Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Calling people names, like Con Men (which you also did to John Bogle) is yet another example as to why people don’t take you seriously. Calling people goons is another examples. It is similar to how people call people names based on their race, gender, religious beliefs, etc.
I love John Bogle. I have devoted the last 18 years of my life to developing the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. It is 90 percent John Bogle, 10 percent Robert Shiller. The only thing in there that is not John Bogle is the idea that market timing always works and is always 100 percent required, which comes from Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research. Now that 10 percent has huge impact. In terms of impact, it is 70 percent of the story. So it would be fair also to say that VII is 70 percent Shiller and 30 percent Bogle. But anyway you look at it, I obviously have the greatest possible respect and affection for Bogle. I think the guy is a giant. I love the guy.
Now —
Bogle posted at the same discussion board at which Mel Linduaer posted. Bogle himself acknowledged that Valuation-Informed Indexing can work, which I thought was wonderful. And he saw hundreds of community members express a desire that honest posting be permitted. And he also saw Lindauer’s criminal behavior to stop that from happening. Did he do anything about it? Did he speak up?
What would you call someone who failed to speak up? Bogle’s failure to speak up is part of the story and so something has to be said about it. Had Bogle spoken up, Wade Pfau would not have been afraid to stand up to Lindaurer and every site on the internet today would be opened to honest posting re the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. You can’t tell the story of stock investing in the year 2020 without telling the story of how people like John Bogle failed to stand up to people like Mel Lindauer. We are in this fix as a society and we will have to get out of it as a society. We are not going to get out of it by failing to note how Bogle failed to stand up to Lindauer. That’s the thing that has been holding us back for years now.
If you want to say thst Bogle was afraid to speak up because he had seen what Lindauer and his Goon squad had done to others who had worked up the courage to post honestly, I am fine with that. I am certain that Bogle loved his family members and did not want to see them threatened. But the full reality here is that each of us affects all the others when we either work up the courage to stand up to a Mel Lindaur or to fail to do so. Bogle failed to do so on numerous occasions and that had a big effect on lots of others. Bogle’s failure to stand up to Lindauer does not take away his many incredible contributions. But it is a reality all the same and a very powerful negative reality. Bogle was a great man who messed up when he saw threats being made against people who spoke in support of research-based strategies. He took on the role of a con man because he was afraid to say what he himself truly believed. It is a story that is sad beyond belief.
Our laws against financial fraud and against death threats and against extortion are good and necessary laws. Those laws need to be enforced in a reasonable manner. What happened to Bogle is just one of many of the negative consequences that we have seen follow from our failure as a nation to insist on reasonable enforcement of our laws in the investing advice field.
That’s my sincere take, in any event, Anonymous.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.
Rob
Put me down for standing behind Jack and Mel. People like you that make up lies need to be put in your place.
When John Bogle put up his post saying that he could see how Valuation-Informed Indexing could work, I believe that he was putting out a feeler to Mel Lindauer. He was trying to resolve the frictions so that everyone could get along. If Lindauer truly supported Bogle, he would have jumped at that opportunity. He would have said that he agree with Bogle that Valuation-Informed Indexing can work and all of the nasty stuff would have been behind us.
Rob
When Bogle put up his posts about the success of buy and hold, he was sending a message that quick rich timing scheme were a bunch of garbage and that he was also supporting Mel over Rob Bennett.
Bogle has said negative things about market timing on many occasions. That’s a fact. He has this little riff where he would say that not only did he not know anyone for whom market timing had worked, he did not know anyone who knew anyone for whom market timing had worked. But Bogle said in an interview that he himself timed the market successfully.
He lowered his own stock allocation in 1999, in part because of the insane CAPE level that applied at the time. He benefited from doing that as the return was much lower than the average long-term return for many years thereafter. So Bogle obviously knew someone for whom market timing worked. Unless we are to believe that Bogle does not know himself!
It’s very hard for anyone to talk about these matters with complete honesty, Anonymous. The experts made a mistake when they came to believe that the market was efficient. They hurt millions of people in very serious ways with that mistake and they don’t like the idea of people finding out about the mistake. So they make things uncomfortable for people who speak honestly re these matters.
But our Wall Street Con Men friends would like to come clean! Nothing could be more clear. Bogle was trying to come clean when he said that he could see how Valuation-Informed Indexing could work. If Lindauer had expressed a willingness to travel a bit down a more constructive road, Bogle would have jumped on the opportunity to take a sad song and make it better.
We all want the same things deep down inside. We all are capable of making mistakes and, when we do make them, we have to count on our friends to help us find our way to getting those mistakes corrected. It is those who encourage us to correct our mistakes promptly who are our true best friends. Bogle was being a friend to Lindauer. Lindauer was not being much of a friend in return when he slapped down Bogle’s suggestion to take things to a higher road.
That’s my sincere take, in any event.
Bogle did not behave perfectly. But he did make an effort on occasion. I cannot recall Lindauer ever doing that (I believe that Taylor Larimore made an effort along those lines on at least one occasion).
Rob
“ We all want the same things deep down inside.”
No. You waFnt your fantasy to come true. Normal people deal in reality and are driven by facts.
Mel was right to set you straight and Bogle was always in support of Mel.
Okay, Anonymous.
Please take good care.
Rob
Why don’t you start up your own version of the Bogleheads forum for your own followers instead of expecting other people to change for you?
My aim is to set up a new version of every investing discussion board and blog on the internet, Anonymous. A new, HONEST version, one that permits discussion of the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. Why should I limit myself to one site when I can have every site? Doing it that way benefits every last one of us. We all need to know how best to invest our retirement money. The more sites we have permitting honest posting, the more we all will be able to learn.
