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

Rob,

Help me out here. If we look at the old thread, John answered your questions. Eventually, you said you finally understood and then issued an apology. Are you now saying you were lying back then? Wade also said the question was answered within 82 minutes after your question. Are you saying that Wade was lying?

Thank you for asking an intelligent question, Anonymous. This one gets right to the heart of things.

I still today have a fairly strong recall of the things that were going through my head on the night when I posted my apology. I was not lying.

When I put the May 13, 2002, post forward, I was not certain I was right. I had a high confidence level. I would put it at 90 percent. I knew that the post was going to cause a commotion. So I went over things several times before posting. Each time I did, I was reassured. So I had a high confidence level. But I did not have confidence of 100 percent. I think what made me have doubts is that no one else had ever said the studies were invalid. There were lots of smart people who believed in them. That gave me pause. But I went over things again and again in my mind and things always turned out the same. So I finally did push the button.

The reaction was extreme in both directions. There were people saying that this was a breakthrough, the best discussion that we had ever had at that board. And there were people saying that I should burn in hell for what I had done. As a general rule, this made me more confident that I was right. The fact that the people defending the study could not control their emotions told me that they were probably in the wrong. But these were people I respected and people whom I considered my friends. And they were talking as if they were very sure of themselves. So their reactions did give me pause.

There were elements of the story that I did not understand in those days. I knew enough to say that the studies were in error. But I didn’t know much of the background. I didn’t understand how the errors came to be made. I was able to follow a logic chain showing that I was right. But there was all this crazy emotion surrounding the issue that was putting doubts in my mind. The doubts were not rooted in logic or in human reason. But us humans are not purely rational creatures. We are social creatures and what our friends say influences what we think. The stuff I was hearing was shaking my confidence a bit. But I couldn’t come up with any logical reason for thinking that I was wrong.

I wasn’t just concerned about myself getting something right or wrong. I was the leader of the board and I cared about it deeply. That board was years ahead of its time. There was information available at that board that was not available in the largest personal finance libraries in the world. So I was very protective of the board and sickened by the thought that I might have done something to cause harm to come to it. So on the night that I put up that apology, I was looking for some way to defuse things. So long as the board remained functioning, I was confident that we could bring things to a good place.

Prometheus put up some point that made sense to me. I don’t recall today what it was. But I sincerely believed at the time that the point that he made showed me to be wrong on a small, technical point. I don’t believe that today (I don’t even recall what his point was today) but at the time I was able to convince myself that I really had gotten something wrong. I felt that that was enough to justify an apology. And I hate it when people (usually politicians) put forward apologies that are not really apologies. If I was going to apologize, I was going to do so clearly and without reservation. So I put forward the words that you have quoted.

I stated the apology more strongly than I believed it. But it was not a lie. I did sincerely believe that I had gotten an element of the story wrong and, given the damage that was being done to the board, I believed that that called for a no-reservations apology. I figured that, if I really were right about other elements of the story (as I believed I was), that that would all come out in subsequent discussions and all would be well. My top priority was protecting the board.

The apology was not a lie. It was overstated. So you could say that it was not 100 percent honest. But the purpose of the small amounts of dishonesty that were present in those words was to soothe ruffled feathers so that over time we could all work together to bring things to a better place. If I had it to do over, I would not have written the apology as strong as I did. But I still would have written it. I had sincere doubts at that moment and this was too important an issue for me to cover up those doubts. My fellow community members needed to know that the person who had brought this controversy to the table was experiencing sincere doubts about at least some of it. I think the apology was a good thing, perhaps not executed perfectly (and that the lack of perfect execution can be excused by the crazy, emotion-filled circumstances).

Wade is lying. I have zero doubt about. He certainly does not believe that Greaney answered any questions to any reasonable person’s satisfaction. He expressed complete and utter disdain for the tactics employed by the Lindauerheads and the Greaney Goons on numerous occasions during our 16 months of correspondence. There is zero chance that he believes the words he put forward in the post in which he praised Greaney for the role he played. Those words were almost certainly dictated by Greaney. Wade posted them in his name because that’s what you Goons insisted on as the price for not destroying his career. Whether Bogle was in on the discussions that led to that deal I do not know for certain. If it is determined after he is questioned under oath that he was, that’s financial fraud, that’s a felony, that’s prison time.

