Requesting your help for a book on Jack Bogle's legacy

[Allan Roth]

Wiley is going to publish a book on the Jack Bogle legacy, coordinated by The Institute for the Fiduciary Standard. I’m assisting with a small part on what Jack Bogle has done for people. I’m going to characterize money as a means to an end. Money is stored energy to allow us the freedom to do whatever gives our lives the most meaning – whether that’s family, charity, golf, travel, etc. By my calculations, index funds alone will save investors $24 billion this year – that’s a lot of freedom.

I’d like to have 5-10 short stories from Bogleheads to include in the book. Each story would need to be between 200-300 words and we would need your name included. I’d need the right to edit any story though I’d do my best to run it by you and not mischaracterize things.

If you are willing, you can either post it on the forum or send me an email with the story at allan_roth@hotmail.com. If you post it, I’ll need a way to contact you. So I don’t miss it, please put the following in the subject line of any email to me – “What Jack Bogle has done for me”.

Thanks very much!

Allan Roth

[Mel Lindauer]

Just want to confirm that this is legitimate. If you'd like to contribute, please contact Allan.

[umfundi]

May I nominate the story of "The house that Jack built"?

Keith

[Allan Roth]

I appreciate the two great responses. I'd love to have more on what Jack Bogle has done for you if willing. Either post or send to me at allan_roth@hotmail.com. Between 200 - 300 words.

Thanks so much.

[Rick Ferri]

Does this include advisers? My business would not exist if it were not for John Bogle.

Rick Ferri

[Allan Roth]

Does this include advisers? My business would not exist if it were not for John Bogle.

Rick Ferri

I'd be honored to have a submission from you, Rick! Thanks.

[umfundi]

Does this include advisers? My business would not exist if it were not for John Bogle.

Rick Ferri

I would support what Rick asks.

Why not include the entire panel from Bogleheads 11? I think it is important to note that not screwing your clients may be a viable business model. (Yes, I know. There is a nicer way to say that.)

Jack created Vanguard and his philosophy. People like Ferri, Schultheis, Bernstein, Benz, Roth, ... are helping people get there.

Keith

[Allan Roth]

Why not include the entire panel from Bogleheads 11? I think it is important to note that not screwing your clients may be a viable business model. (Yes, I know. There is a nicer way to say that.)

Jack created Vanguard and his philosophy. People like Ferri, Schultheis, Bernstein, Benz, Roth, ... are helping people get there.

Keith

I'd love to include the entire panel! I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing to day with Jack Bogle!

[Rick Ferri]

Here's my story:

I remember the exact moment when John Bogle changed my life. I was sitting in parking lot of the local House of Horrors one October night in 1996. My children were screaming inside as headless goblins chased them around with chainless chainsaws. All the while, I was passed the time reading John Bogle’s first book, Bogle on Mutual Funds.

I picked up the book at the local Barnes and Noble, a place I frequented quite regularly. Why not read a book on index funds? I had read nearly every book on how to beat the stock market and nothing worked. Bogle’s book was offering an alternative. He spoke about being the market, not beating the market. It might make sense.

My occupation as a stockbroker at Smith Barney had become terribly unsatisfying. All of the promises I sold to my clients turned out to be a mistake. The product make a lot of money for the company and very little for investors. There as was a revolving door of products and no end to the lies.

I sat, listened to children screaming, and though I was reading a book on index fund investing.

Wait…what am I reading here? This Bogle guy isn’t just talking about index funds, he’s talking about the lies, dishonesty, and unethical standards that define Wall Street and in the mutual fund industry. He is describing my exact experience as a stockbroker! Wow! Bogle doesn’t even know me and he's inside my head.

Stop, I needed to read the book again, from the beginning, every word.

MY GOD! This Bogle guy is SO right! It’s the industry that’s the problem, not me. I want to structure clients’ portfolios in index funds but the industry won’t let me. I want to limit portfolio turnover but the industry won’t let me. I want to act as a fiduciary in the best interest of my clients but the industry won’t let me!

A chemical reaction took place in my brain. I couldn’t be a broker anymore. I had to do it another way - the Bogle way.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t quit the brokerage industry in 1996 because I would have to pay back thousands of dollars in signing bonuses plus a lot of other benefits. So, I suffered through another three years of lies, deceit, and absolute nonsense until my contract ended.

Finally, in July 1999, I broke free of Wall Street and started an investment advisory firm based on John Bogle’s principles. It was liberating - and challenging. I bet my career and all the money my wife and I had saved to start a firm that followed Bogle’s philosophy, but I knew it would work because he was right, and if we also did what was right, the business couldn’t lose!

It hasn't. Thank you John Bogle!

