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

You have indicated that some Wall Street con men are going to pay you $500 million. There are hundreds of thousands that work for Wall Street banks. Which ones are going to pay you? How is that determined?

Anyone who wants to can chip in, you know? It’s not for me to say. They are smart people. Let them work it out among themselves.

You consistently seem to miss the point that we are all in this together, that we all want the same things. That reality is core to all of this. You can’t leave that part out and get to a reasonable place.

The Wall Street Con Men are not our enemies. They want to do good work. They want to help people. How can they get to a place where they are able to do that again?

They get to that place through the national debate that we need to have. That’s how these sorts of transitions are achieved. The Wall Street Con Men already talk about the national debate among themselves. They talk about it publicly because they don’t want to get their heads chopped off. But they obviously want to put their human energies to a good purpose. Why wouldn’t they?

The $500 million helps smooth the transition. It puts us all in a place where we can talk to each other like friends. I love Bogle. My work makes Bogle’s work shine in a way that it has never shined before. So in ordinary circumstances Bogle would love me. But Bogle is trapped in a corner. How do we get him out? It helps for him to contribute to the $500 million payment. That makes a statement. That permits him to get all the nasty stuff behind him and to direct his energies to all the groovy, research-based, life-affirming, non-fraudulent stuff.

I would imagine that Bogle would ask around to find out who wanted to be involved. Bogle knows people. And most of the people that Bogle knows know other people. This sort of thing is not a tiny bit hard to pull off.

There is one element that is hard. Bogle needs to work up the courage to say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” After that, everything is easy for everybody. It has over time become very, very, very hard for the man to say those words. He should have said them in 1981. It would have been easy then. Now it is very, very, very hard. I wish it were not so. But that is the reality we are facing today.

All of the rest will just flow naturally. Bogle needs to work up the courage to say the three magic words. That’s the entire ball of wax re this matter.

Rob

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

You must have the power since you are the one bringing up the topic.

No. That’s silly.

I am a journalist. Journalists tell stories. They don’t put people in prison.

Some stories involve prison sentences. In those cases, the journalists have to mention the prison sentences. But all they are doing is telling the story accurately and completely. That’s why I mention the prison sentences — they are part of the story being told here.

Please think where you would be if everyone were talking about your prison sentence, Anonymous. If that were the case, you would have pulled back from the criminal behavior soon after it started. So your prison sentence would have been very short. That would have been a much better outcome for you and for all of us, no?

There is no charity in seeing criminal behavior and failing to speak up about it. People don’t speak up out of cowardice, not charity. Wade Pfau stood up to Mel Lindauer when Lindauer claimed that he had done unethical research. Then he noticed that Jack Bogle was not going to say anything about it. That scared him. That’s what caused him to capitulate to you Goons.

What effect do you think Wade’s capituation had on others who have given thought to doing honest research in this field? It scared them away. When someone like Jack Bogle fails to speak out about prison sentences when that is the obviously appropriate thing to do, that sends a signal to people that a field has become very corrupt. People want to see leaders lead. Bogle has failed to lead re the Lindauer matter. That scares all of us. That causes the problem to get worse, not better. There is zero charity in that.

I am trying to keep your prison sentence as short as possible. That means getting the word out as quickly as possible. Failing to mention your prison sentence would be insane. What possible good could ever come of that? I want to see every discussion board and blog opened to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. What the heck good would it do to fail to talk about the prison sentences? An argument can be made that to fail to speak up about financial fraud that one sees taking place before one’s eyes is to aid that act of financial fraud, which is to commit a crime of one’s own. It is the criminal behavior of you Goons that is keeping Buy-and-Hold alive today. To fail to talk about the criminal behavior (and the prison sentences that inevitably follow from it) would be pure foolishness and irresponsibility.

No?

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 don’t know where you got that one, Anonymous.”

Read the second line of your last response.

