Bogleheads® on Investing Podcast 011 – Mel Lindauer, host Rick Ferri (audio only)
00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:10.480 | Welcome to the 11th episode of Bogleheads on Investing.
00:00:14.840 | Today, we have a special guest, one
00:00:17.280 | of the founders of the Bogleheads, Mel Lindauer.
00:00:22.320 | I'll be talking with Mel about the incredible growth
00:00:25.640 | of the Bogleheads over the years, in this country and abroad.
00:00:30.080 | [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:38.760 | Hi, everyone.
00:00:39.520 | My name is Rick Ferry, and I'm the host
00:00:41.520 | of Bogleheads on Investing.
00:00:44.160 | This episode, as with all episodes,
00:00:47.080 | are brought to you by the John C. Bogle Center
00:00:49.880 | for Financial Literacy, a 501(c)(3) corporation.
00:00:54.800 | Today, we'll be talking with Mel Lindauer.
00:00:57.800 | Mel is one of the founders of the Bogleheads.
00:01:01.240 | The Bogleheads are a global community
00:01:04.400 | of individual investors who help each other
00:01:08.120 | through forums, the incredibly in-depth Bogleheads Wiki.
00:01:12.680 | There is this podcast, local meetings, national meetings.
00:01:17.880 | It's a global phenomena that just keeps getting better.
00:01:21.360 | So let me introduce the prince of the Bogleheads, Mel Lindauer.
00:01:25.840 | Welcome, Mel.
00:01:27.160 | Oh, it's great to be with you, Rick.
00:01:28.700 | I love your podcast.
00:01:30.080 | Thanks for all you're doing.
00:01:31.440 | It's nice to be with you.
00:01:32.640 | Well, thank you for being on the program, Mel.
00:01:34.520 | We're really excited to have you today.
00:01:36.640 | You were Boglehead number two.
00:01:39.360 | Boglehead number one was Taylor Larimore,
00:01:42.180 | who was a good friend of Jack Bogle's, who
00:01:44.360 | started the Bogleheads many years ago on the Morningstar
00:01:48.440 | forum.
00:01:48.960 | But before we get to the history of the Bogleheads,
00:01:51.080 | could you talk a little bit about your background?
00:01:53.520 | I mean, you didn't come from the investment industry.
00:01:57.280 | No, I didn't.
00:01:58.200 | I ran a graphic art business in the Philadelphia area
00:02:01.120 | for 30 years.
00:02:02.760 | In 1968, started investing with a colleague friend
00:02:07.120 | who was a broker.
00:02:09.000 | And little did I know that the program he put me in
00:02:12.240 | was a 50% commission.
00:02:14.600 | And they claimed that by paying the 50% up front that you--
00:02:19.680 | it was going to entice you to stay into the program.
00:02:22.840 | So Mel, I remember that back when I was in the military.
00:02:25.920 | Those 50% plans were called cafeteria plans.
00:02:29.240 | Do you remember that phrase?
00:02:31.000 | Oh, yes.
00:02:31.800 | I remember that well.
00:02:32.880 | And in our later days, we fought against that
00:02:36.680 | to try to get them out of the military
00:02:40.600 | because they were taking advantage of our service people.
00:02:44.040 | And fortunately, I think that we succeeded.
00:02:47.040 | We raised such a ruckus that I think
00:02:48.920 | Congress got-- or Senate got involved.
00:02:51.520 | And I think they're no longer allowed on military bases,
00:02:54.560 | if I'm correct.
00:02:56.960 | I think you are.
00:02:58.160 | But go ahead and continue with your background.
00:03:01.000 | I started investing in the late '60s with that program.
00:03:05.760 | But when my business started doing well,
00:03:09.160 | I thought that I should start learning more about investing.
00:03:12.200 | So I started reading a lot of investing books, magazines,
00:03:18.000 | and really became a student of investing.
00:03:20.680 | So I started helping friends and relatives
00:03:24.320 | who asked for my help because I knew something about investing,
00:03:28.120 | and they didn't.
