Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site.
Don’t worry. Jack, Larry, Wade and Bill aren’t afraid. They are just fine.
Their behavior tells a different tale, Anonymous.
The entire Vanguard Diehards community was moved over to the Bogleheads Forum when I announced that I would be attending the annual meeting and asking Jack some questions about the effect of valuations on long-term returns.
That happened because Jack was afraid to be in the same room with me and to try to answer the questions that he knew I would put to him.
Nothing could be more obvious.
When one of the leading figures in investing analysis is afraid to face questioning from some fellow whose only claim to expertise in this field is that he figured out how to get his words posted to the internet, there is a good bit of funny business going on.
Jack Bogle is afraid of Rob Bennett. He doesn’t believe that he can offer good answers to my questions. That’s sad. All of us who are Jack’s friends should be trying to do something about that.
My sincere take.
Rob
Anonymous says
Ooooohhhhhhh, pppplllleeeeaaaassssseeeee Rob, have mercy on all of us. We are all so scared and only you are the brave one. Tell us all what we should do and think. Only you are the one that knows everything. You are just to powerful, so we are all cowering in the corner and just to afraid to challenge your superior intellect.
Rob says
It’s not a question of superior or inferior intellects, Anonymous. I have never met a dumb Buy-and-Holder.
It is the Buy-and-Hold Pioneers who came up with the idea of rooting one’s investment strategies in the peer-reviewed research. They were right about that one. They should have stuck with it. All of the insights that I have developed over the course of the first 12 years of our discussions follow from a belief that the Buy-and-Holders were on the mark re that one and should have had the courage of their (initial) convictions.
I am the true Buy-and-Holder because I followed the idea of using the peer-reviewed research where that idea led us. The problem with the Buy-and-Holders is not that they possess too little intelligence but that they possess too much false pride. When subsequent research shows that earlier research is in error, corrections must be made. Discredited research is a POOR guide. Reporting what the research says dishonestly and inaccurately is not the same thing as reporting what the research says honestly and accurately. It is not a close call.
We will all be working together in future days, Anonymous.
How can I be so sure?
Because I have looked at the research, just as my good friend Jack Bogle taught me. The research shows that we have no choice but to acknowledge our mistakes and move forward. So I am highly confident that that is what we will do.
I hope that you will help me bring on that day as quickly as possible so as to shorten the pain of all of my Buy-and-Hold friends, you Goons very much included.
And I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors regardless of what investing strategies you elect to pursue.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, old friend.
Rob