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

First of all, you were banned from those boards because of your poor behavior. I can provide links if needed, but a simple google search will show this to be true.

Secondly, your post in 2002 is famous only in your mind. In fact, you should be embarrassed to bring it up. As Wade Pfau stated on his blog, you were given the answer to your question within 84 minutes. Wade has also stated that you do not understand the SWR issue.

The “poor behavior” that I engaged in was to point out the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal rate studies. That’s it. Those studies do not contain an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. There’s 34 years of peer-reviewed research showing that such an adjustment is required to get the numbers even roughly right. Buy-and-Hollders consider it “poor behavior” to point this out because they have been covering up this reality for 34 years now and they have destroyed millions of lives by doing so.

You are right that Wade said that I do not understand the safe-withdrawal-rate issue. But he said that only once after saying the opposite hundreds of times. I didn’t go to Wade and ask that he work with me. Wade came to me and asked that I work with him. He said that he had been thinking about my work on SWRs for a long time and wanted to co-author research with me settling the matter once and for all. When we were doing the research, he said that he was so excited that he could not sleep at night. He said that the implications of the research were so far-reaching that he believed that he might win a Nobel prize for it.

It was only when you Goons threatened to send defamatory e-mails to his employer in an effort to get him fired from his job that he changed his tune. I don’t think he should have changed his tune. I think he should have continued doing honest work. I think he would have been awarded the Nobel prize if he had.

Last night I watched the movie “The Insider.” It is about how the tobacco industry set about destroying a scientist who told the truth about the lies that seven tobacco company CEOS told under oath when they testified that cigarettes are not addictive. That man lost his job, he lost his wife, he was threatened with civil damages, he was threatened with imprisonment. CBS was threatened with a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit when they made plans to air his story on “60 Minutes.” The tobacco industry had a lot of money riding on keeping people in the dark about what the research showed. And they used their financial resources to keep people in the dark.

In the end, it was the tobacco industry that was defeated. Word had to get out sooner or later. There were too many people who had come to know that cigarettes are addictive for them to keep the truth bottled up forever. We live in a free society. These cover-ups just cannot last indefinitely. Trying to keep them going is a doomed enterprise.

I think that the truth about the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research is going to get out following the next price crash. If valuations truly affect long-term returns, that stands everything that we once though we knew about how stock investing works on its head. We’re going to see 34 years of progress in our effort to learn how stock investing works come about in a small amount of time. It’s going to be very exciting and it is going to show once again why our system of government is so great in its ability to overcome the mountains of money that vested interests sometimes put into keeping important truths from the rest of us.

That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event. I guess we’ll see how things go following the next crash.

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

Rob

 

 

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

“But the buyers and sellers do not have access to commentary on the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research. They do not have access to the information they need to act in their self-interest.”

Are you suggesting the Wall Street institutions that set stock prices don’t have access to the same information as you?

Yes.

Wade Pfau hold a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton. I have never taken a single course in investing. Wade should know 50 times what I know about investing.

Go take a look at the hundreds of posts at this site that relate to Wade and the things he learned about stock investing during the 16 months that we worked together. He was learning amazing things on a daily basis. He was stunned and amazed by this. He remarked on it over and over again.

The same thing happened with John Walter Russell. John was obviously a very smart person. And he studied stock investing. But his most fundamental ideas about how stock investing works changed when he met me. Then he spent eight years of his life researching the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. The more he researched, the more be believed and the more he learned. His knowledge grew deeper and deeper and deeper.

The same thing happened yet again with Larry Evans (if I am recalling the name correctly). When Larry discovered my site, he was slightly hostile. He believed in the Buy-and-Hold garbage and he couldn’t accept that I had really proved that it was all wrong. So he challenged me. He said that he would spend three weeks reading every article at the site and then would write an article giving his assessment of my ideas. He asked whether I would be willing to agree in advance to post his article even though I would not know at that time what he would say. I said that would be fine. He called me after the three weeks and said that every claim that I had ever made checked out. He said that he was laying awake at night thinking how huge an advance VII represents. He was stunned and amazed and excited.