00:03:29.240 | And eventually, when I retired in 1997,
00:03:35.920 | I turned the business over to my sons.
00:03:38.600 | I was looking for some kind of charity work
00:03:42.680 | that I could do, volunteer work.
00:03:45.600 | And that's how I got involved with the Morningstar Forum.
00:03:50.360 | I figured that I could help out there
00:03:52.240 | by helping other people avoid all the mistakes
00:03:54.280 | that I made in my early years of investing.
00:03:58.040 | The Morningstar Diehards Forum was the first Bogleheads Forum,
00:04:05.760 | correct?
00:04:06.440 | At first, everything was on--
00:04:08.360 | it wasn't even called Bogleheads back then, was it?
00:04:11.520 | That's right, because the people used
00:04:13.720 | to call us other forum members.
00:04:15.360 | There were a lot of forums on Morningstar,
00:04:17.280 | and they used to make fun of us and call us Bogleheads,
00:04:20.400 | and it was a derogatory term back then.
00:04:23.080 | We were as a badge of honor, but Morningstar
00:04:26.200 | thought since it was a derogatory term,
00:04:28.560 | they didn't want to upset Jack by calling us the Bogleheads.
00:04:32.840 | So they called us the Vanguard Diehards,
00:04:35.280 | and the subtitle of our forum was "Bogleheads Unite--
00:04:39.280 | Talk About Your Favorite Fund Company."
00:04:41.600 | We did not become the Bogleheads officially
00:04:44.000 | until we left Morningstar in 2007
00:04:47.760 | and started Bogleheads Org Forum.
00:04:51.720 | Could you just explain for just a few minutes
00:04:54.080 | for people who are not familiar with what the Bogleheads are
00:04:57.600 | exactly what the organization is,
00:05:01.120 | and who the people are that are behind it, the Bog--
00:05:04.400 | how big it is, I mean, how much it's grown?
00:05:07.200 | Well, the numbers are just phenomenal.
00:05:09.840 | We get something like 70,000 to 90,000 unique visitors
00:05:13.840 | a day on the forum.
00:05:15.800 | The number of hits are in the millions.
00:05:18.880 | So it has grown from a small organization
00:05:22.600 | to a very large organization.
00:05:25.800 | We have about close to 100,000 registered members.
00:05:30.480 | And any one time on the forum, we
00:05:33.640 | have about 10 guests for each registered forum
00:05:37.280 | member that's online.
00:05:39.120 | We get a couple thousand posts a day.
00:05:42.040 | It's just grown phenomenally.
00:05:44.160 | But basically, the Bogleheads is an organization
00:05:47.360 | of people who volunteer to help other investors.
00:05:52.240 | And we have no vested interests.
00:05:54.080 | We don't sell anything.
00:05:55.480 | We don't do-- we have no ads.
00:05:57.840 | None of the board members, none of the officers
00:06:00.600 | get paid a penny either.
00:06:02.480 | It's all volunteer work.
00:06:03.920 | And I think that's very important.
00:06:05.720 | So basically, this is funded by a nonprofit organization.
00:06:11.360 | And the way expenses are paid are by donations.
00:06:16.640 | So how would someone find out how to donate?
00:06:21.080 | Well, they would donate to the John C. Boglehead Center
00:06:24.160 | for Financial Literacy.
00:06:25.480 | And the address is on the forum.
00:06:28.240 | They can donate directly to the forum.
00:06:30.520 | It's not tax deductible.
00:06:33.160 | If they donate to the John C. Boglehead Center
00:06:36.840 | for Financial Literacy, and then we
00:06:39.280 | donate as part of our mission to support the forum,
00:06:44.400 | it is a charitable deduction.
00:06:48.040 | Who was it who came up with the idea of starting a forum that
00:06:53.360 | concentrated on low-fee investing,
00:06:56.440 | or at that time at least, on Vanguard funds?
00:06:59.520 | The initial impetus for the Bogleheads on the Morningstar
00:07:03.600 | forum was Taylor Larimore.
00:07:07.080 | The Bogleheads used to post on other forums,
00:07:11.320 | but they kept asking for their own forum.