The second line of the post that I believe is the one that you are referring to states : “Have you ever seen a Valuation-Informed Indexer put forward a death threat?” How does that translate into: “So John, Mel, Jack and Wade all made death threats?,” which is the statement that prompted me to write: “I don’t know where you got that one, Anonymous”?

Mel Lindauer and John Greaney have advanced death threats. Jack Bogle and Wade Pfau have not. But Bogle and Pfau did not speak up when they saw Lindauer and Greaney and the members of their respective Goon Squads advancing death threats. Why not?

When people in positions of responsibility fail to speak up re insanely abusive behavior it creates an environment of intimidation that affects every person who participates in community discussions. If it were not for that environment of intimidation, we would have over the past three decades had thousands and thousands of good and smart people warning us all of the dangers of Buy-and-Hold and we wouldn’t be living through an economic crisis today.

So the entire thing is a scam. If an idea cannot survive without regular, heavy doses of intimidation tactics being employed to keep smart people quiet, that thing is a con, a scam, a fraud. No?

Buy-and-Hold wasn’t a scam prior to 1981. It was once a real thing. But it has been 36 years now since Shiller published his “revolutionary” (his word) research findings. And we are still discussing this stuff. Huh? What the h?

Millions of people have been hurt in very serious ways, Anonymous. It’s not a joke. This is serious business.

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:

“That’s not a decision that I made lightly. In Chapter 12 of my book (Passion Saving: The Path to Plentiful Free Time and Soul-Satisfying Work), I examine the possibility that worse could come to worse and that I would not be able to provide for my family. I say that, in those unlikely circumstances, one has to conclude that that was what was meant (by God or by Evolution or by The Fates or by whatever you believe in — I believe in God) to be and that my wife and my children have to learn whatever lesson they were meant to learn from the experience.”

What lesson did your wife and children learn from all of this?

We don’t know yet, Anonymous. We’re still living through it.

The point is that things happen in this life for a purpose. That’s a core belief of mine. John Walter Russell said a long, long time ago (perhaps in 2003) that (I am paraphrasing): “I believe that this is going to work out better than anyone could possibly imagine.” That had the ring of truth for me at the time he said it and there have been scores and scores of things that have happened in the days since that have confirmed for me that we are in the process of seeing some amazing, positive, life-affirming developments here. As I often put it, the good that we have seen here has been 50 times more good than the bad that we have seen here has been bad.

What makes life hard is that you don’t get to see the conclusion of the process while you are working your way through it. You have to have faith in your fellow man that, if you do what is right, there will be a payoff at the end. I believe that. I love my country. I love the internet. I love Bogle’s idea of using the peer-reviewed research as guidance on how to invest. My confidence in those things is going to pay off in the long run. The great things about our economic and legal system are going to pay off big time for all of us. The invention of the internet is going to pay off big time for all of us. The peer-reviewed research is going to pay off big time for all of us.

I believe that strongly. But you never know precisely how it is going to happen. That’s the drama. That’s the scary part. That’s what makes faith hard. That what makes life hard.

And we cannot force God (or Evolution or whatever) to play it the way we want Him to play it. My mother once told me that maybe Valuation-Informed Indexing might catch on after I die. That one also had the ring of truth to my ears! Maybe I watched too many episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” when I was a kid and I am just drawn to trick endings. But I could see something like that happening. It could turn out that Valuation-Informed Indexing really is the future and that in time it becomes dominant over Buy-and-Hold but that all this would only happen after I were no longer around. I would hate that! But it could happen. I don’t rule out something like that.

That could benefit my boys. They will be around after I am gone. It could be that that they will see it all play out in a positive way after I am gone and then realize for themselves the importance of being determined and perhaps make some change in their own lives as a result that will pay off in a big way for them or their children. I don’t know the specifics. We don’t get to know the specifics. But of course I wouldn’t know the specifics of staying at the corporate job either. Some people would describe that path as “safer.” But no one can ever say for sure. You might choose the safe path and then end up becoming an alcoholic because the work you do is so meaningless — Oops!

