Poorly done on “getting defensive” by you as well. Forget about Rich but why do you always get defensive if you are called wrong anytime on any topic or any piece of information? Rich very graciously handled your question and also apologised and explained his initial response. A graceful response from you would have been to accept his perfectly fair reasoning. You didn’t focus on his response but focussed on him calling you wrong.
You said Rich is “public personna”. Why and how? Just putting up a blog and discussing housing economics, doesn’t make him a public personna and requires him to disclose his personal finances. Repeatedly asking for someone’s finances would have been crass, invasive and rude though. Secondly, please explain how Rich revealing his profits could affect his integrity on this board? What is so courageous about being open about your personal finances? I for one, agree with Rich that it is in bad tatse to reveal or boast your profits on public forums. It makes discussions personal unnecessarily.
I think deep down you also know why you were called out on this one. The way you boast or announce your opinions as prophecies about timing DOW or RE markets, gives a glimpse of the over confident arrogance. In most cases, this arrogance leads you to argue just for the sake of it.