00:07:14.560 | And that's why Morningstar called our group the Diehards,
00:07:18.640 | because we kept insisting on getting our own forum.
00:07:23.040 | And that forum soon became the number one forum, the most
00:07:26.760 | popular forum on Morningstar.
00:07:29.520 | The number of posts on that were greater than all
00:07:32.680 | of the other forums combined.
00:07:35.000 | So it was really a thing that was led by Taylor.
00:07:40.680 | Taylor is just one unique individual.
00:07:44.400 | And Taylor and I got connected fairly early.
00:07:48.720 | In the beginning, I joined shortly
00:07:50.760 | after the Diehards was set up.
00:07:54.880 | But I just wanted to lay in the background
00:07:57.440 | and see what was going on, and who was who,
00:08:00.520 | and who knew what they were talking about, and so forth.
00:08:04.040 | And there were questions about annuities
00:08:06.960 | that nobody answered.
00:08:08.760 | So I thought, well, I know about annuities,
00:08:11.440 | so I'll answer the questions.
00:08:13.160 | So I started answering questions about annuities.
00:08:16.560 | And then Taylor got in touch with me and said,
00:08:18.800 | no, I really like the stuff you're doing.
00:08:21.240 | Why don't we work together?
00:08:23.080 | And that's how Taylor and I ended up working together.
00:08:27.560 | So when you said Taylor is one unique individual,
00:08:30.320 | what did you mean?
00:08:31.320 | Yes, Taylor is a World War II vet.
00:08:35.360 | He was in the Battle of the Bulge as a paratrooper.
00:08:39.880 | And he and I, as I'm a Marine, he's a paratrooper.
00:08:45.040 | We joke around a lot, but we really respect each other.
00:08:48.560 | And he is the kind of guy that I would
00:08:52.040 | want to have my back anywhere.
00:08:54.520 | He is a real gentleman, an ace.
00:08:57.880 | Jack Bogle called him the King of the Bogleheads,
00:09:01.680 | and it's a well-deserved title.
00:09:04.200 | I told Taylor many times, Jack called me
00:09:06.200 | the Prince of the Bogleheads.
00:09:07.960 | And I told Taylor, I have no desire--
00:09:10.520 | this prince has no desire to be king.
00:09:12.960 | So Taylor has to stick around as long as I'm around.
00:09:17.040 | Well, one of the things that you started
00:09:19.880 | was a annual Bogleheads reunion.
00:09:25.680 | Yeah, that was kind of a strange occurrence.
00:09:30.120 | I made a post in Thanksgiving of 1999
00:09:34.080 | on the Vanguard Diehards Morningstar Forum.
00:09:37.880 | And I listed all the things I was
00:09:40.400 | thankful for-- my wife, my kids, and so forth, and good fortune.
00:09:45.520 | And a lot of people did the same thing.
00:09:47.880 | Everybody was chiming in.
00:09:49.360 | And we felt like we were a family, the Diehards.
00:09:52.600 | Even though we didn't know each other,
00:09:54.880 | we just felt like a family.
00:09:57.280 | And Taylor chimed in and said basically the same thing
00:10:01.520 | that most of us said.
00:10:02.440 | We were thankful for our wife, and the kids,
00:10:04.720 | and how lucky we'd been in life, and so forth.
00:10:08.560 | But at the end, Taylor said, and I'm
00:10:10.520 | especially thankful to Jack Bogle for founding Vanguard,
00:10:15.360 | because I live in the house that Jack built.
00:10:19.080 | He calls his 35th floor condo overlooking Biscayne Bay
00:10:24.000 | the house that Jack built. Jack Bogle saw that post.
00:10:27.320 | Jack used to follow our forum on a somewhat regular basis.
00:10:32.000 | He saw that post and replied to Taylor and asked Taylor
00:10:36.640 | if there was any interest in possibly getting together.
00:10:41.400 | And for Taylor and I, this was like an invitation
00:10:46.600 | to the White House or an audience with the Pope
00:10:49.960 | for somebody of Jack's stature to ask if we would like
00:10:53.480 | to get together with him.