I have done the right thing for my country and for my fellow community members and for my profession and for my family and for myself and for my parents (who did so much to prepare me to do something like this) and for my friends (from whom I have learned things that made it possible for me to pull this off) and from the authors of my favorite books and for the writers of the songs that aided my determination and for the academic researchers who long for the day when they can do honest work again. I don’t have any doubt about any of that.

I have done the right thing for the Wall Street Con Men. The Wall Street Con Men never meant to cause an economic crisis when they came up with Buy-and-Hold. They thought they were doing a good thing. They never imagined in their worst nightmares that they were creating a monster and that some day things would get so horribly out of hand. I have done the right thing for you Goons. You cannot bear to acknowledge it. But I believe that 100 percent. I treat you like humans. I don’t make rationalizations for not standing up to you (I once did, but I have not done this since the morning of May 13, 2002). I show you respect when I treat you like humans. That’s charity. Failing to speak up is cowardice, not kindness. I am 100 percent sure re that one.

I cannot tell you what lessons my wife and children will learn from this. I can tell you that I know that I have done the right thing and that I BELIEVE that doing the right thing pays off in the long run. I have lived a blessed life in just about every other respect. Perhaps I have had it too good and God wanted me to experience some suffering to prepare my soul in some way for other things that I will be seeing in future days and perhaps the same is true for my wife and my children. I do not know. I believe that there is a purpose in life and I believe that abandoning all that you believe in because some Goon on the internet is embarrassed for people to know that he got an important number wrong in a retirement study posted at his web site is not the way to go. Not for anyone. Not even for that Goon.

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

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

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 asked Mike Piper why he considered banning you, do you think he would tell me the truth?

“I do not.

Most likely he would mix partial truths with partial falsehoods.

I’ve seen a lot of that sort of thing over the past 14 years, both from Mike and from others.”

What bloggers would tell the truth about you?

On the day when this story is written up on the front page of the New York Times, every blogger alive, including Mike Piper, will tell the truth about me and about all the rest of it.

I don’t know that one would tell the full truth today. They all are worried about what would happen to them if they did.

How many journalists told the full truth about Scott Armstrong (the biker who was taking performance-enhancing drugs to win his races) before he was exposed? No one dared to do so. Lots of them knew. But Armstrong is a powerful and wealthy and vindictive person. He threatened to sue anyone who told the truth about him and he followed through on his threats in some cases. People lived in fear of him. No one lives in fear of him today. Everyone feels free to speak openly about what he did today.

The same will happen in this case. The Wall Street Con Men are powerful and wealthy people and they have shown a a willingness to engage in unethical behavior if that is what it takes to keep this covered up. But, once it is exposed, lots of people will be telling their stories all at once.

It has to come out. The benefits of exploring the implications of the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research are too great for it not to come out. There’s a lot of money to be made giving millions of people accurate and honest and truly research-based investment advice. People are not going to pass up that money indefinitely. And people are going to want to do something about the economic crisis following the next price crash. The pressure to do something is going to grow too strong to resist.

Given that it has to come out, it is better for every single person involved that it come out quickly. A lot of the people who have done bad things are caught up in something bigger than them. A lot never expected things to get this out of hand. A lot have done good work and made important contributions. They would love to see this ugly stuff brought to an end. All it takes is a few people of courage to make life better in hundreds of different ways for millions of people.

It’s a matter of time, Anonymous. We are close.

My sincere take.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

It is far more likely that he [Bogle] does not respond to aggressive and unhinged letters.

An e-mail that points out that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies do not contain a valuations adjustment and that there is 35 years of peer-reviewed research showing that a valuations adjustment is required is not aggressive and unhinged, Laugh. An e-mail like that demands a response from an individual who is widely known as the lead promoter of the Buy-and-Hold strategy. If the tables were turned, I would not let 24 hours pass without responding to that e-mail.