Rick Ferri

[Allan Roth]

Thanks a million, Rick! Happy 2013!

[NOLA]

I really enjoyed reading your post Rick. Would be fun to read more stories because it is always interesting to hear about personal experiences. Good luck with the book.

[umfundi]

So, Rick,

I've been wanting to ask you this question for some time. Maybe now is the time.

(Disclosure: 2/3 of my net worth is managed by Portfolio Solutions.)

Do you get hate mail?

I mean, this is no longer an unknown or unsupported idea. Your company has nice digs, I see maybe two dozen people in the Christmas card, so you seem to be doing OK.

But, what you are doing is a threat to an entire industry. Doesn't that bother them?

Case in point: PS has me in a well-balanced 50/50 portfolio with tilts that are beyond my capacity to manage, for a total expense ratio of 0.18%. Plus a management fee of 0.25%.

My stepson (age about 40) is a fairly successful (so it seems) traditional investment advisor. He gets pretty angry at the mention of Jack Bogle's name. My wife "invests" in 529 accounts for her grandchildren, at accounts he set up. 3.5% load and a 1.6% ER. They're not even our state's 529, so we do not even get that tax deduction.

Needless to say, we do not discuss finances with him. But are you not a threatening counterexample to that traditional industry? Do they call you?

Keith

[Taylor Larimore]

Bogleheads:

Allan Roth and Rick Ferri are two of our most valuable contributors.

Thank you and enjoy a well-deserved Happy Holiday!
Taylor

[Rick Ferri]

Thanks, Taylor!

The best to you and yours also.

Do you get hate mail?

Most of the email I get from advisers is very positive. They applaud our strategy and wish they a similar one. In addition, several advisers call me each year with questions on practice management such as which custodian to use, which software to buy, how to implement portfolios, etc. I enjoy sharing my thoughts on the industry with them.

Occasionally I'll get an irate email - but only after publishing an article about the last bastion of gluttony in the investment industry - adviser fees. Technology has driven down every cost in the industry except adviser fees. They're seem stuck at 1%. And it really irks me when an adviser promotes ETF portfolios or DFA funds because they are "low-cost" alternatives to active management that "save client's money" only to stick it to them with their own 1% or higher fee. You can see why articles on adviser fees creates hate mail.

Back to the topic at hand - please help Allan by posting your John Bogle story below.

Rick Ferri

[second-guesser]

John Bogle has helped alleviate the stress of investing. With his index fund innovation he created
a structure so that I never have to select individual stocks to buy. He taught me that investing
in actively managed mutual funds or paying an advisor costs me thousands of dollars during a lifetime
of investing and that investing on ones own is actually a simple process. One of his ideas I found
helpful is to invest half of ones funds in a total stock market index fund and the other half in at total
bond fund and forget about investing . I believe Ben Graham and Nobel Price winner Harry Markovitz
invested their own funds in the fifty - fifty split manner. ( I actually have recommended this approach
to my daughters who care little about investing. ) Mr. Bogle has taught me about investing through reading
his book Common Sense On Mutual Funds with rather simple but timeless advice. Whenever I read something
Mr. Bogle has written or see him interviewed I temporarily feel upbeat. Actually , stangely I think my
overall level of contentment is better due to John Bogle because he has helped me in an important part
of my life. It is rare for someone you do not personally know to have such an effect .

S-G

[Allan Roth]

Thanks Rick - I appreciate it. Taylor - you are too kind but thank you.

I've got to confess that I get a fair amount of hate mail - comes in email, voice-mail, and even snail mail. The most irate tends to be from the insurance side. Some people tell me I enjoy the hate mail but i don't. I understand that every communication is sincere and I understand that what I'm writing isn't good for their livelihoods. These people have families to feed and kids to send to college and I don't feel good if I'm hurting them. If I knew how to help consumers without hurting them, I would do it.

As Rick said, any contributions as to what Jack Bogle has done for you would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[Allan Roth]

John Bogle has helped alleviate the stress of investing...

S-G

This is great! Thanks so much!

[Taylor Larimore]

Hi Allan:

I'm sorry about the hate mail. Unfortunately, it is the price honest leaders must frequently endure (Jesus was crusified).

This is how I met Jack Bogle:

In 1994 I was fortunate to read "Bogle on Mutual Funds." In the book, Jack's "Twelve Pillars of Wisdom," each backed-up with Mr. Bogle's reasoning and academic reasearch, was so logical that I drastically changed our complex 15 managed funds portfolio to a 7 fund portfolio that incorporated indexing and simplicity. It was gratifying to see almost immediately that our Bogle-designed portfolio was outperforming the funds we had discarded.