And I have never asked anyone to change for me. If there are people who believe in Buy-and-Hold, I ask them to post in support of Buy-and-Hold, That’s not changing. If they engage in criminal acts, I ask them to knock it off. But they had to agree to follow U.S. law when they first signed up at whatever board they are at — the published rules of all the boards require that. That’s not really changing either, it is doing something that they promised to do at an earlier time.
And all that should have happened on the day in 1981 when Shiller published his Nobel-prize-winning research showing that there is precisely zero chance that a pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for a single long-term investor. Once honest posting is permitted (and encouraged!) at every site, all of our problems are over. We will all be learning new things every day. Stock investing will be far less risky and far more profitable. Out economic system will operate far more smoothly. We will all be living better and richer lives from that point forward. I can live with that!
Shiller’s research helps us all. New knowledge is always a plus, It is not even possible for the rational human mind to imagine any exceptions.
That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.
Rob
Go ahead and set up your own websites, but don’t expect the other websites to give you access to their sites. As for the rest of your post, it just all made up garbage.
“ And I have never asked anyone to change for me. ”
Yes, you have asked them to let you post what YOU want on THEIR website. Create your own new websites. What is holding you back?
Go ahead and set up your own websites, but don’t expect the other websites to give you access to their sites. As for the rest of your post, it just all made up garbage.
I expect the entire universe to give me access. And it has. On the morning of May 13, 2002, I had dozens of people telling me that I had started the most exciting discussion ever held at the Retire Early board. And it’s been that way ever since.
You Goons have held back progress. I acknowledge that. But you haven’t altered the basic nature of human beings. Humans enjoy learning exciting new stuff about important subjects. That’s never going to change.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
Yes, you have asked them to let you post what YOU want on THEIR website. Create your own new websites. What is holding you back?
If you are talking about the owners of sites, I have asked them to enforce the rules that THEY THEMSELVES adopted for their sites. That’s not asking them to change, it’s asking them to be what they always intended to be.
If you are talking about fellow community members, they don’t own the sites at which they post. They have a perfect right to say what they believe and a perfect obligation to permit others to say what they believe. No one should be using intimidation tactics to discourage others from saying what they truly believe. Discussion boards cannot achieve their potential when that happens.
My sincere take.
Rob
“If you are talking about the owners of sites, I have asked them to enforce the rules that THEY THEMSELVES adopted for their sites. That’s not asking them to change, it’s asking them to be what they always intended to be.”
There is no rule that says that Rob Bennett gets to do whatever he wants on anyone else’s site.
Every site has rules, Anonymous. I have never seen a site that had a rule prohibiting honest posting. If I ever found one like that, I would respect it. I wouldn’t post there because I am not interested in posting dishonestly. But a site like that wouldn’t do that much damage. If you let people know up front that you do not permit honest posting, people are not going to take the investment advice that is offered seriously. I suppose that they could visit to obtain some amusement or something like that. Not my thing. But to each his own, you know?
That was not the situation at the Retire Early board. There was no rule there prohibiting honest posting and people believed that the investment advice was sincere. People discussed the Greaney retirement study every day and they used it to plan retirements. So I had an obligation to point out the error in the study.
Some people would have preferred that I had not done that. Fine. Those people can continue to use the 4 percent rule if it makes them happy. It’s none of my business what they do. But there were other people who were thrilled to find out about what the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research says about the subject of safe withdrawal rates. No one has a right to block those people from seeing the posts that they want to see. The rules of the board do not permit intimidation tactics aimed at achieving that purpose.
Now you have pulled it off regardless of what the rules say. And you think that is some great accomplishment. I do not. I believe that the published rules of the various sites reflect what we truly are as a people. So I go by that. I believe that there will come a day when every site on the internet will permit honest posting re the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research. Because those rules did not just come into being as some sort of aberration. They say something about what we are as a people. It’s the popularity of Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold that is the aberration. That will pass with the arrival of the next price crash, which will make Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold less appealing. And we will get back to being what we truly are deep down inside as a people.
That’s where I am coming from. I wish you all good things.
Rob
“Every site has rules, Anonymous. I have never seen a site that had a rule prohibiting honest posting.”
You have a different definition of the word “honest” versus normal people. Us normal people believe honest means truthful. We also believe that you should be able to back up what you say with data, facts and links that are from other sources and not just your opinions. Just like you run your site, the owner of the site determines the content.
I believe that my statement on the morning of May 13, 2002, that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins is a truthful statement. I don’t believe that Greaney himself truly believes that the study contains a valuation adjustment. There was a comment here a month or two ago when Evidence-Based Investing acknowledged that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment. When you’ve lost Evidence….
Rob
I missed the part where Evidence said that you are right on the SWR issue and that John was wrong. I also missed the part where you have provided a fixed calculation. I missed the part where Wade Pfau also confirmed your work on SWRs. Perhaps you could provide links to all of this. Afterall, you said you believe in honest posting. So it is time to prove it.
Evidence didn’t say that Greaney is wrong. But he did acknowledge that Greaney’s study lacks a valuation adjustment. That’s as close as you can get to being honest about this stuff without actually getting there.
That’s the distance that we have been trying to travel for 18 years. We have the research showing that a valuation adjustment is required. But we don’t want to hurt the feelings of the Buy-and-Holders by asking them to correct their studies. So we have put millions of retirements at risk.
I believe that, once we see those retirements fail, we will work up the courage to take that final step. But we will have to wait a bit to find out for sure.
My best wishes to you.
Rob