Buy-and-Hold was a mistake, Anonymous. It is the most dangerous investing strategy ever concocted by the human mind. There is no rational discussion that can be held re this matter. Because 100 percent of the evidence is on one side and 0 percent is on the other. It is pretty darn hard to hold a rational argument when all the evidence is on one side. There is no controversy. There is nothing to talk about. Fama never even looked at long-term timing (price discipline). So it is of course impossible that he ever came up with the smallest bit of evidence that there might be some magical, mystical alternate universe where long-term timing (price discipline) might not be 100 percent required.

The Wall Street institutions have access to the same information that I have access to in a practical sense. Obviously.

But they don’t have access to that information in a real sense.

Look at what happened with Wade Pfau. He LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Valuation-Informed Indexing. He thinks it is the answer. He thinks it is the future. He had visions of winning the Nobel Prize with the research he was planning to do showing why VII is better than Buy-and-Hold in every possible way.

Then his career was threatened by some very powerful people. Wade saw all those years he spent in school going down the drain. He saw Jack Bogle and his Wall Street Con Men pals taking away the bread from his family table. He saw the lives of his wife and children being destroyed because he wanted to do honest work that would make the Buy-and-Holders “look bad.” So he gave in to the threats.

Does Wade have access to the information he needs to understand how stock investing works?

In one sense, he does. But in reality, he does not.

Wade has participated in the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States. How do you think that makes him feel? It makes him feel horrible. Wade didn’t get into this field to destroy millions of middle-class lives. He got into this field to help people. It hurts him that he has destroyed millions of lives. So he lies to himself about what he has done. He pretends that financial fraud is no big deal. All the Big Shots in this field are engaging in financial fraud today. So what does it matter if one more researcher flips to the dark side?

Wade has access to the materials he needs to do helpful research. But he cannot bear to look at it. If he looks at it, it reminds him of how he has failed himself and his family and his profession and his country. So he tells the lies he feels he needs to tell to turn a buck in this 100 percent corrupt field. And he tries hard to keep himself as dumb as someone with his intelligence can be. Because it’s only those who keep themselves ignorant of the implications of the past 34 years of peer-reviewed research who are able to earn a buck in this field so long as the long-discredited Buy-and-Hold “idea” remains dominant.

It’s the same with Jack Bogle.

It’s the same with Todd Tresidder.

It’s the same with Bill Bernstein.

It’s the same with Mike Piper.

It’s the same with the owners of the Motley Fool site.

It’s the same with Carl Richards.

It’s the same with the owners of the Early Retirement Forum.

It’s the same with Bill Shultheis.

It’s the same with the owners of Morningstar.

It’s the same with Larry Swedroe.

And on and on and on and on and on.

All of those people would like to feel free to tell the truth about the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research. And all of these people know what the Buy-and-Hold Mafia would do to them if they dared to “cross” them by speaking honestly re the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research. It is only the advocates of a single investing strategy who respond to challenges to their claims with death threats and with threats of career destruction. It is only Buy-and-Holders who do that. And we have seen the Buy-and-Holders do it over and over and over and over and over again. I wonder why.

There are people who work on Wall Street who would like to understand stock investing better than they do today. But they know the price they would have to pay. And they like the money that can be made in this field by being dishonest more than they like the good feeling that comes from telling the truth about the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research.

I like the good feeling that comes from telling the truth about the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research more than I like making a smelly and dirty buck. That’s my secret. Sue me.

I expect to make a lot of bucks too. I expect to make 500 million of the suckers. But I intend to make them honestly. And that one is non-negoitable.

I hope that helps a bit.

I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors, my dishonest and abusive-posting friend.

Rob

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

“If stocks have worms in them, the Wall Street Con Men threaten to destroy the careers of all who dare to post honestly.”

Challenge: Post an actual real world documented example of this ever occurring, OTHER than something involving yourself.

That’s the entire site, Anonymous.

I used to believe in the Buy-and-Hold garbage. I know how it feels to be tricked re this stuff.

Wade Pfau searched and searched and searched trying to find one peer-reviewed study even suggesting that there might be some alternate universe where price discipline is not 100 percent required in the stock market just as it is in every other market that has ever existed.

It’s all a Big Lie. You have been conned.

Johnny Rotten asked the fans attending the last Sex Pistols concert: “Have you ever had the feeling that you have been taken?” That’s you.

That was once me too. I am not saying that I am any smarter than you. I realized on the evening of August 27, 2002, that it was all a massive con. I’ve never looked back since. Legitimate strategies can be defended without death threats. When you find yourself making use of death threats, you need to ask yourself where you made a wrong turn. Because that ain’t the way.