00:10:55.760 | So Taylor knew that I was a snowbird in Florida
00:10:59.440 | in the winter.
00:11:00.680 | And he contacted me and said, Jack
00:11:03.680 | is going to be his keynote speaker at the Miami Herald
00:11:07.280 | Making Money Seminar.
00:11:09.280 | Do you think this would be a good opportunity for us
00:11:12.440 | to get together with him like he mentioned?
00:11:16.600 | So I contacted the Miami Herald people
00:11:19.760 | and asked them if they could arrange something, a room
00:11:23.920 | for some of us to get together with Jack
00:11:27.360 | at lunch, for lunch, for maybe an hour or so.
00:11:31.040 | And they kind of shooed us away as groupies
00:11:33.720 | and said that they had Jack too busy.
00:11:37.040 | He didn't have time to get together with us.
00:11:41.320 | So I called Jack's office and told them
00:11:43.960 | that they said that we couldn't get together.
00:11:46.800 | And Jack said, well, I'll go wherever you want.
00:11:50.160 | So now we decided to have the get together away
00:11:54.880 | from the Miami Herald Making Money Seminar.
00:11:58.000 | And the Miami Herald people came patting hands and said, Mel,
00:12:02.840 | is there any chance we could send a reporter
00:12:04.720 | and a photographer to cover your event with Jack?
00:12:07.800 | So we hired a chef, a cook, and a maid
00:12:13.440 | and had to get together with Jack with about 22 or so
00:12:19.800 | bogleheads.
00:12:21.440 | And it was a memorable evening.
00:12:26.480 | Jack sat after dinner.
00:12:28.040 | Jack sat in the living room.
00:12:30.080 | We were all around and asking questions and so forth.
00:12:33.200 | And it was just really a night to remember.
00:12:36.600 | So this all occurred in Taylor's condo.
00:12:39.960 | And I had the good fortune of driving Jack from the hotel
00:12:44.440 | to Taylor's and then driving back after the event was over.
00:12:48.800 | And you talk about being petrified of what
00:12:52.840 | I was going to say to this guy for a half hour or 40 minutes
00:12:56.040 | that it took to get to Taylor's house.
00:12:58.720 | And I can tell you that Jack was the most gentle, easygoing,
00:13:03.960 | unpretentious guy.
00:13:05.840 | I knew he played golf.
00:13:07.560 | And I mentioned golf.
00:13:08.640 | And we started talking about golf.
00:13:10.400 | But there was never a pregnant pause.
00:13:12.160 | I mean, Jack was just so easy to talk to.
00:13:15.560 | What a remarkable guy.
00:13:17.360 | And I had such a hard time calling him Jack.
00:13:22.560 | He kept telling me to call him Jack.
00:13:24.240 | He likes everybody to call him Jack.
00:13:26.760 | But he was Mr. Bogle.
00:13:28.320 | And it took a long, long time for me
00:13:31.840 | to be able to call him Jack.
00:13:33.480 | Well, that would be understandable for two
00:13:36.680 | reasons, number one, who Jack Bogle was, but number two,
00:13:40.760 | you are in that culture, right?
00:13:42.600 | I mean, Taylor tells me that you're a Kentucky colonel.
00:13:46.240 | Is that correct?
00:13:47.920 | Yeah, that's correct.
00:13:49.520 | I was honored by the governor of Kentucky some time ago.
00:13:53.200 | I think it was in 1981 as a Kentucky colonel.
00:13:57.280 | And my license, my Florida license plate
00:14:00.600 | is K-Y-C-O-L, Kentucky colonel.
00:14:03.720 | I am very proud of being a Kentucky colonel.
00:14:06.720 | And I'm proud of my heritage and coming from Kentucky.
00:14:11.680 | But yes, you're right.
00:14:13.240 | We did say yes, sir and no, sir.
00:14:15.360 | And of course, the Marine Corps reinforced that.
00:14:20.240 | So the very first Boglehead reunion
00:14:22.960 | took place in Taylor Larimore's condo in Florida in 2000.
