Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
“The issue here is not what I know but what Bogle knows and what Bernstein knows and what Burns knows and what Pfau knows. They all know LOTS of stuff that they are not telling us. And that’s a crime in the United States. It’s financial fraud. It’s a felony. That means prison time.”
None of those guys owes you jack squat. Not only are they not required to tell you anything they know, they can take a stroll by your house while it’s burning down, yawn, and keep on walking. Your spectacular misconception is that all kinds of people owe you all kinds of stuff. No wonder you’re so bitter.
They owe the entire country a minimal level of honesty when they speak on investing topics.
Why did we adopt laws against financial fraud but to impose a requirement that people in the investing advice speak with at least a minimum level of honesty? What you say here just does not line up with what we see when we look at the law books. Bernie Madoff is in prison today. But there is no requirement that people in this field honor even minimal ethical standards? Huh?
We are in an economic crisis today because of the continued promotion of the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage. The economic crisis has even affected people who don’t invest. There are millions of people unemployed today because Jack Bogle has not see fit to come clean re the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.
I believe that everyone who speaks on what the peer-reviewed research says has a responsibility to speak honestly re the subject.
Juries will decide on the lengths of the prison sentences following the next price crash. That one is not my call. But I sure do not want to have any posts in my file in which I can be shown to have commented in “defense” of Mel Lindauer or John Greaney or Jack Bogle when that day comes.
Fair enough?
Rob
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