Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
I could if I were willing to take the time to look it up, Evidence.
This happened before I posted there. Several community members made reference to Swedroe’s banning. It’s not hard to figure out what caused it. Swedroe talks about the importance of valuations all the time. During the time I was posting there, he never once posted in support of those of us who were saying that honest posting should be permitted on safe withdrawal rates. But I’ve seen that he has in recent days written an article that points out the errors in the Old School SWR studies. When he is not on the Bogleheads Forum, he is willing to post honestly on SWRs. Perhaps it was that.
But it could have been any of a hundred things. Valuations affect every aspect of the stock investing project. So it could have been just about anything. What I know from reading posts that others put up is that Larry was banned for a time and then he agreed not to post honestly and he was let back on.
People said that he did this because he wanted to use the forum to promote his books. I suppose that that is speculation. No one can know the precise motive. But it certainly is a reasonable guess. Say that it’s not that. Say that Larry just wanted to be able to talk things over with other people. It’s still wrong to demand that he post dishonestly as the price of admission to the forum, no? It’s degrading. And it’s dishonest. And its fraudulent.
The people who demanded that he post dishonestly should cover the loses of all those who lose money as a result of the ban, no? It certainly does not make sense to have those who followed advice offered at a forum where the one thing that is banned is honest posting on what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research says pay the price for those acts of fraud. Those people did nothing wrong. How could they ever suspect that honest posting was banned at an investing forum? The published rules of the site suggest that honest posting is PERMITTED. So how would they know?
We all should be speaking up against this sort of thing EVERY TIME WE SEE IT. Bogle should be speaking out against it in the strongest possible terms. Wade Pfau too. Scott Burns too. Bill Bernstein too. Mike Piper too. EVERYONE. That’s how we bring Buy-and-Hold down and put the first true research-based strategy (Valuation-Informed Indexing — which is Buy-and-Hold with the dishonest Get Rich Quick part removed) in its place.
I have a file where I keep copies of hundreds of threads from the Bogleheads Forum (which was called the Vanguard Diehards forum in an earlier day). When the time comes to testify, I can go to that file and pull up the posts at which Swedroe’s banning was discussed. I am not going to go to the trouble today because anyone who spends a little but of time at this site gets it that Buy-and-Hold is today a 100 percent discredited strategy promoted through corrupt means. Those who pretend otherwise aren’t going to start posting honestly because I provide the links to the threads where Swedroe’s banning was discussed. But, if a jury needs to see them for some reason, I have them.
We are not talking about a simple cover-up today, Evidence. We are talking about a cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up. As times passes, it gets worse and worse and worse. It can never get better until my good friend Jack Bogle walks to the front of a room and says those magic words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” It is by Jack’s speaking of those magic words that we all come clean and gain the ability to bring this economic crisis to an end, show millions of middle-class Americans how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent, and bring on the greatest period of economic growth in our history.
My best wishes to you, Evidence.
Rob
feed twitter twitter facebook