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:

It is wonderful to see how principled Rob is.

It is equally sad to see how clueless Rob is.

That’s an odd comment, Laugh.

I naturally wish you all good things.

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:

Fear and attacks are your game. You are the one calling people goons and con-men. You are the one telling people they are going to prison.

You haven’t accomplished a thing, unless you consider avoiding work an accomplishment.

Calling you a Goon makes me a Goon, Sammy. That makes perfect sense.

I sent an e-mail to the site administrator of the Motley Fool site in June 2002 asking that he ban John Greaney (the author of a Buy-and-Hold retirement study who failed to include an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins in his study) for threatening to kill family members of any poster who posted honestly on that study or on any other aspect of the Buy-and-Hold strategy. Had Greaney been banned, you obviously wouldn’t be worried about going to prison today. Take it up with Motley Fool, you know?

People should have been calling out the Buy-and-Holders on their b.s. all along. If people had called out Bogle beginning in 1981 when Shiller published his “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) research findings, not one poster would have been shocked when I pointed out the error in Greaney’s “study.” The entire problem was caused by people being afraid to call out the Buy-and-Holders because the strategy has so much money behind it. Is any of that my doing? Did I spend hundreds of millions of dollars promoting Buy-and-Hold?

Each time someone calls out one of you Goons, he helps every person who works in this field and indeed every person who invests money to provide for his or her retirement. I have called you out THOUSANDs of time. There is no one who has called you out as frequently as I have. There is no one in a close second place.

But I am the bad guy here! Truly outstanding!

I don’t see it, Sammy. I wish you all good things. But I do not buy what you are selling. I would be grateful if you would try to find someone else.

If I had a time machine, I would take us back to May 2002 and I am 100 percent confident that you would vote for banning the guy this go around. You know what? I don’t have a time machine. I am playing the cards that I was dealt in the kindest way that I can possibly play them. The sooner you come clean, the shorter your prison sentence will be. I am calling for you to come clean by the close of business today! Is there something else?

Hang in there, good 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:

If no one will state it, then what evidence do you have that indicates that will change in the future?

It’s common sense, Anonymous.

Look at what happened with the Bernie Madoff con. People who had looked at the numbers knew that Madoff was working a con long before he was exposed. People wanted to believe because we all carry a Get Rich Quick urge within us. But people stopped believing when they lost most of their retirement money.

What reason do we have for thinking that it might turn out different with Buy-and-Hold? I sure am not able to think of anything. People LOVE being told that they possess more in the way of assets than they really do possess. That’s why Buy-and-Hold is so popular — the lie being told is a soothing one to the ears of millions of us. But there’s nothing soothing about seeing your retirement account wiped out. When we see in flesh-and-blood terms how the Buy-and-Hold lies have destroyed our lives, we will turn on the con men who have directed so much of their human energies to pushing those lies and to profiting from the human weaknesses that make us all susceptible to them.

That’s my sincere take, in any event. We will have to wait to see how things play out to know for certain.

My best 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:

It couldn’t be ignorance based on your description above as it would have to have been purposeful.

I have never seen any evidence that the mistake made by the Buy-and-Holders was purposeful. The idea that it is not necessary to exercise price discipline when buying stocks is rooted in the peer-reviewed research showing that short-term timing doesn’t work. At the time that research was published, index funds did not exist. So there was no way to check whether long-term timing is required or not. Index funds came into existence in the 1970s and then Shiller showed that long-term timing is required in 1981.

The death threats were purposeful. The demands for unjustified board bannings were purposeful. The tens of thousands of acts of defamation were purposeful. The threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs were purposeful.

You Goons will be going to prison, some of you for a very long time.

The good people who innocently continue to believe in Buy-and-Hold today will of course be working with all the rest of us to make the world a better place for all.

We will naturally be sending out best wishes in your direction wherever you end up, my old friend.

Rob