Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: “On the Day After Bogle’s Death, You Still Have to Say How You Think He Is Wrong, All in an Effort to Try and Promote Yourself and Your Agenda.”

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

You can try and put lipstick on a pig, but the archives are there to see all the nasty comments you made about Jack.

You can’t even stop for one moment when it comes to your agenda. On the day after Bogle’s death, you still have to say how you think he is wrong, all in an effort to try and promote yourself and your agenda. I bet that if you attended his funeral, you would find some way to promote yourself and VII, rather than honor Jack.

You can try and put lipstick on a pig, but the archives are there to see all the nasty comments you made about Jack.

The Post Archives show that I have expressed my love for the man on hundreds of occasions going back to the earliest days of our discussions re these matters and continuing right through today. The Post Archives show that I rank the man as the second most important investing analyst in history, second only to Shiller. What a meanie I am!

You can even stop for one moment when it comes to your agenda.

It’s a pretty darn important agenda, Anonymous. There are millions of people who have put together their retirement plans pursuant to the demonstrably false claims advanced in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies. If you think that Bogle wants to see those millions of people suffer failed retirements, we have very, very, very different beliefs about the purposes to which the man directed his life energies.

I bet that if you attended his funeral, you would find some way to promote yourself and VII, rather than honor Jack.

If some attending the funeral with me asked me what I thought of the man, I would say what I have said in these comments. I would tell both the good and bad sides of the story. I think that the cover-up of Bogle’s mistakes has done him great harm. I think that his contributions look even more important when one tells the full truth about what we know about how stock investing works in the year 2019. I think that the 17-year cover-up has done Jack a huge disservice. Until he died, he had an opportunity to set the record straight himself. Now that opportunity is lost to him. If Bogle is looking down on us today possessing a greater clarity of mind than he possessed yesterday, I think it would be fair to say that he is probably shedding a tear at having been deprived of that opportunity to set things straight before he was required to take his leave of us.

Again, one’s take on these matters is always going to be influenced by what one believes about how Bogle felt about these matters deep down inside. I think it would be fair to say that my assessment of the man’s character is 20 times more charitable than your own.

My sincere take.

Bogle-Helping (in a Spirit of TRUE Charity) Rob