When you want my help, I’ll be here for you. That’s not a time-sensitive offer. Ask anytime you please, even after the crash if it comes to that.

But please stop embarrassing yourself by asking me to participate in the biggest con ever worked on the people of the United States. I worked at a job I hated for nine years while I planned my early retirement. I spent every night and every weekend assembling the materials in my 40 binders. If I hadn’t worked it that hard, I could easily have been taken in myself. And I don’t find that idea one bit funny. I earned my retirement money. I expect to be able to find honest and accurate reports re what the peer-reviewed research in this field says about how to invest it.

I deserve that. We all do. We all should demand it.

I am your best friend in the world. You don’t know it. But I am.

I’m happy to help you. Not by joining in the con. That wouldn’t help at all. Once I joined the con, nothing I said would count anymore. I wouldn’t be able to help you at that point.

You have been taken. You will get it after you lose most of your life savings in the next crash. Please don’t say that no one tried to warn you. I tried. And thousands of your fellow community members expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted.

You let your Get Rich Quick urge run wild. That’s how the con men reel you in. They know your weakness and they profit by exploiting it. You gave them power over you. That was a terrible mistake.

Or so Rob Bennett sincerely believes in any event.

We’ll see how things go in coming days.

Hang in there, man.

Rob

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

Rob says: “The legal way for this debate to have proceeded would have been to have permitted honest posting going back to 1981. ”

Uhm, Rob…….the internet did not exist in 1981. Not only that, it was a long time until there were financial discussion boards after the start up of the internet.

No, the internet didn’t exist. But the same tactics were being employed in the pre-internet days.

Shiller has made several comments suggesting that intimidation tactics have been directed at him. When the prison sentences are announced, all sorts of things are going to come out. I bet that Shiller could write an entire book about the intimidation tactics directed at him.

Rob Arnott posted here about two academic researchers who showed an interest in doing research showing the benefits of Valuation-Informed Indexing and were taken aside and told that their careers would be destroyed if they dared to “cross” the Wall Street Con Men by doing honest work.

And of course I reported here on discussions I had with Ravic Sethie at Columbia. He wants to do honest work. He is afraid to go there. Gee, I wonder why.

You can go back to the morning of May 13, 2002, and look at the responses we saw from my famous post pointing out the errors in the Greaney study. There were two types of reactions. All the people who were on the level (both Valuation-Informed Indexers and Buy-and-Holders) were saying how this was the most exciting discussion we ever had at the Retire Early board. And then there were the Goons threatening to kill family members of posters who posted their honest views. Huh?

I didn’t know about the financial fraud stuff on the morning of May 13, 2002, Pink. I was just telling people about the errors in the Greaney retirement study. I assumed that the errors would be fixed and that that would be the end of it. You Goons obviously knew about the errors before I posted or you wouldn’t have gone so nuts. You freaked out because you knew all along that Greaney was vulnerable if someone worked up the courage to post honestly. You were insanely defensive and there had to be a reason for that.

There are lots and lots of other examples of what I am talking about here. This site documents what happened from May 13, 2002, forward. I wasn’t personally involved in this matter before then. But it is clear that people knew about the problems with Buy-and-Hold long before I came on the scene and were keeping their mouths shut because it had become widespread knowledge that speaking honestly about Buy-and-Hold meant career death.

There is no intellectual controversy here. There never has been, at least not since 1981. All of the evidence is on one side and there is zero evidence on the other side. So what is there to discuss?

What we have is a power imbalance. The Wall Street Con Men have more power and money and connections than the rest of us and they have demonstrated a ruthless willingness to destroy anyone who exposes their con. That’s the deal. This is about power, not research. I believe Fama is real. He is a top-notch researcher. But Fama never even looked at long-term timing. So the idea that his research showed some legitimate grounds on which to conclude that price discipline might not be needed when buying stocks is pure fraud. Some believe it. I guess you could say it’s a mistake with those people. But it’s fraud for those using death threats and threats of career destruction to keep those who show an interest in exposing the con in line.

The significance of the internet is that it made it impossible for the Wall Street Con Men to keep the massive act of financial fraud going. The millions of middle-class investors whose lives were in the process of being destroyed now had a way to share what the research says and thereby protect themselves from the con. That’s where the Internet Goon Squads came into the picture.

