carry on a deranged internet-based campaign.

Your point is not a bad one but it is overstated. Shiller’s research has changed everything and nothing at the same time. What I say is that as a society we are working our way through a PROCESS in which we achieve the transition from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing. It is sad that we have not made greater progress in 36 years. It is thrilling that we are so close to achieving such an amazing advance in our understanding of how stock investing works.

Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize. That’s not nothing. That’s a very big something.

Wade and I co-authored a peer-reviewed research paper that will in days to come show every investor on the planet how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent. That’s not nothing. That’s a very big something.

10 percent of the population already follows a Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy and warmly welcomes opportunities to engage in discussions about how stock investing works in the real world. That’s not nothing. That’s a very big something.

People like Jack Bogle and Bill Bernstein and Larry Swedroe and Bill Shultheis and Carl Richards and Michael Kitces includes snippets of research-based investing mixed in with heavy doses of the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage ALL THE TIME. Bernstein has never said: “The Buy-and-Hold retirement studies are wildly inaccurate and should be corrected before they destroy even more livess” as I have. But he said way back in May 2002 that, to know the accurate safe withdrawal rate when stocks are as insanely overpriced as they were at the top of the bubble, you need to subtract 2 percentage pointd from the 4 percent number. That sort of thing is not nothing. That sort of thing is a very big something.

Intellectually, we have made enormous strides. The thing holding us back is that we have not applied the law that usually governs affairs conducted in our nation in the way that we usually apply it. The Wall Street Con Men have great amounts of money and power and connections. They have been able to get away with things that the leaders in any other field wouldn’t dream of being able to get away with for two minutes.

The Wall Street Con Men are human like all the rest of us. Give them the opportunity to cover up their mistakes and some of them are going to take advantage of it and most of the rest are going to keep quiet about what they see. That’s just human nature. It’s as unfortunate as all get out but it’s really the way it has always been. It could be argued that its not when our country messes up that is the exception but that it’s all the wonderful ways in which our country gets it right that is exceptional. This case is a case in which we have not quite managed to live up to the high standards that make our country such a great place to live.

I certainly wish that every site on the internet were open to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics as of this morning, Laugh. I fervently wish that. We would all be living better lives today if that were the case.

But it’s all in how you look at it. We could be living in a world in which we didn’t have 36 years of peer-reviewed research showing us how stock investing really works. Shiller just happened to marry a psychologist. It was through discussions with his wife about how the human mind works that he got started down the trail that led him to revolutionizing this field. He might have married someone else, he might have never gotten started down that trail. Where would we all be then? If that had happened, we would still experience the next price crash. But we would all be bewildered as to why it happened. Our economic system would go down, and in all likelihood our political system as well, and there wouldn’t be much we could do about it. At least this way we can tell the story of how we messed up and pull things back together and resolve never, ever again to let something like this happen.

It’s unfortunate that we have gone 36 years without spreading the word about the amazing insights developed in response to Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) research. But the good news here is 50 times more good than the bad news here is bad. I like it that I just happened to be born at a time when it is possible to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent just by opening my mind to what the peer-reviewed research in the field says about how stock investing works in the real world. I could have been born at some other time and missed out on all this exciting stuff.

The Goon brain drives one in a negative direction. You are imprisoned by your negativity. I don’t want to deny that the death threats and the threats of career destruction have been a stone cold drag for 15 years now, destroying millions of human lives for no good reason whatsoever. But to me that is the small part of the story. The part of the story that people will remember many years from now is the part where thousands of good people put their lives on the line and put up posts expressing a desire that honest posting on the peer-reviewed research be permitted. Those people matter, Laugh. Those people shined a light into the darkness in which you Goons attempted to envelope us all. I don’t ever let myself forget those brave, kind, intelligent acts of defiance against your unrestrained hatefulness. Those people matter to me. It makes me happy to think what they will have achieved when we all make it together to the other side of The Big Black Mountain.

