Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:
John Bogle is an 84 year old grandfather. He has suffered poor health for years, and has had a heart transplant. He still maintains a completely positive attitude towards life, but openly acknowledges that his remaining days are numbered. He was a child of the hard-scrabble depression. He put himself through College at night. He is a man who has made huge mistakes in his youth, and in his career, and owned up to them — even offered them up as counter-examples for others to avoid. By 1974, he had built Vanguard into the second largest mutual fund company in history. He has written about a dozen highly successful books, has lectured, and is nearly universally revered among anyone familiar with him, even those tiny few who might disagree with his basic premises (not very many of those around). History, data, analysis, and the most recent developments in Behavioral Finance all tend to endorse the general surmises and approaches and investing advice that he developed for individual investors, starting way back in the fifties. He has received numerous awards and acknowledgements from a variety of stalwart institutions of academia and industry over the years. Even at his advanced age, long past retirement, he continues to volunteer and to serve and to speak, ONLY for the general benefit of the ‘common man’, not for honorarium, or fame. He is a plain spoken, and a simple man. A truthful man. One of his universal themes has always been to support the individual investor and his quest for security, not to build personal wealth, fame, or some corporate giant, out to optimize profits at the expense of investors and customers.
Given who HE is, I sincerely doubt that he is at this point ‘afraid’ of anything. Anything at all. So he would certainly not be afraid of some little pipsqueak liar on the intertubes who he had never heard of, or if he had, took minimal notice of, after rapidly establishing that he was dealing with a QUACK.
Rob, you should be deeply ashamed of yourself.
Is he truthful about Mel Linduaer, Anonymous?
Richard Nixon did many great things in the course of his lifetime. What is he most remembered for today? A reputation is as strong as its weakest link. Jack’s knowledge of the Lindauer matter is documented.
You talk the “I Love Jack Bogle” talk. I walk the “I Love Jack Bogle” walk.
It was years ago when I first advised my good friend to disassociate himself in every way, shape and form possible from the sorts of individuals who have put forward posts in “defense” of Mel Linduaer and John Greaney. I’ve noticed that you have held back, waiting for it to become safe to do so. Some friend.
By correcting Jack’s errors, I have taken Buy-and-Hold to places he never dreamed of being able to take it. No apologies. That’s the job.
And by speaking out in opposition to Linduaer and Greaney I have put myself in circumstances where I can defend Jack’s work following the next price crash, something that none of those who were too afraid to speak out can do effectively.
Mel Linduaer is an internet goon, a nothingburger. My good friend Jack has been responsible for 90 percent of the “fame” that Linduaer enjoys today. I somehow find it hard to believe that Linduaer would have a column at Forbes if it hadn’t been for Jack’s recommendation.
Linduaer thanks him by dragging his reputation through the mud. He thanks him by telling him he had better behave or Mel will sic his Goons on him.
Jack has real accomplishments to his name. Linduaer is an internet Goon extraordinaire. Because he has shown repeatedly a depraved indifference to human life possessed by few, he tells Jack to roll over and Jack rolls over. Linduaer asks Bogle to bark and Jack barks and then looks up with pleading eyes asking the Master whether he has barked loud enough to be spared a whipping this time.
Yuck!
I respect Jack for the days in which he was not ashamed of his humanity, the days in which he wrote in his book that he would want his friends to tell him about any mistakes he made that caused millions of middle-class workers to suffer grave financial harm.
One of the two of us should be feeling deep shame, Anonynous. I think it would be fair to say that much.
Mel Linduaer demanded that I be BANNED FOR LIFE from both Morningstar.com and the Bogleheads Forum. I’d be grateful for anything you could do to spread the word all across the internet.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
The header on your website says “The old ideas…don’t work. Here’s what does”, yet all I find here are hate-filled polemics against prominent people. Sad…
It is a good thing that you have been banned from the popular financial boards as it is difficult to have a “normal” conversation when you are present. Why should one person be allowed to ruin a community for others? Get over your hurt feelings. If you want to participate, learn how to properly communicate and stop trying to justify your distorted perceptions.
The new ideas need to grow, Uralapin.
They grow by being heard by other people.
The new ideas help EVERYONE. So,if we were thinking clearly, every last one of us would be excited to hear about the new ideas.
The unfortunate reality is that some of us are emotionally attached to the old ideas, the ideas that need to be replaced.
