Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that I sent to Jane Hamsher, owner of the FireDogLake.com blog, on Saturday, December 19, 2009: 

Jane:

My name is Rob Bennett. I write the “A Rich Life” blog (www.arichlife.passionsaving.com). I was encouraged to read your article entitled Left/Right Populist Outrage Will Defeat Senate Health Care Bill at the www.huffingtonpost.com site. I am a supporter of Sarah Palin. So we obviously do not agree on many political issues. However, I want to make you aware of an issue on which I believe a combined left/right populist outrage could do a world of good for millions of middle-class people and to ask your help in spreading the word.

The issue is — Buy-and-Hold Investing. The Buy-and-Hold Model was discredited by the academic research nearly 30 years ago. Yet The Stock-Selling Industry continues to spend millions today promoting this model because it has brought in hundreds of millions in profits. I have spent the last seven years of my life trying to get the word out to people through posts to discussion boards and blogs and have had much success with a small group. However, the far larger group finds it hard to believe that The Stock-Selling Industry would continue to promote this model for so long after it has been discredited and the owners of the big financial sites and blogs have banned honest posting on this matter rather than permit people to ask the questions they need to ask before becoming persuaded that there are far more effective ways to invest their retirement money. There are now bans in place at Morningstar.com, at Motley Fool, at IndexUniverse.com, at Bogleheads.org, and at numerous blogs.

The reckless promotion of Buy-and-Hold is the primary cause of the economic crisis. Several financial planners have told me that their clients are begging to hear of more realistic approaches. But the planners feel trapped. To go public with what they know about the flaws of the now-dominant model would in all likelihood mean the end of their careers. The failure of the Buy-and-Hold Model is The Truth That May Not Be Spoken today in InvestoWorld.

If you have an interest in learning more about this issue, I hope that you will direct some questions to me. It’s not complicated. And this is NOT an economic issue. It once was. With the ban on honest posting that now applies at all the large internet investing sites that I know of, this is today a POLITICAL issue. Liberals and conservatives should be united in opposing a ban on honest posting on so important a topic. Liberals should be concerned about the financial damage being done to middle-class investors and conservatives should be concerned about the harm done to the functioning of the market when people cannot gain access to realistic investing advice. We all should be concerned about bans on honest posting re ANY issue of public policy significance.

Here is a link to an article providing background that is entitled “The True Cause of the Current Financial Crisis Is Buy-and-Hold Investing”:

http://www.passionsaving.com/cause-current-financial-crisis.html

Here is a link to an article that provides links to 20 articles in which leading figures in the field decry the financial harm that has been done to us through the reckless promotion of Buy-and-Hold and the failure of “experts” in the field to take action for so long now (It’s entitled “Buy-and-Hold Investing Doesn’t Work — These Links Prove It!):

http://www.passionsaving.com/buy-and-hold-investing.html

Here is a link to an article giving brief snippets of 101 comments of my fellow community members expressing a desire that the smear campaigns that have been employed to block reasoned discussion of this matter be stopped and that honest posting be permitted (It’s entitled “Investing Discussion Boards Ban Honest Posting on Valuations!”):

http://www.passionsaving.com/investing-discussion-boards.html

If you want to check out my credibility, please go to the home page of the “A RIch Life” blog and scroll down to the section marked “People Are Talking” on the left-hand side of the page. There are a number of extremely kind comments about me and my work posted there along with links to the places where the comments were made. Some of the comments were made by ordinary people. Some were made by authorities in the field.

I hope that I will hear from you in the event that you have an interest in learning more. I of course wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors in any event. Your Huffington Post article was top notch stuff, in the assessment of this Palin supporter.

Rob
http://arichlife.passionsaving.com