00:14:29.480 | But these reunions have just grown substantially
00:14:35.120 | over 20 years.
00:14:36.000 | And now, even what's going on now,
00:14:38.280 | even though Jack has passed, reunions still
00:14:40.840 | seems to continue to grow.
00:14:42.400 | We thought this would be a one-time-off.
00:14:44.800 | Jack had offered to get together with us.
00:14:46.680 | And so we had our reunion, and we
00:14:48.440 | thought that was the end of it.
00:14:49.720 | But Jack posted using Taylor's computer that night talking
00:14:55.000 | about what a great night it was and how
00:14:57.520 | he loved being with his Bogleheads and so forth.
00:15:00.400 | And the next thing you know, I got a request for Mel.
00:15:04.320 | When's the next one?
00:15:05.720 | Well, I had no idea that there was going to be more than one.
00:15:09.360 | But--
00:15:10.240 | Well, now you know there is.
00:15:13.080 | Yeah, so I was approached by someone
00:15:16.160 | who I didn't know from the forum.
00:15:18.240 | But he had inherited a farm in Pennsylvania near Vanguard.
00:15:23.320 | So he offered his farm, and he wanted
00:15:26.840 | to host the Bogleheads for the second reunion.
00:15:31.880 | So at that time, when he got in touch with me, I told him,
00:15:34.840 | I'm leaving for Florida.
00:15:35.920 | I'll be gone for three months.
00:15:37.680 | When I get back, we'll get together,
00:15:39.560 | and we'll talk about it.
00:15:41.000 | After I got back from Florida, I called,
00:15:44.920 | and they told me that he had died while I was in Florida.
00:15:49.440 | So I said, oh, well, just forget about it.
00:15:51.600 | And his family would not let it go.
00:15:54.080 | They said they wanted to do it in his honor
00:15:56.280 | because that's what he wanted.
00:15:58.240 | So our second reunion was at his farm
00:16:02.200 | in Pennsylvania near Vanguard.
00:16:07.200 | And several things happened there.
00:16:10.680 | Jack took us on a tour of Vanguard,
00:16:13.360 | was our Vanguard tour director.
00:16:16.440 | And Jason Zweig covered that for Money magazine.
00:16:20.880 | He was with Money magazine at that time.
00:16:23.360 | And we ended up with a six- or eight-page spread
00:16:27.440 | in Money magazine titled "Here Come the Bogleheads."
00:16:31.960 | And it's still available online.
00:16:34.680 | And that was the start of what continued
00:16:38.200 | to be, or what turned out to be, an annual or almost annual
00:16:42.640 | event.
00:16:43.560 | We had the next one in conjunction with the Money Start
00:16:46.960 | Conference in Chicago.
00:16:48.840 | The next one was in conjunction with the CFA Institute.
00:16:53.320 | We had another one with the Money Show.
00:16:56.920 | So all of the ones we did initially,
00:16:58.960 | other than the first two, were done in conjunction with shows
00:17:03.400 | where Jack was appearing.
00:17:05.840 | In 2005-- and we couldn't find anywhere
00:17:08.960 | that Jack was appearing.
00:17:11.600 | So then Jack got in touch with me and said, Mel,
00:17:14.200 | when's our next conference?
00:17:15.400 | And I said, well, we're trying to find something
00:17:18.600 | where you're speaking and tie in with that.
00:17:22.040 | And that's when Jack said, I don't
00:17:23.720 | care about where I'm speaking.
00:17:25.840 | I'll go wherever you guys want me.
00:17:28.320 | And that was that we broke away from the shows
00:17:30.740 | and started doing our own shows.
00:17:35.560 | We went to DC.
00:17:38.000 | Then we went to San Diego.
00:17:40.080 | And then after that, we went Dallas-Fort Worth.
00:17:43.200 | And Dallas-Fort Worth was a really touching event
00:17:47.920 | because Jack was in the hospital.
00:17:50.000 | Jack had made every one of our events.
00:17:52.560 | And he told us that he wanted to speak to the crowd.