In 1999, when I learned that Mr. Bogle was going to be the Keynote Speaker at a Money Show in Orlando, Florida, my wife Pat and I made the decision to go and hear the speech and hopefully meet him personally. We drove to Orlando and spent the first night in the Convention Hotel.

Next morning after breakfast, Pat and I were walking down the hallway towards the auditorium when I saw a tall gentleman in a light sweater talking to two elderly ladies. I instantly recognized Jack from pictures I had seen. He had been on the cover of the February 1991 issue of Financial World magazine (which I still have). We had expected John Bogle, chairman of a giant mutual fund company, to be surrounded by guards and staff -- not two old ladies seeking advice.

Pat and I listened to the conversation. We were too star-struck to say anything. We followed Jack and the ladies into the auditorium where he almost immediately went to the polium to speak before a crowd of several thousand. This is a portion of his exact words recorded by a member of the press:

"I count that you'll have the opportunity to attend roughly 130 different seminars, masterminded by more than 100 speakers. It looks to me as if the great proponderance of them will offer you their secrets for success in the new millennium. Many speakers will offer you tempting solutions involving at best complexity and at worst financial legerdemain and witchcraft.

. . Many speakers will offer you tempting solutions involving at best complexity and at worst financial legerdemain and witchcraft," Bogle said.

"I must confess that, no offense intended to the presenters, I wince when I see so many subjects that seem to offer easy roads for you to build your capital: `Wealth Creation and Preservation: Increasing Yields to 15-20 Percent.' `The Possible Trillion Dollar Opportunity of the Internet,' `Finding Future Wealth in Diamond Mines,' `High-Profit, Low-Risk Strategies' . . .

"I assume from the titles that these speakers will offer you the secrets of success. Let me offer mine: The one great secret of investment success is that there is no secret . . . Investment success, it turns out, lies in simplicity as basic as the virtues of thrift, independence of thought, financial discipline, realistic expectations and common sense."

I doubt if Mr. Bogle will be invited back to many more Money Shows.

In 2002, I learned that Mr. Bogle was to be Keynote speaker at a Miami Herald sponsored Financial Convention in Miami. Mel and I took a chance and invited Jack to a Florida seafood dinner prepared by Pat in our condominium. To our surprise, he accepted. We took a chance and invited everyone on the Morningstar Boglehead Forum to be our guests. 21 Bogleheads showed up for what became "a magical night." Our dinner that evening became the first Boglehead Reunion and a friendship with Jack and his wife that has changed our lives like so many others.

There is no one in the mutual fund industry with a greater combination of practical experience, perseverance, inventive genious, literary ability, kindness, modesty, desire to help others and impecible character.

Best wishes and Happy Holiday!
Taylor

[Allan Roth]

Hi Taylor. I so appreciate this. I've come to accept the hate mail and would also say I'd realize I was doing something wrong if it stopped. Happy Holidays and best wishes to you and Pat for a wonderful 2013!

[Stickman]

Allan, I'm glad to hear of your project! Here's my story...

An old saying that has been very true for me is: “When you are ready, a teacher will appear.” Jack Bogle has been the third, and most influential, of three that I’ll mention. The first was in 1978 when Andrew Tobias wrote his popular best seller with a chapter in it titled: A Penny Saved Is Two Pennies Earned. This brilliant observation gave me a solid rationale for building a strong habit of automatic investments from every paycheck.

Ten years later, I met author Vicki Robin who transformed the way I thought about “financial independence”. While my mind associated this phrase with wealth, Vicki described a life of freedom—where she could wake up every morning and volunteer for organizations she supported. Further, she viewed jobs as trading “life energy” for money. And this gave me a healthy framework for spending decisions.

I stumbled upon the Bogleheads’ forum. Wow. Who were these people that were being so helpful, so generous with their time and knowledge, and often anonymously? Inspired by their generosity I decided to create bite-size educational videos to help others accumulate wealth and achieve financial independence. Creating these videos led me to the simple elegance of Jack Bogle’s thinking. He writes so compellingly; so clearly. I knew I was on the right track.

By the time he wrote the book Enough, I was convinced that Jack is as noble and unselfish as he appeared—the very model of ethics and integrity. For me, he is also a role model of “giving back”—investing his energy into spreading his common sense wisdom out through countless interviews, presentations and books. I now understand why the Bogleheads’ website has so many generous individuals more than willing to help others and share this wisdom.

Despite Bogle’s tireless efforts, and this gem of a website, these common sense investing principles are not common knowledge. I’ve decided to do whatever I can to help spread financial literacy. To date I have had nearly 100,000 views of these videos on YouTube, the Boglehead wiki, and my website http://www.FinancingLife.org. I’m encouraged by the start and am working on more. Thank you to Jack, and all other teachers who are so generous and wise.

-- Rick Van Ness