Wade is certainly guilty of financial fraud in an objective sense. I see it as a more complicated question as to whether he will be prosecuted or not. Wade obviously did not want to commit financial fraud for any selfish reason. He is very proud of the wonderful work he did with me. He showed courage in trying to stand up to you Goons for a time in an effort to get the word out to the millions of middle-class workers who very, very, very much need to know about it. He has two small children for whom he is financially responsible. When he saw that Bogle was not willing to speak up and Bernstein was not willing to speak up and Swedroe was not willing to speak up, he came to possess a sincere belief that you Goons could make it impossible for him to earn a living in the field in which he had spent many years of hard work gaining expertise. He truly had a gun to his head. That obviously doesn’t excuse the behavior. But it is equally obvious that there are mitigating circumstances here and that a prosecutor needs to take those circumstances into consideration when deciding whether to bring a case and that, if a case is brought, the jury will need to take those circumstances into consideration as well.

Wade does not possess a complete understanding of Valuation-Informed Indexing. He is strong on lots of important points. But he hasn’t put the entire thing together in his head. So he does rationalize. I think he tells himself that we will not end up in the Second Great Depression regardless of whether we open the internet up to honest posting or not. I think he would pass a lie detector test on that point. Again, that doesn’t excuse the behavior. But it puts it in a different context than it would be in if this were not so.

I believe the same of Bogle. I believe that Bogle rationalizes. I believe he tells himself that we will all get through this somehow even if he does not acknowledge the errors that he so obviously (to someone who is looking at things objectively) made. I believe he suffers from cognitive dissonance (as does Wade, to a lesser extent). I believe that he feels it would be a terrible thing if people found about the mistakes he has made and about the huge amounts of energy he has exerted to cover them up for so many years. I think he is wrong about that. I think that the vast majority of people would have forgiven the mistakes in two seconds had he come clean. I think that the thing that is killing his reputation is the cover-up, just as it was the cover-up of Watergate that did damage to Richard Nixon’s reputation rather than the crime itself. I view my friend Jack Bogle’s destruction of Jack Bogle’s reputation as a tragic event. I also view it as tragic that so few of the people who claim to be his friends have been brave enough to step forward and try to help him out in a moment in which he obviously is in great need of help.

I believe that you Goons follow Buy-and-Hold strategies. To that extent, you are sincere in the things you say. I don’t believe for two seconds that you are sincere when you say that I am on meds or that I stalk women or that the 200 quotes offered in praise of my word at the “People Are Talking” section of this site are not real or re any of the other garbage you post on daily basis as part of your effort to intimidate anyone who posts honestly on these matters. I believe you will go to prison following the next crash. But I believe that it is important that the millions of middle-class people whose lives have been destroyed by the 12-year cover-up not give in to desires for retribution. Prison sentences make sense as a way for society to give voice to its core belief that certain types of behavior cannot be tolerated among civilized people. But we need to keep in mind the circumstances that apply re you Goons as much as we need to keep in mind the circumstances that apply re Wade and Jack. And we always need to remember that it is love that we all deep in our hearts want to see win the day here, not hate.

I think that covers most of what you asked, Anonymous. Have you ever seen the movie Rashomon? People see things from different perspective because they have lived through different sets of life circumstances and possess different personality types. I don’t think it is a good idea to be too quick to label something a “lie” just because it evidences a surface contradiction. You can learn something by trying to understand what is going on below the surface and then trying to made sense of why the contradiction surfaced. There are grays in this world, not just blacks and whites.

I hope that helps a bit, in any event.

Rob

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

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

I think there may be something to what you are saying here, Pink. J.D. likes me. We are friends. But, when I asked him to get involved to bring the Ban on Honest Posting to an end, he declined to get involved. There’s got to be some reason for that. He’s not at all a bad guy. I think he is a great guy and everyone else I have spoken to feels the same. So there is certainly something odd going on here. I think it is entirely possible that part of what he is trying to convey when he says that my arguments are “overpowering” is that I am too verbose. Maybe what he is trying to say is “you’re just too much, people cannot handle it.”

You are also right that it is off-putting to a lot of people when I put forward long posts. That’s been so going back to the first day. That’s a real issue.

I strongly disagree with your other points — that it would be possible for me to make my points effectively in a single, simple paragraph and that I take things out of context.

Perhaps you feel that I take things out of context. I think it is likely that you genuinely have that feeling. I can assure you that there is ZERO desire on my part to take anything out of context. I write long posts. I go into background and that sort of thing. But never have I put forward a single word with the aim of distracting people from the real issues. I RESPECT the people who challenge my views. I SHOW that respect by taking their challenges seriously. That’s part of the explanation of the long posts. I take the time to write long responses because I CARE. If you go to the trouble to give voice to some concern you have, I feel that I owe it to you to do all in my power to see that that concern is addressed. Never in a million years would I intentionally take something out of context. That would be a mortal sin in my book. It may well be that you perceive it that way. It is my belief that you really do. But that is not what is in my heart.