This is why I focus on the prison sentences today. Lots of people want to make nice with the Wall Street Con Men. I tried doing it that way myself. But people who have been participating in a massive act of financial fraud are primarily concerned with going to prison. Showing them that they can help millions of readers or clients is not going to have much effect on them. The only way to change things is to get the prison sentences announced so that we can put the ugly side of this behind us and move on to all the exciting insights that have been opened to us by the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research.

The Wall Street Con Men should have jumped at the chance to come clean that I inadvertently presented them with my May 13, 2002, post. They cannot keep the con going indefinitely. So it is in their best interests to get everything out in the open and behind them. I don’t think there would have been prison sentences had they come clean in May 2002. Not too many people had been hurt in a serious way at that time and there’s a lot of genuine confusion re the content side of this. Had Motley Fool shut down Greaney, we would all be in a very different place today.

But we cannot change any of that now. Now there is too much stuff on the record for us to avoid prison sentences. I believe that even the Wall Street Con Men and you Goons would play it differently if we could go back in time. But it’s too late for that. Given where we stand, it’s best for every single person involved that everyone come clean by the close of business tomorrow. But the Goon brain doesn’t see things that way.

Anyway, it’s been going on for 34 years, going back to long before the internet became a factor. The benefit of the internet is that we have time-stamped posts to document the con from May 13, 2002, forward. Those time-stamped posts will be a huge help in all the trials. This story shows the tremendous power of the internet to do good as it achieves its potential as a new communications medium. That’s a very exciting aspect of the story, in my assessment.

Come clean tomorrow, Goon!

I know you won’t. But it doesn’t hurt to ask every now and again.

Take care, man.

Rob

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

“We need to make a demonstration as a people that we will not tolerate the intimidation tactics of the Buy-and-Holders any longer. ”

Intimidation? Please. You’ve been afforded much more presumed credibility than any internet crank deserves, by having many people tolerate your crap and even respond to it as if it were a legitimate case of ignorance or misunderstanding or other solvable situation, rather than just ignoring you — as is the most deserving response. Over the years, people have continually provided you links, discussion, argument, examples, references, analogies, details, particulars, history, explanation, and any number of other valuable resources all geared towards your personal enlightenment. So, ‘Intimidation’? Please. Hardly. For the last decade, you have used the same phone number that you publicly provide, same address that you publicly tout, same web address, same everything, and have never provided once scintilla of evidence of a SINGLE threat or act of intimidation. So, I’d say that is not just remarkable, but damn near incredible, given the nature of the internet, which attracts crazy likes flies to a picnic. And no, this is not a death threat, you idiot. It’s a friendly and human sincere invitation for you to finally to wake up, smell the coffee, greet your wife, kids, community, and acquaintances anew, and from this day forward, begin to act towards them as a responsible adult: get a job, save some money, be a responsible parent and spouse, and quit being nothing but a full-time nuisance internet crank, devolving deeper and deeper into your self-made land of mental illness, and imaginary threats.

I’ll talk a bit about intimidation.

The thrust of your comment is a suggestion that you will not be going to prison because you never came to my house with a gun at fired it at my wife or children. That’s not the test. You will be going to prison.

The threat to come to my house with a baseball bat and kill my wife and children is an act of intimidation. My wife certainly saw it as that. She will testify to how she felt when that threat was made. She was at the time taking care of a two-year old and an infant of five months of age. The jury will hear all this. They will decide on the length of your prison sentence.

Motley Fool deleted the most violent posts. But I believe we can get them to present as evidence either by going to the Motley Fool files or by using a WayBack machine or through some other means. Portions of the deleted posts were included in posts that were not deleted. So we always have those. And there were references to the death threats made at the Bogleheads Forum and other boards and blogs and you Goons demanded bannings of all posters who posted honestly on the matter. That shows a guilty conscience. If the death threats had not been made, there would have been no need to cover them up.

I filed a police report re the death threats. That will be available as evidence. I also made a report with a special office on internet crimes in Virginia. I also contacted the FBI. The question that the police officer focused on was whether I believed that you would follow through on the threats. I said that my wife was much more worried about that than I was but that I did not believe that my wife should have to live in fear because an individual got an important number wrong in a retirement study posted at his web site and because I pointed that out to friends of mine who had been planning their retirements pursuant to a belief that that individual (John Greaney) had done honest work. I said that I personally did not believe that you Goons would kill anyone. I added that I could not be certain because anyone who was crazy enough to put up a post in “defense’ of John Greaney is capable of just about anything.