00:17:57.840 | So we put a phone line in and wired it into the ballroom.
00:18:03.160 | And Jack called in at the appointed time.
00:18:05.160 | Don't ask me how he got a phone in intensive care
00:18:07.600 | in the hospital.
00:18:08.840 | But anyway, Jack called in.
00:18:10.760 | And he talked to us for about 15 minutes.
00:18:15.080 | So that was the only one that Jack missed.
00:18:18.280 | But being concerned for his health,
00:18:21.040 | I thought that it best that we would keep him in Philadelphia
00:18:25.120 | so Jack didn't have to travel.
00:18:28.080 | And so all the conferences since then
00:18:31.520 | have been held in Philadelphia where
00:18:34.000 | Jack has not had to go cross-country or travel
00:18:37.600 | at all other than from his home.
00:18:40.520 | So Mel, I understand that getting
00:18:42.000 | to one of these conferences is a pretty hot ticket
00:18:45.280 | in that there's a limited seating.
00:18:48.520 | And in order to go to the conference,
00:18:52.560 | as soon as the invitation goes out on the internet,
00:18:55.840 | out on the Vogelheads forum, they
00:18:57.340 | have to almost immediately reserve their spot
00:19:00.520 | because these tickets are gone within a day.
00:19:04.640 | And there's a reason for that.
00:19:06.480 | We started out the first conference
00:19:08.120 | with about 20, 22 people.
00:19:11.680 | And we liked the intimacy.
00:19:13.120 | So I kept trying to enlarge the crowd a little bit at a time
00:19:17.640 | to find out if we were going to lose that intimate feeling
00:19:21.960 | where people got a chance to talk
00:19:23.320 | to Jack and the authors that were there and so forth.
00:19:26.420 | So we went from 20 to somewhere around 40 for the second one,
00:19:31.640 | maybe 60 for the third, 80.
00:19:34.760 | And finally, we got to 200.
00:19:37.800 | And at that point, I felt that anything larger than that,
00:19:42.200 | we would lose the personal touch.
00:19:44.560 | So we now sell about 225 tickets.
00:19:49.560 | And they go-- sometimes they've gone in as little as six hours.
00:19:55.640 | This year, we sold out again despite the fact
00:20:00.480 | that Jack is not going to be there.
00:20:02.180 | We still sold out in less than one day.
00:20:04.680 | And we have a waiting list for people who are
00:20:07.880 | hoping that they can get in.
00:20:09.280 | But we feel that the 200, somewhere around 200,
00:20:14.640 | is the ideal number because people got to talk to Jack.
00:20:18.760 | They got to talk to people like you and Bill Bernstein
00:20:21.920 | and all of the authors and the people whose books they've read.
00:20:29.080 | And it just works out that they get a chance
00:20:31.820 | to meet them and talk to them.
00:20:33.200 | And we feel that that's one of the real important parts
00:20:36.520 | of the event.
00:20:39.080 | I actually think I could sell out Yankee Stadium.
00:20:41.960 | But we don't want that kind of event,
00:20:44.400 | like Warren Buffett's event, where
00:20:47.200 | you have thousands and thousands and tens of thousands
00:20:49.720 | of people there.
00:20:50.400 | But I just like the intimate feeling.
00:20:53.160 | And everybody agreed that that was the ideal setup.
00:20:57.480 | So yes, the tickets are scarcer than hen's teeth.
00:21:01.280 | But one thing that you did set up several years ago
00:21:05.440 | was local chapters so that people
00:21:08.520 | could go locally and have the same intimate feeling
00:21:12.680 | and talk about a lot of the same topics.
00:21:14.800 | Which, by the way, I wanted to clarify,
00:21:16.600 | the Bogleheads is not about Vanguard.
00:21:21.000 | I mean, Jack Bogle was the founder of Vanguard.
00:21:23.520 | But the Bogleheads is not a Vanguard fan club.
00:21:26.800 | It espouses the virtues of Jack Bogle, not necessarily Vanguard.
00:21:32.960 | Well, Vanguard says we're their biggest fans
00:21:35.120 | and their biggest critics.