I have a funny feeling that you too will be looking at the efforts of those thousands and thousands of people in a different light in the days following the next price crash. But we will just have to exercise a little patience to find out for absolutely sure.

My best and warmest wishes to you.

Rob

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

We are all so lucky to have you, Rob, as the sole honest person when it comes to investing as everyone else is lying and committing fraud.

Some are committing fraud.

Some are suffering from cognitive dissonance.

Some have never educated themselves re these issues.

Some have tried to educate themselves but to this day suffer from a genuine confusion.

Some have tried to do honest work, have been frightened by the response of the Buy-and-Holders and have pulled back from doing so, rationalizing that they can do more good through that approach than by sacrificing their careers in an overly idealistic quest (I was in this group from May 1999 through May 2002).

Yes, I try very hard to post with complete honesty, even when the price associated with doing so is high. I have seen too clearly what results when those of us who have come to at least a partially clear understanding of these issues fail to do so. Shiller published his “revolutionary” (his word) research findings in 1981. Had Shiller or someone else been uncompromising in his or her insistence on his or her right to post honestly re what that research tells us about Buy-and-Hold, our board and blog communities would not have been put through what they have been put through over the past 15 years. I think it would be fair to say that every single community member (including Lindauer and Greaney) wishes that someone had done what I have done over the past 15 years back in 1981. Those acts of cowardice, however understandable, have hurt each and every one of us in very serious ways. I don’t want to engage in such cowardice, knowing where it takes us. Sue me, you know?

I don’t say that I am better than everyone else. We all try to make positive contributions. Again, I include Lindauer and Greaney in that; I believe that Lindauer and Greaney started out with an intent to make positive contributions. But here we are. It’s not all Lindauer’s fault or all Greaney’s fault. It’s the fault of all of us who failed to speak up when we saw them engaging in ugly behavior. I did that. I am ashamed that I failed to speak up from May 1999 through May 2002. I engaged in all same rationalizations that Bogle and Shiller and Pfau and Bernstein and all the others engage in today. I know how they feel and I sympathize. No one should have to see his or her career destroyed because he wants to post honestly re an important subject. But again — here we are. How are things going to change if we all keep on doing the same things?

I will post honestly, Goonie. I made that decision on the morning of May 13, 2002, and I have never seen any good reason to change it for 15 years running now. The answer is not for one more person to rationalize dishonesty. The answer is for those who are not speaking up against the abusiveness to begin doing so. We all would be better off if we all did that. I cannot force anyone else to do anything, no matter how important I think it is that they do that thing. All that I can do is to set an example by doing the right thing myself. That much I will do. And I will offer precisely zero apologies for doing so.

If Buy-and-Hold can only be defended with death threats, Buy-and-Hold belongs in the trashcan of history.

I am 100 percent sure.

If Buy-and-Hold can be defended through civil and reasoned discussion, then every Buy-and-Holder alive should unite in opposite to the tactics that we have seen employed for the past 15 years by the Lindauerheads and the Greaney Goons. There should be zero controversy re this matter.

Again I am 100 percent sure.

You are lucky to have me, Goonie. And you are lucky to have the thousands of our fellow community members who dared to put their lives and their careers on the line by posting once or twice that they would like to see our boards and blogs opened up to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. And you are lucky to live in a country that has laws against financial fraud that protect you and all of us from the sort of behavior that you have been engaging in for 15 years now. And you are lucky that you have a conscience that makes you feel bad about your behavior without me even needing to explain to you why you should feel bad.

We are all lucky. And we are all going to make it successfully to the other side of The Big Black Mountain. I wish that it wouldn’t take all the human misery that will accompany the next price crash to get us there. But you know what? The good news here is 20 times more good than the bad news here is bad. So I’ll take the package as delivered. The truth is that we are very, very lucky indeed and that we should work to keep focused on that important and encouraging reality.

You are lucky. I am lucky. And here we are quarreling for 15 years whether errors in retirement studies should be corrected within 24 hours or not. It’s a big old goody world, just as John Prine once argued, is it not?

Take care, my good friend.

Rob