I have copies of posts containing HUNDREDS of threats of physical violence. There are posts where you Goons discussed what model of gun to use to kill me. Those will be seen by your jury. I have copies of posts in which you posted photos of my church and made suggestions that you Goons would be showing up there. Those will be seen by your jury. I have posts showing that a swarm of you Goons descended onto the Bogleheads Forum when community members there complained about the constant abusiveness. You wouldn’t have had a swarm descend if you didn’t have a long record of abusiveness at many different forums. Those posts will be seen by your jury. And on and on and on and on and on.

And of course your jury will be seeing all of the threats that were directed at Wade Pfau. The Bennett/Pfau research is the most important piece of research published in this field in three decades. That research should have been written up on the front page of the New York Times when it was first published. The only reason it has not been is because you Goons threatened to destroy Wade’s career if he continued to post about it and Jack Bogle indicated that he backed you and your use of intimidation tactics 100 percent. Bogle allows his name to be used at a site that permits posting by Mel Linduaer, a guy who was employing threats of physical violence to suppress honest posting on the peer-reviewed research in this field long before I came on the scene!

The most important question is WHY Buy-and-Holders feel a need to resort to threats of physical violence and of career destruction whenever anyone posts honestly on safe withdrawal rates or any other critically important investment-related topic. The obvious explanation (it wasn’t obvious to me on the morning of May 13, 2002, but it is 13 years later) is that Buy-and-Hold was based on a MISTAKE going back to the first day. There has never been even a tiny sliver of support for the preposterous Buy-and-Hold claim that there is no need for investors to practice price discipline when buying stocks. The entire historical record shows that practicing price discipline is 80 percent of the game. That’s a lie that Buy-and-Holders use to take money out of the pockets of millions of middle-class investors and to put it into their own.

This massive act of financial fraud will be exposed. I will expose it. You have my pledge. I am sure.

I will name names. Any blogger who has permitted participation at his site by an individual who has posted in “defense” of Mel Linduaer or John Greaney or Jack Bogle will be named. Their juries will decide the length of their prison sentences. That’s not my call. But I guaranty you that their names will become known to the millions of middle-class investors who are in the process of seeing their lives destroyed because of the 34-year cover-up of the biggest “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) advance in the history of personal finance.

I am going to see that you are put in prison, Anonymous. There will be no meanness to it. My aim is to put you in prison as soon as possible so that your sentence will be as short as possible, given the circumstances that apply. But it would be cruel of me for me to suggest that there is any but the most long-shot chance that you will not be going to prison. I will continue to do what I can to get your sentence reduced a bit. But that’s as far as my bending goes. There will be no felonies being committed on my end. There will be no discussion of felonies being committed on my end. Find someone else.

My best and warmest wishes to you, Goon friend.

Rob

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

What did the recent Bogleheads posts on P/E 10s linked here not say? What exactly is the “peer-reviewed research” information Bogleheads won’t allow there?

For starters:

1) The errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies were not discovered when the Wall Street Journal wrote about them but 10 years earlier when a post reporting on those errors was posted to Motley Fool’s Retire Early board;

2) Two-thirds of the risk of stock investing is the result of the promotion of Buy-and-Hold “strategies” and the Ban on Honest Posting on the dangers of Get Rich Quick strategies supported by Jack Bogle and the other Wall Street Con Men;

3) By switching from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing, workers can realistically expect to be able to retire from five to ten years sooner than would be possible if they did not make that switch;

4) The “idea” that it is not necessary to practice price discipline when buying stocks was a mistake. There has never been even a tiny sliver of evidence anywhere in the peer-reviewed research suggesting that all investors need not always practice price discipline (long-term timing) when buying stocks;

5) There have been four occasions in U.S. history when the Wall Street Con Men were successful in persuading large numbers of investors that all the rules of stock investing might be stood on their heads and for the first time Buy-and-Hold might work well for one or two long-term investors in this or some other solar system. The first time that happened, we saw the first of four economic crises that we have seen as a nation. The second time, we saw the second economic crisis. The third time. we saw the third economic crisis. The fourth time, we saw the fourth economic crisis.

