Set forth below is the text of a recent comment to another blog entry at this site:
Observation: The truth don’t take long to tell.
You’re wrong, Anonymous. Tell the truth of why people with black skin were once not permitted to drink from the same water fountains as people with white skin in 10 words. It cannot be done.
You can tell oversimplified versions of the story that are more lies than anything else in 10 words. But you cannot tell the truth in 10 words.
It would be a lie to say that white people wanted it that way. Because many white people did NOT want it that way.
It would be a lie to say that black people were okay with the situation. Because many black people were NOT okay with the situation.
To tell the truth, you have to say something about the history that both white and black people of the time were born into. People are born into a gravely flawed world and then they work up ways to cope with it.
Jack Bogle is a hero of mine. He has accomplished great things. He is the second most important investing analyst alive today (second only to Robert Shiller).
Jack Bogle is a con man. He may well find himself on trial for financial fraud following the next price crash. He has posted in support of Mel Linduaer on numerous occasions and has failed to address the Lindauer matter after being notified of the problem in numerous e-mails.
The statements in both of the above paragraphs are true.
The complete set of realities cannot be reduced to 10 words. People need to hear both sides of the story to understand enough about the situation we are in today to know what needs to be done to help us out of it.
You are a Goon. Your heart is filled with hate for the past 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research.
You once had a sincere desire to know the realities of stock investing. It is the failure of your dream that has crushed your spirit enough to turn you into a Goon. If Shiller had published his research in 1971 instead of 1981 so that you wouldn’t have gotten your pride tied up in “defense” of the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick scheme ever concocted by the human mind, you would be the biggest advocate of Valuation-Informed Indexing alive on the planet today.
The claims made in both of the above two paragraphs are true. It is not possible to tell the true story about what makes you a Goon in 10 words.
My job is to lead us out of the dark place in which we find ourselves. I cannot do it by answering goonishness from one side with goonishness from the other side. I cannot do it with 10-word descriptions of complex human realities.
If I were to try to reduce it all to something in the neighborhood of 10 words, I would say –
All human battles are battles of love versus hate and love must prevail in the end if the humans are to continue to exist together on this planet.
That’s the best I can do for you, Anonymous.
My warmest wishes go out to you and your Goon friends that you will find the spark of humanity that I believe resides somewhere in your heart to this day. Juries want to see a spark of humanity when they are debating within their minds whether to show some mercy or not.
Rob
Anonymous says
Rob,
All the people you continue to bash, like Jack, Rick, Larry, Wade, etc have all been highly successful with their careers and have also been successful in the investing world. You, on the other hand have not had success in either, yet you sit here acting as if you know more than each and should be the vaulted leader. Don’t you see how delusional that is?
Rob says
No. It’s not even a tiny bit delusional.
That’s exactly what you would expect to see with any Get Rich Quick scheme. Wasn’t Bernie Madoff hugely “successful” in the days before he was sent off to prison? My good friend Jack Bogle is just Bernie Madoff operating on a stage 5,000 times bigger.
Everybody who has studied the history of investing knows that Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold is what brings in the bucks. The problem is always that the same thing that brings in the bucks for the people giving the advice ruins the lives of the people taking the advice. Our economy has grown too big for us to continue destroying human lives on this scale. We are either going to open up a means for millions of middle-class people to obtain ACCURATE and HONEST investing advice or we are all going to go down together. Those are the options available to us today. It’s not all about turning a quick buck.
And I of course am not bashing any of those people. I am liberating those people. Jack Bogle wants to feel free to give accurate and honest research-based investing advice. It’s the same with Rick Ferri. It’s the same with Larry Swedroe. It’s the same with Wade Pfau. Nothing could be more clear. Read their stuff.
The question is — How do we get from this horrible place where we find ourselves today to the wonderful place where deep in our hearts we all want to be tomorrow?
We don’t get there by being afraid to stand up to you Goons, Anonymous.
We get there by INSISTING on our right to post honestly on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. That’s my contribution. It’s by being uncompromising re the honesty question that I have been showing all these people you mention the way out of this mess.
I am the best friend that Jack Bogle has in this world. And there will come a day when Jack will say that he is my best friend in the world too. I have mentioned before that I don’t expect even to have to file papers to collect the $500 million. I will if I have to. But I don’t expect to have to. Somewhere deep down Jack (and all the others too) loves his country.
That’s my secret weapon, Anonymous. If Jack loves his country (and there is a mountain of evidence showing that he does), he is going to act to save it when he comes face to face with the vast amount of human misery that he has caused following the next price crash. That is going to melt Jack’s heart. If he has any good in him at all (I believe that he has a great deal of good in him), that is going to melt his heart.
We are all successful in our own ways. We all have our jobs to do in this world. The job that was given to me was to be the one who opened the entire internet to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.
It’s an important job. It’s a hard job. It frightens me how hard it is. But I suppose that if it weren’t awfully hard it wouldn’t be so darn important, you know? If it weren’t so hard, someone would have completed the job a long time ago.
I’m going to give it my best shot. You’ve got my pledge re that one.
If I don’t make it, that would be very, very sad in about one-hundred different ways. It would be sad for Jack and it would be sad for Rick and for Larry and for Wade. And for you! And for me! So let’s all pray that I make it!
But I am not God. I cannot say with certainty that I am going to make it. No man can say that about any job that he takes on. What I can say with certainty is that I will give it my best shot. I can do no more and I can do no less.
You and I have very, very different idea about what constitutes “success” in this world. You measure it by how many dollar bills one can trick people out of. I see it as putting your best effort into the job that you were put on earth to do. Bob Dylan once wrote that: “There’s no success like failure and failure is no success at all.” I believe that.
Take care, man.
Rob
Anonymous says
Thank you for your post. It once again demonstrates your delusional thinking. When some unsuspecting new person comes along and wants to know more about what you really think, all we have to do is direct them to posts like these and they will immediately see that you have significant mental issues.
Rob says
Yeah, yeah.
Take good care, man.
Rob