Jack Bogle is one of those ones.
He is a giant in the field. He has accomplished great things. I owe him a big debt. And so do you. And so does everyone else.
But he is not thinking clearly today.
He is in a defensive mode.
He is engaging in shameful behavior (failing to address the Linduaer matter) in “defense” of the old ideas instead of carrying out his responsibility of seeing that all ideas, both old and new, can be discussed at a discussion board with his name on it.
You won’t find a bigger John Bogle fan than Rob Bennett anywhere on the planet.
That’s why I hold him to minimal standards of ethical behavior.
That’s what friends do. It’s a show of RESPECT.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
Why should one person be allowed to ruin a community for others?
It doesn’t ruin a community to permit honest posting on the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research at it, Anonymous. Permitting honest posting brings an investing community to life!
The things that are causing problems were all in place before I came on the scene. There was the research that for a time seemed to support Buy-and-Hold that was published from 1965 to 1980. Then there was the 33 years of research showing that Buy-and-Hold can never work in the real world (it was 21 years of research when I put up my May 13, 2002 post but it is 33 years of research today). There was the long cover-up of the implications of the last 33 years (or 21 years) of research. And there were the millions of middle-class investors who had staked their retirements on the discredited research and who became insanely defensive when it was challenged.
Do we want to leave those realities in place? Or do we want to change them?
If we want to change them, the only way we can do it is through conversation. Honest conversation. Blunt conversation. Clear conversation.
Warm conversation too. Polite conversation too. Respectful conversation too.
It is certainly important that our conversations be warm and polite and respectful. But it is every bit as important that they be honest and blunt and clear if we are to achieve our goal of making our board communities fun places to be once again.
There are times when the truth hurts, Anonymous.
It won’t hurt long term. The truths we are talking about here will help you in huge ways in the long term.
But hearing these truths will indeed hurt some of us in the short term. We have seen that over and over and over during the course of the first 12 years of our discussions.
That’s part of the learning experience. You cannot get to the good place that deep inside you want to find without struggling for a time with the discomfort of realizing that you might have made a big mistake and set your retirement back by a good number of years by doing so.
Learning new things is always a plus. But learning new things is not always easy.
Please don’t get upset with me. I didn’t make that rule. It comes to us from God (or Evolution). I am just some guy who figured out how to post stuff to the internet and was happy to respond when hundreds of his fellow community members asked him very warmly and politely to share what he knows about stock investing with them. It’s not everybody who feels the pain you feel today, Anonymous.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
it is difficult to have a “normal” conversation when you are present.
That’s so if you define “normal” as “everyone in the room pretending that they believe that investing strategies that were discredited by the peer-reviewed research 33 years ago remain legitimate today.”
Is that the idea of “normal” that you want to keep in place, Anonymous?
My idea of a normal conversation is one in which both those who believe in Fama’s ideas and those who believe in Shiller’s ideas give expression to their sincere beliefs and no one finds that way of doing business even a tiny bit troubling.
You are accustomed to not having your investing beliefs challenged. So you react with shock and dismay when someone like me turns up at a discussion board or blog you frequent. You know what? That’s part of what the scientific process entails.
I didn’t come up with the idea of rooting one’s investing strategies in the peer-reviewed research. That one came to us from a fellow named Jack Bogle. Nice guy. Smart fellow. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?
Science isn’t a dead thing. What we know from science CHANGES over time as we learn new things. What we know about stock investing CHANGED in 1981 when Shiler published his “revolutionary” findings.
Now what we permit to be said on investing discussion boards needs to change.
Blame Science. Blame Bogle. Blame the Internet for creating circumstances in which people who hold different views than the ones you are used to hearing can present them in places where it is hard for you to continue to ignore them. Don’t blame me. I am doing what I am SUPPOSED to do. Honest posting is not a crime. Honest posting is a RIGHT.
Rob
If you want to participate, learn how to properly communicate
If you provide specifics on what you mean to signify when you demand “proper communication” I can tell you whether I can sign on to that in good conscience.
If you mean “lie to your friends about the numbers they use to plan their retirements,” I would be grateful if you would try to find someone else. I really, really, really don’t believe that I am the right guy for the job.
Rob
stop trying to justify your distorted perceptions.
My “distorted perceptions” are rooted in 33 years of peer-reviewed research, Anonymous.
Do you have a response to the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research other than the phrase “Shut up!”?
Rob