6) Jack Bogle pulled his “15 percent rule (the “idea” that it might be okay if investors lowered their stock allocations by only 15 percent when stock prices rose to insanely dangerous levels) out of his backside.

7) It was the promotion of Buy-and-Hold “strategies” that caused the economic crisis that began in 2008.

8) Robert Shiller predicted the economic crisis that began in 2008 in a book published in 2000 and explained why the economic crisis was inevitable unless we began telling millions of middle-class investors the truth about how the stock market works.

9) The stock market becomes a Ponzi scheme when stock prices reach insanely dangerous levels. There is now 145 years of historical return data showing this.

10) Many academic researchers and many investment advisors and many journalists and many bloggers want to tell the truth about stock investing but have been intimidated into silence by the brutally abusive tactics of the Wall Street Con Men and their internet Goon squads.

That’s all important stuff, Anonymous.

There are good reasons why as a people we elected to make financial fraud a felony, a crime calling for prison sentences for those found guilty of it.

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

Rob

Set forth below are excerpts from the texts of two comments posted to another blog entry at this site by a Goon poster going by the name of “Laugh.” The second comment was posted a little over an hour after the posting of the first comment.

Comment #1: Um, except the papers are all available publicly and have been read by thousands and tens of thousands of people without any barriers. There is no cover up. The information is freely available and well known (as well known as any Nobel prize winning research). It has had no effect on market crashes.

You say there is a cover up but any individual in the world can download the information and act upon it without any inhibitors. The barriers you have created you have built yourself within the confines of your fevered mind.

Comment #2: Those boards are the property of other people/companies/etc. They can kick you out at any time.

You can also say ‘I followed the board rules’. Those board rules can be changed by the owner of the board at any time, and the board owner doesn’t really have to follow them either.

I am sorry that you have been operating under these illusions for more than a decade. It is truly sad.

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

So even if your load of BS regarding Wade is true what about the thousands of other researchers you referenced?

Many of the researchers still believe in Buy-and-Hold, Anonymous. Wade believed in Buy-and-Hold before we did our work together. John Walter Russell also believed in Buy-and-Hold before we did our work together. And I believed in Buy-and-Hold myself before Greaney threatened to kill my wife and children if I continued to post honestly on safe withdrawal rates and 200 of my fellow community members endorsed his post.

Believing in Buy-and-Hold is easy. Believing in Buy-and-Hold today is like what it was to believe that the earth was flat in the days before mankind learned that the earth is actually round. The earth sure appears to be flat. It’s not at all hard to understand why most people once believed that. Buy-and-Hold sure appears to produce good results for significant periods of time. Those who followed Buy-and-Hold strategies did gangbusters from 1981 through 1999. What’s not to believe?

The purpose of research is to go beyond surface appearances. It appears that stock price changes are determined by economic developments. That’s why the Buy-and-Holders jumped to that unfortunate conclusion. Shiller’s 1981 research went beyond surface appearances and showed us that that is zero chance that it is economic developments that cause stock price changes.

If it were, stock prices would fall in the pattern of a random walk. In the long term, they never do. That means that it is something else — investor emotion — that determines stock price changes. Economic developments can have an indirect effect because economic developments influence investor emotion. But investor emotion is the dominant influence. Economic developments must pass through the filter of investor emotion before they have their effect on stock prices.

That changes everything.

Most academic researchers understand that there are holes in the Buy-and-Hold Model. But most do not yet buy into the Valuation-Informed Indexing Model. For that to happen, we need to permit them to do honest research and to talk over their research findings with all of their peers. We need to have all of the experts in this field talking over all of the exciting discoveries that we have made over the past 34 years. When that happens, knowledge will grow and grow and grow and grow.

We cannot wait until there is a 100 percent consensus that Valuation-Informed Indexing is the answer before permitting honest discussion of the findings of the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research. If we demand a 100 percent consensus before permitting the first honest post, we will never get to where we all very much want to go.

We have 34 years of peer-reviewed research showing what works. That’s enough to justify opening up every board and blog on the internet to honest posting. Once we do that, it’s all downhill sledding. We all want the same things. There are hundreds of billions of dollars to be made getting these ideas out before people. If we permit honest posting at just one large board, we will see good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff. We will end up experiencing the greatest period of economic growth ever seen in the history of our nation.

