Thursday’s blog entry reported on Mike Piper’s decision to delete a comment of mine from his blog. Mike’s blog entry reviewed a book by Taylor Larimore and Mel Lindauer, The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing. The deleted comment pointed out the role that Taylor and Mel have played in imposing a ban on honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and other important topics at the Vanguard Diehards board and at the Bogleheads.org forum.
Set forth below is the text of the e-mail that I received from Mike explaining his decision to delete the comment. I will post the text of my response to Mike in Thursday’s blog entry.
Hi Rob.
I’m sorry, but I’m not comfortable publishing that comment. The reason has nothing to do with the “respectful” part of the comment rules, as you were clearly made an effort to be respectful.
The issue is that I really don’t see it as “on topic.” It brings up things that happened at another forum, which, frankly, most of my readers don’t seem to care about.
Also, for reference, the book really is about far more than just investing. “Safe withdrawal rates” has precisely two entries in the index.
The first is for a discussion of how to apply a “safe withdrawal rate.” For example, should a person select a percentage, and withdraw that percent every year? Or should they start with a percentage, and adjust that dollar amount upward every year to account for inflation? It explains that the first method is far less likely to result in the investor running out of money, but it’s not entirely practical for investors who can’t adjust their expenses on an ongoing basis.
The second is a very brief mention in the chapter on early retirement. Basically, it says that an investor who retires at age 40 will have a lower SWR than an investor who retires at age 65 (assuming they both intend to spend the majority of their money over the course of retirement, rather than leave a significant amount to heirs).
Surely both of those points are ones we can all agree on, no?
Mike seems entirely reasonable
I don’t agree with the “entirely,” JCL. But I think he is trying.
My sense is that Mike thinks of a lot of the people who have tolerated the Ban on Honest Posting at Vanguard Diehards and Bogleheads.org as friends and he of course finds it humiliating to his friends to tell the straight story re how the retirement book was developed. I think he genuinely believes the book is a good book. I also think that he genuinely believes that the Ban on Honest Posting was a horrible mistake. He is now placed in the difficult position of wanting to tell his readers about how good the book is but not wanting to tell them about the horrible circumstances under which it was developed. So he refrains from telling the full story and deletes comments at his blog that do report the full story.
It’s a mistake. This is the same mistake that the Passives made back in 1981, when Shiller published research showing that the odds of Passive working in the real world for the long-term investor are precisely zero. As JohnDCraig pointed out, they elected to go with the “white lie” that Shiller’s research wasn’t that big a deal, knowing that any economic crisis that was going to follow from that decision wasn’t going to come soon (stocks were selling at insanely low prices at the time).
Down the road, that “strategy” didn’t work out so hot, did it?
White lies lead to black lies. Those who know history know that it happens over and over and over again. This time it has happened to the Passive Investing enthusiasts. And Mike is letting his feelings of friendship pull him into the same ugly trap. Friendship is a good. So is personal integrity. The trick for the integrated human is balancing the two in the right proportions.
My advice to all my friends (both Passives and Rationals) is to tell the truth about these matters, straight and with no chaser but always with charity. Mel knew that he was discrediting himself as an investing “expert” when he engaged in intimidation tactics to silence those on the board who pointed out the flaws in the Passive Investing “idea.” JohnDCraig had a post where he observed that Mel is now a published author and that he had better begin acting like it. Mel chose to ignore that good advice. Mel is a big boy. Mel is going to need to learn how to fight his own battles. Mike should be focused on doing what is right for his reader, not what Mel thinks is right for Mel.
Mike is a good guy who is making a mistake. He is NOT doing the charitable thing (although I am confident that he believes he is). Mel will need to rebuild his reputation one honest comment at a time and the longer he goes without acknowledging his mistakes the longer it will take to get the job done. Mel had demonstrated that he has no idea what is best for Mel, and Mike is just going along with what Mel wants for Mel. That might get him links, but that’s not a true friendship.
I wish the best for both Mike and Mel. I encourage Mike to tell it straight and thereby to help Mel come to understand what he needs to do to begin rebuilding his reputation. Some may think it is not possible. Some might be wrong. What I know is that we all will never know for sure until we give doing the true pro-Mel thing a good, solid try. I’m with Mike in his feelings of friendship for Mel. I am not at all with him in his decision to sell out his community (on this one issue) to retain Mel’s favor (which is given with inappropriate strings attached).
My sincere take.
Rob