00:21:36.200 | And that's probably true.
00:21:38.560 | The reason we like Vanguard and mention Vanguard a lot
00:21:41.880 | is because of the low cost and their indexing and so forth
00:21:46.840 | and their corporate structure, which the way it's set up
00:21:50.080 | is unique.
00:21:51.280 | But we have mentioned and we feel
00:21:53.640 | that there are certainly other places, especially
00:21:56.160 | when people don't have access to Vanguard,
00:21:58.920 | there are other companies that we respect.
00:22:02.440 | But the main thing we look for is low cost,
00:22:07.080 | because cost matters.
00:22:08.360 | And of course, we are fans of indexing.
00:22:12.360 | But there are other companies, and we mention them
00:22:15.080 | in some of our books.
00:22:17.000 | So if Vanguard does something wrong,
00:22:20.480 | they're going to hear about it, and they're
00:22:22.240 | going to read about it on the bogleheads.org forum.
00:22:26.800 | So we are friends.
00:22:28.360 | We've probably driven tons and tons and billions, possibly,
00:22:32.520 | of money to Vanguard simply because we
00:22:35.800 | were getting people out of bad situations
00:22:38.120 | into good situations.
00:22:39.520 | But we also recommend Fidelity and some of the other places
00:22:43.600 | where they have good choices available.
00:22:46.320 | I think that, in many ways, Vanguard was the leader,
00:22:48.760 | and it's really helped to drive down cost everywhere.
00:22:51.480 | But it's become, in many ways, more of a level playing field
00:22:55.760 | where you have indexing products at Schwab, Fidelity.
00:23:00.000 | You've got ETF companies like iShares.
00:23:03.600 | Everyone has come way down in price and access
00:23:09.120 | to extremely low cost index investing.
00:23:12.040 | And of course, Vanguard was the leader driving that.
00:23:14.760 | I agree, a lot of people don't have access to Vanguard.
00:23:17.040 | But there are a lot of good funds
00:23:19.080 | and a lot of good companies everywhere now,
00:23:20.880 | because it has become much more of a level playing field.
00:23:24.880 | Exactly, and I credit Jack.
00:23:27.560 | And our message has gotten across, too.
00:23:30.040 | I'm sure that we had some impact on that,
00:23:32.880 | the bogleheads forums have.
00:23:35.040 | So it's good.
00:23:36.060 | It's good for all investors, whether they
00:23:38.360 | are at Vanguard or Fidelity or at Schwab or wherever they are.
00:23:43.000 | It's good that they're focusing on costs.
00:23:46.840 | So we feel that we might have had some little--
00:23:49.520 | played a little part in that.
00:23:52.320 | That was Jack's mission.
00:23:53.520 | And what we tried to do is carry on Jack's mission
00:23:57.680 | and spread the word.
00:23:59.560 | So helping to spread the word, let's
00:24:01.920 | talk about local chapters.
00:24:05.880 | A lot of people can't make it to the annual conference
00:24:08.520 | or they can't get a ticket to the annual conference.
00:24:11.120 | But there are local chapters now all over the country.
00:24:13.920 | In fact, even all over the world now, chapters have begun.
00:24:18.000 | Yeah, that's one of the things that I'm proudest of
00:24:20.640 | is setting these chapters up.
00:24:22.400 | We have close to 100 now.
00:24:24.720 | And we have them in foreign countries.
00:24:26.840 | I think we have six, maybe six or seven foreign chapters.
00:24:32.320 | And we have chapters all around the country.
00:24:35.360 | And these chapters meet on their own.
00:24:37.960 | And they do basically what we do in the conference.
00:24:40.360 | They get together and they talk about things
00:24:43.440 | that they're interested in.
00:24:45.200 | We do not dictate their meeting frequency or their agendas
00:24:50.120 | or anything.
00:24:50.720 | They're kind of on their own.
00:24:51.960 | But usually, I try to pick a coordinator from the forum.
00:24:56.880 | And the members come from the forum.
