A Question about The Wave

Research on Safe Withdrawal Rates

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JWR1945
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A Question about The Wave

Post by JWR1945 »

For hocus:

Was there any conscious connection between your reference to The Wave in terms of early retirements and John Mauldin's website and email newsletter? This is just a matter of curiosity.

John Mauldin is a prominent investment advisor for high net worth individuals. He is president of Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor. People can subscribe to his free E-Letter using this link:
http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/subscribe.asp

Have fun.

John R.
hocus
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Post by hocus »

Was there any conscious connection between your reference to The Wave in terms of early retirements and John Mauldin's website and email newsletter?

There's no connection.

I like Mauldin's stuff, and I believe (based on excerpts he has published at his site) that his forthcoming book ("Absolute Returns") will lend support to my SWR efforts. After we get a chance to read his book, he might be a good person to invite here as a Special Event guest.

I don't recall exactly what made me come up with the Wave concept. It think it is that I was trying to think of something that carries suggestions of both playfulness and terror. Waves are a lot of fun until they get too big, and then they are not too much fun at all.

When I refer to "the Wave," the reference is to the entire community of people who want to learn about how to achieve financial independence early in life. I started thinking about this in the summer of 2000, when the Retire Early Home Page board was in its Golden Age. Someday, I will put together a post giving links to some of the comments that were made about that board at that time. It pains me when people diss the community there because the community that was brought together there was wonderful when it was assembled. The best elements have left and great damage has been done to the abilities of those who remain to share ideas freely. But it is a mistake to diss the community. The REHP board community is the most important victim in the saga.

I find it hard to accept that people who were there in the Golden Age can say things like "it's only a message board." There were all sorts of people from all walks of life saying things you don't hear people saying very often. They were not saying "this is a good board, I like it." They were saying "this is the best message board I have found anyplace on the internet, and I have looked at hundreds of them." The REHP board was special. It was the subject matter that made it special. It was the move away from discussion of the subject matter that killed the board (only so that it can rise from the dead at some unspecified future time).

The Wave is comprised of tens of thousands of people whose names we do not know because they have never posted on a board but who are part of the community to whom we should be addressing our posts. When intercst puts up a poll, 99 percent of the Wave do not vote because 99 percent of the Wave does not know that these boards exist. When I write a post, I write it not for the small number of people now participating at one of the existing boards. I write it for the entire Wave. I have been doing this from the beginning. I've always seen this movement as something that is growing, and I have always directed my posts not only to those currently posting and lurking on the boards but also to those who will be posting and lurking five and ten years from now.

This is why I often make reference to the Post Archives. If a message board post is supposed to be a disposable commodity, something that is read only by those currently participating on a board, why is it that Post Archives are maintained? The Post Archives are there for future generations of board participants. Posters need to keep the needs of those future generations in mind at all times, in my view.

One of the concerns I have about the future generations is that they be able to make sense of discussion held in earlier times. This is one of the reasons why deceptive posting is such a sore spot with me. When a poster deliberately misstates the position of another poster, he is doing damage to the historical record and thereby damaging the efforts of future generations to make sense of the discussions. I view this as a serious violation of an unwritten Social Contract that governs relations between the various generations of posters.

The Wave is the whole thing, it is the FIRE movement in its entirity. I think the way this came up is that people on the REHP board were questioning why I soldiered one, given the fact that the intercst polls showed me to be in a minority in my views on SWRs. Those polls never impressed me because only a tiny segment of the Wave is able to participate in them. People who have given up on the board in disgust do not participate and people who have not yet learned of the board do not participate. The polls are entirely unrepresentative of the community in its entirity (past, present, and future board participants).

I was looking for a symbol of the dynamic force that FIRE community possesses to change the nature of this debate once future board participants (a much larger group than current board participants) become engaged on the issue. For Information Seekers, I believe the Wave is going to lift us up very high; it is going to be a wild, exciting, fun ride to the top. For Disruptors, I believe it is going to be a crushing wipeout. The term I used to describe all this had to have these elements of hope and fear combined in one colorful term or phrase.

The term "the Wave" did it for me because I enjoy body-surfing, and so I see waves as something fun, but at the same time there were a few one time in Hawaii that knocked me clear to the ground and spun me around a few times. I am expecting to see the FIRE wave to be one kind of wave for some members of the existing posting communities and a different kind of wave to others.

Waves also wash things clean, so that's another way in which the term has the right associations in people's minds. I believe that a problem in both the REHP board community and the FIRE board community is that old-timers have become entrenched in their views and are hostile to new ideas. I believe that both boards need new posting blood. Waves have a reputation for washing things clean, and beginning a process of healthy renewal.

It was a great relief to see the title of your post and know that your question was not going to require me to work through any big scary numbers. The Wave doesn't care about numbers at all, you know. It just somehow knows whether you are a good guy or a bad guy. It knocks the bad guys down and lifts the good guys up.

The Wave is amazing!
JWR1945
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Post by JWR1945 »

John Mauldin is...president of Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor.
hocus
When I refer to "the Wave," the reference is to the entire community of people who want to learn about how to achieve financial independence early in life. I started thinking about this in the summer of 2000, when the Retire Early Home Page board was in its Golden Age.
We will have to ask John Mauldin how he decided on a name for his business. It looks as if both of you had 2000 in mind, although he might have been thinking about 2001. I could not help but notice the similarity in dates.

Have fun.

John R.
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