But we do need to start. For so long as all of the researchers fear that their careers will be destroyed if they publish just one honest research paper or post one honest comment, we cannot get the ball rolling. For us to see THOUSANDS of honest and accurate reports of what the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research shows us, we need to start with ONE honest and accurate report. The rest just follows from that.

The problem is that the cover-up has been going on for 34 years. The Wall Street Con Men are worried that they will be going to prison if they come clean today.

I cannot change that by myself.

If people want to talk about some sort of amnesty, I am fine with that. But I cannot adopt an amnesty by myself.

I hope that all makes good sense to you.

My best wishes to you and yours.

Rob

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

“The issue here is not what I know but what Bogle knows and what Bernstein knows and what Burns knows and what Pfau knows. They all know LOTS of stuff that they are not telling us. And that’s a crime in the United States. It’s financial fraud. It’s a felony. That means prison time.”

None of those guys owes you jack squat. Not only are they not required to tell you anything they know, they can take a stroll by your house while it’s burning down, yawn, and keep on walking. Your spectacular misconception is that all kinds of people owe you all kinds of stuff. No wonder you’re so bitter.

They owe the entire country a minimal level of honesty when they speak on investing topics.

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? What you say here just does not line up with what we see when we look at the law books. Bernie Madoff is in prison today. But there is no requirement that people in this field honor even minimal ethical standards? Huh?

We are in an economic crisis today because of the continued promotion of the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage. The economic crisis has even affected people who don’t invest. There are millions of people unemployed today because Jack Bogle has not see fit to come clean re the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.

I believe that everyone who speaks on what the peer-reviewed research says has a responsibility to speak honestly re the subject.

Juries will decide on the lengths of the prison sentences following the next price crash. That one is not my call. But I sure do not want to have any posts in my file in which I can be shown to have commented in “defense” of Mel Lindauer or John Greaney or Jack Bogle when that day comes.

Fair enough?

Rob

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

All the people you mentioned do post honestly and are free to post on boards of their choosing. You, on the other hand, can’t post on many of the boards due to your behavior. Those boards have a right to block you, just like you block posts on your board. I would also take issue with what you call “honest” posting.

We disagree as strongly as two people could possibly disagree, Anonymous.

I delete posts for the perfectly good reason that this is a personal finance site and there is no place here for death threats and other forms of intimidation. Normal people cannot have civil and reasoned discussions if I don’t block that sort of thing. I have no choice if I want the site to serve its purpose.

The Buy-and-Holders block posts that make research-based challenges to Buy-and-Hold because those posts make research-based challenges to Buy-and-Hold. In an objective sense, that is pure financial fraud. They are telling lies about how stock investing works and making money from it and they block posts that call them out on their lies because they don’t see how they can get anyone to believe the lies if they are exposed and discussed. That ain’t financial fraud? Huh?

It is obvious financial fraud. Nothing could be more clear in an objective sense.

Now –

I add the phrase “in an objective sense” because there is another angle to the story here and that angle is important and needs to be considered. The people who are doing the blocking believe in Buy-and-Hold in one part of their consciousness and indeed follow Buy-and-Hold strategies themselves. And, even if they were personally willing to permit research-based stuff to appear at their sites, they have a marketing problem in that the research-based stuff drives away their readers.

That’s a serious problem. That cuts the other way a bit. So I doubt that all of those people will be going to prison. Some of them no doubt will be going to prison. But not all of them. I don’t think any of us can say how many of them will be going to prison. There’s never been a situation like this before. We are in uncharted territory. But it’s pretty darn remarkable that even one person has put himself in circumstances in which going to prison is even a remote possibility. So I think that the prison thing really must be mentioned from time to time. It is part of our story.

Now –

There was once a post by my good friend Wanderer that has stuck with me through all the years since he advanced it. Wanderer felt bad about the smear campaign that they were directing at me back at the FIRE board. So at one point he said something to the effect of: “It’s not like we are the Amish and are shunning him everywhere in the Amish world. He can always go post somewhere else.”

That’s not true, is it?

I could post somewhere else if I played it the way Todd Tresidder plays it. Todd gives his readers research-based stuff on issues of substance. But he stays far away from telling his readers the truth about the process-oriented questions. He doesn’t explore why the errors in the Old School retirement studies have been covered up for 13 years. He doesn’t tell people how it was the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies for 34 years after the peer-reviewed research showed that there is zero chance that they could ever work for even a single long-term investor that caused the economic crisis. Todd went so far as to call me on the telephone and threaten to ban me from his site if I continued addressing the process-side questions in comments put to his site.