Why are the posts so long? That’s an issue that very much needs to be examined by people of good faith.

There are millions of people who today believe in Buy-and-Hold. They have been talking about and following the strategy for 40 years now. The core Buy-and-Hold beliefs have been repeated over and over and over again. When you say “timing doesn’t work.” you don’t need to offer any explanation of why you said it because the vast majority of the people reading the words already believes that. So you can indeed make your points in a single, simple paragraph.

That’s not the case for me or for other Valuation-Informed Indexers. When I say “long-term timing always works and always is 100 percent required for those hoping to have some realistic hope of long-term success,” the reaction of the vast majority of my readers is to have lots of questions. If this is so, why haven’t we heard about it from lots of people long before this? That’s the biggest question. If I am to have any hope of convincing those people of the merit of my case, I MUST give the background. I MUST explain how it came to be that 32 years have passed since Shiller published his peer-reviewed academic research showing that there is zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy can ever work for even a single long-term investor and that Buy-and-Hold remains the dominant strategy to this day. The realities that we all face today do not permit me to make my case effectively with responses of just a few words. I must provide background and context or fail in the important work that I do in getting word out about the first true research-based strategy to the millions of middle-class investors who very, very much need to know about it.

There are ways that things could be set up so that I could write shorter posts. One that I mention all the time is that Bogle could give an “I Was Wrong” speech. When Bogle gives that speech, it is going to be written up everywhere. There will be a national debate on these questions. And then people will know what I am getting at when I say something like “long-term timing always works and is always required.” Once that national debate begins, my job gets a lot easier. I can still post and share my thoughts. But I no longer will need to carry the burden of being the only person talking straight to people about this stuff.

Do you want Bogle to give that speech? Are you willing to help me persuade Bogle to give that speech?

Until now, you have not been willing to help. That’s why the ugly stuff continues.

The answer here is not to continue to try to cover things up. The answer is to get everything out in the open. Then the need for long posts disappears.

Say that you believe in Buy-and-Hold 100 percent. If that’s so, then it follows that you should believe that Buy-and-Hold can withstand the challenges that will be put to it in a national debate. If Buy-and-Hold withstands the challenges, confidence in it will be stronger than ever before. So there is no possible way that a national debate could produce a negative result for you. Either you end up switching to a strategy that permits you to retire many years sooner or you are affirmed in your confidence in the strategy you believe in today. Having the national debate is a win/win/win/win/win.

And I will never again need to put forward a long post after we have the national debate because everyone reading my words will “get it” when I say something like “long-term timing always works” or “it’s not possible to identify the safe withdrawal rate without taking into consideration the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins” or “stocks today are a virtually risk-free asset class for those who are informed about the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research in this field.”

Long posts shouldn’t be necessary. But they are because of the unusual circumstances that apply in the investing field today. As a society we once believed that Buy-and-Hold worked. Now doubts are growing. But to get people to convert from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing, we must explain to them what happened, why it is that so many experts still advocate Buy-and-Hold 32 years after the research was published discrediting it? We need to stop trying to suppress discussion and instead ENCOURAGE it. We need everyone (Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers alike) giving voice to their SINCERE beliefs about how stock investing works. In cases in which experts have come over time to believe that they made mistakes re certain points, they need to SAY THAT in clear and certain and simple terms so that we can all process the message and move forward in a mutual Learning Experience.

We ALL want to learn, Pink. That’s why we all are here. We all need to pull together to insure that this wonderful and important Learning Experience moves forward. We do that by changing the tone. You need to drop the Goon pose and work up the courage to say “Thank you!” to the fellow who brought these issues to the table on the morning of May 13, 2002, and thereby opened up the opportunity to learn things about stock investing that you never knew before and that make your life richer in scores of different and important ways.

I am 100 percent happy to begin today working with you to take this to a very positive place, Pink.

Can you grasp the hand of kindness this time?

Or will you fire back with more of your Goon sludge, sinking ever deeper in the negativity that in earlier days you have brought to the table again and again and again.

Greaney’s retirement study does not contain an adjustment for the valuations level that applies on the day the retirement begins. That is a stone cold objective fact.

Why?

Until we answer that question, our work here is not done. I have put forward hundreds of thousands of long posts explaining why I believe he made that mistake. What’s your take? Do you agree with the explanations that I have advanced or is there some point re which you have a somewhat different take? And, if you have a somewhat different take, are you capable of giving voice to it according to the posting rules that you agreed to follow when you were first permitted to participate in any of our discussions?

My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, my old friend.

Rob