“Wade Told Me That His Fear Was That His Employer Would Believe Your Lies. If Wade Had Confidence That Bogle Would Jump In and Take His Side Against You, He Would Not Have Been Afraid. It Was Because He Saw That Bogle Did Nothing When He Saw Lindauer’s Threatening and Abusive Behavior That Wade Believed That You Goons Really Had the Power to Destroy His Career.”

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

Are you saying Bogle is the leader of the goons and that the goons follow orders given by Bogle? Are you the main target of those orders?

Did Wade tell you that he could not stand up to Bogle and the goons?

I don’t think that Bogle and his various Goon Squads communicate on a daily basis.

But I know for certain that Bogle knows about the threats of physical violence and the thousands of acts of defamation and the threat to get Wade Pfau fired from his job if he continued to do honest work in his field. I know because I sent three e-mails to Bogle telling him what was going on and asking for his help. I also know that there were a number of others at the Bogleheads Forum who contacted Bogle asking for help with the Lindauer Matter because they told me so.

And I know that Bogle knew about Lindauer’s behavior long before I even came on the scene. I ran into a fellow who had been banned from the Boglehead’s Forum before I posted there because he had posted honestly. He said that Lindauer made threats of physical violence to intimidate him into leaving the board. Bogle has said publicly that he visits the Bogleheads Forum roughly once a week. So Bogle has known about what goes on there for a long time. It would be impossible for him not to know when there were numerous threads discussing these matters every day when I was there. And of course Bogle knew about how Lindauer reacted when I announced that I would be attending one of the annual meetings that Bogle attends.

Wade Pfau was more concerned about Bogle than he was about Linduaer. When Pfau posted about the peer-reviewed research that he and I co-authored (research that I believed can fairly be characterized as the most important research done in this field in the past 35 years), Lindauer defamed him by saying that he had engaged in unethical research practices. Wade showed a lot of backbone in standing up for himself. He made clear that he would not tolerate such behavior from the king of internet goons. But when Bogle failed to act to rein in Lindauer, Wade got scared and backed down. I cannot think of any other explanation for his change in behavior.

It may be that there were threats made behind the scenes that played a role. I obviously cannot speak to what I did not see with my own eyes. But even if there were additional threats made in private by you Goons, I believe that it was Bogle’s endorsement of your criminal behavior that most frightened Wade. It wouldn’t make sense for him to be so afraid of a group of internet Goons that he would jeopardize his career and risk going to prison just because of what you might try to do.

Wade told me that his fear was that his employer would believe your lies. If Wade had confidence that Bogle would jump in and take his side against you, he would not have been afraid. It was because he saw that Bogle did nothing when he saw Lindauer’s threatening and abusive behavior that Wade believed that you Goons really had the power to destroy his career (and Wade of course had financial responsibility for two small children — so these were threats that hit him at a point of human vulnerability).

There is much evidence of Bogle’s association with Mel Lindauer. Bogle permitted his name to be used on a blurb for Lindauer’s book. It’s hard not to believe that Bogle did not play some role in getting Lindauer his column at Forbes. Bogle permits his name to be used in the name of the board that Lindauer claims to “lead.” I have seen photos from the annual meetings in which Lindauer and Bogle can be seen close enough to each other to appear in the same photograph. The site administrator refused for a long time to violate the site’s rules and ban me solely for enraging Lindauer with my honest posting on the last 35 years of peer-reviewed research in this field despite Lindauer’s many requests that he do so; it’s hard not to believe that Bogle did not play a role in “persuading” the site administrator to commit this criminal act.

I cannot prove that with direct evidence but I feel comfortable saying that any reasonable person would conclude that Bogle must have played at least some role. At the very bare minimum his failure to speak up about the insanely abusive behavior of Lindauer’s Goon squad sent a very clear message to the site administrator (and quite possibly to the legal department of Morningstar as well). The behavior went on for a long, long time. MANY long-time community members spoke out against it in very clear terms and a good number did so on numerous occasions.

Bogle knew about Lindauer. I doubt very much that he knew every detail. I don’t believe that. But I am 100 percent certain that he knew far more than what he needed to know that he had a responsibility to take action and he failed to take action. That’s fraud, Anonyous. Someone who keeps quiet about a massive act of financial fraud is complicit in the cover-up of it. And this is the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States, one that is in the process of destroying millions of middle-class lives and indeed one that has put the continued survival of our economic system and perhaps even of our political system at risk.

Bogle knew. We will find out at the trial, when witnesses speak under oath, precisely how much he knew. That is not entirely clear today. But anyone who participated in real time or who has reviewed the Post Archives (I have copies of all essential threads) knows that Bogle betrayed himself, his family, his profession and his country in his failure to take action re Mel Lindauer, John Greaney and the members of their Goon Squads. I naturally wish that it were not so. But we know today that that much is so beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever.

The good news is that it will all come out in the trials that will be held following the next price crash and at that time we all will be free to make use of what we have learned from the past 35 years of peer-reviewed research to make our lives and the lives of all of those of us living at this magic time in the history of investing research better than we ever believed they could be before Bogle got us started down this wonderful journey of putting together the first true research-backed investing strategy. Let’s not forget the great good that this wonderful man has done while pointing out his unfortunate relationship with the sorts of individuals who have posted in “defense’ of Mel Lindauer, which of course also cannot be denied.

My sincere take.

Rob