You Goons would permit me to post at other sites if I dropped the process-side stuff, Anonymous. That is the thing that you do not want to so. You don’t want me to say “the Buy-and-Holders got it wrong” like I did when I showed that Greaney got all the numbers wildly wrong in his retirement study. And you don’t want me to report on the intimidation tactics that you use to block millions of middle-class investors from learning how the Buy-and-Holders got it wrong . We are working at cross purposes. The thing that you most do not want to see is the thing that I most DO want to see. I want to show people the DANGERS of Buy-and-Hold.

I had a long series of discussions with Mike Piper at the Oblivious Investor blog about these questions. Mike acknowledged that he thinks Valuation-Informed Indexing is a perfectly reasonable strategy. He doesn’t follow it himself. But he sees nothing even a tiny bit wrong with it. If it didn’t upset his readers, he would be happy to permit me to post at his site. But it DOES upset his readers. A LOT. He had readers writing to him to complain about me all the time when I was posting there on a daily basis. I was driving them crazy. I was posting research-based stuff that showed that Mike’s strategies were going to provide horrible long-term results. They very much wanted to believe in Mike’s strategies. So they told him that either I went or they went. Mike didn’t like being put in that situation. But he makes his living from his blog. So eventually I went.

Is Mike liable for the losses that his readers are going to suffer in coming days in the event that the stock market continues to perform as it has unfailingly performed for the 140 years for which we have records available to us?

I like Mike as a person. So there is a part of me that is sympathetic to his circumstances that says “maybe he will not be held liable for those losses.”

But my strong hunch is that I would like a lot of his readers too if I got to know them. So there is another part of me that says “obviously he is going to be held liable. That is an outrage. To ban honest posting is a violation of all this country’s basic beliefs and in fact is a felony under the laws of the United States. How could he possibly not be held liable? How could he not be sent to prison for a long time for doing something like that?”

I am not God, Anonymous. I don’t know with certainty how things are going to turn out.

I know that I don’t want to find myself in the circumstances in which Mike is going to find himself in the event that stocks continue to perform in the future anything at all as they always have in the past.

And I know that I don’t want to find myself in the circumstances in which Todd Tresidder is going to find himself either. Todd is Mike’s friend, as I am. But Todd plays it differently. Todd acts like he thinks there is nothing ethically or legally wrong with Mike’s ban on honest posting at his site. So Todd is not much of a friend, is he? Todd is going to have to live with his conscience if Mike is sent to prison or found financially liable for the losses suffered by his readers.

I don’t want to find myself in those circumstances. So I am not going to play it the way Mike is playing it or the way that Todd is playing it or, heaven help us all, the way that you Goons are playing it.

It’s not even a matter of me deciding not to play it that way. I am physically incapable of playing it that way. I have never given the idea two seconds of consideration in 13 years of posting re these matters. If you never consider something, you can never agree to that something. And in 13 years of discussions about whether honest discussions should be permitted, I have never even considered the idea. So I really believe that even a Goon like you should get the picture at this point.

I have gotten the picture from the other side of the table. I once believed that you Goons would eventually break and permit honest posting if enough pressure was applied. But I believe that we passed the point at which that was possible when you threatened Wade Pfau. At that point it became impossible for any reasonable person to believe that you would not be going to prison once all of this goes public. And people who are going to prison don’t generally permit the stuff that is going to get them sent to prison to get out.

So I am resigned on my side to the idea that we are going to have to wait until the next crash to resolve these matters. I obviously don’t like the idea. And there’s always that tiny bit of hope that causes me to write comments like this one. But I put those odds at about 10 percent at this point. The odds are very long today.

So what do you want from me?

I obviously cannot change course and you obviously don’t feel that you can change course. So we wait for the crash. No?

When you put up comments that may help people in future days understand some aspect of this matter, I will continue to permit them to show up. I am never going to prohibit you from posting here. That one is not in me either. But I cannot say that I understand what purpose is being achieved by you continuing to comment here. You are not ever going to break and I am not ever going to break. So my suggestion is that you find something else to which to direct your posting energies.

I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, in any event.

Rob