00:24:59.400 | So it's an extension of the forum,
00:25:01.560 | but where people get to meet in person
00:25:04.520 | and talk about things that are important to them
00:25:07.800 | and find out that there are other people just
00:25:10.640 | like them in Sioux Falls, Idaho, or wherever it happens to be.
00:25:15.840 | I think it's really great because it also
00:25:18.360 | brings in other people.
00:25:20.080 | It brings spouses in.
00:25:21.240 | A lot of the conference, a lot of the Bogo Heads local chapter
00:25:25.440 | meetings, couples come.
00:25:28.240 | And it brings maybe a spouse in that's
00:25:30.960 | not really interested in learning about investing.
00:25:34.920 | But it's a social event, too.
00:25:37.080 | And they go and they pick up and say, oh, this is interesting.
00:25:41.080 | So I think it's a great extension of our forum
00:25:44.640 | and our conferences.
00:25:46.400 | And it's one of the things that I am most satisfied
00:25:49.840 | in the way it turned out.
00:25:51.760 | And there are even local chapters
00:25:54.400 | overseas in several countries.
00:25:56.560 | And I understand that some of these countries
00:25:58.920 | are even starting their own Bogo Heads conferences now.
00:26:02.680 | Yes, and some of them, they send me information on these.
00:26:05.760 | And some of these things look like they
00:26:07.480 | are bigger than our conferences because they
00:26:10.440 | don't put a limit on it.
00:26:11.800 | And I've seen some of these things in stadium seating
00:26:14.640 | that looks like it goes forever.
00:26:17.040 | So that's the United Arab Emirates in Dubai.
00:26:22.040 | But we have-- and in one of the conferences,
00:26:27.160 | when I was doing book signings at one of our conferences,
00:26:29.880 | when I was doing book signings, a guy came up to me
00:26:32.440 | and handed me a book.
00:26:33.600 | And I didn't recognize the book.
00:26:35.400 | And it turns out that he was giving me the book.
00:26:37.920 | He was the chapter leader in Taiwan.
00:26:41.520 | So yeah, I mean, we've had people
00:26:45.440 | from some of the other countries come over,
00:26:48.160 | some of the local chapters come to our conferences.
00:26:51.320 | So it's a great thing.
00:26:52.880 | I really think that Taylor and I can
00:26:55.040 | be really proud of the little seed we planted
00:26:58.680 | and the way it's grown, and just so many people that
00:27:01.520 | are getting involved, like you and Bill Bernstein and all
00:27:05.360 | of the other people.
00:27:06.200 | Jason has been a good friend of the Bogoheads.
00:27:09.600 | He's written so many great columns about it.
00:27:12.400 | Jonathan Clements has always been a Bogoheads favorite,
00:27:17.560 | writing his columns in The Wall Street Journal.
00:27:20.080 | And Christine Benz, too, from Morningstar.
00:27:23.840 | It's been so great to see all of these people who
00:27:26.760 | have large readerships spreading the message, too.
00:27:30.320 | So--
00:27:31.320 | Mel, you mentioned books several times.
00:27:34.560 | Can you talk about the different Bogohead books?
00:27:37.960 | And you talked about the authors.
00:27:39.560 | Can you talk about the authors?
00:27:41.480 | Initially, I got a call, and the guy identified himself
00:27:45.880 | as Bill Faloon from Lolly Publishing.
00:27:48.360 | And he said, I'd like you to do a book.
00:27:51.000 | And I'm thinking, I know there are hundreds of thousands
00:27:53.920 | of people who've written books and can't get them published.
00:27:56.000 | And I get a guy calling me out of the blue
00:27:57.800 | asking me to write a book.
00:27:59.320 | I hung up on him.
00:28:00.720 | I thought it was a hoax.
00:28:02.600 | So he wouldn't take no for an answer.
00:28:05.880 | He kept calling back.
00:28:07.000 | And one time, he called back, and he mentioned--
00:28:10.800 | he said, don't hang up, Taylor Larimore.
00:28:13.280 | And when he said Taylor, I figured, well,
00:28:15.320 | he must know something.
00:28:17.240 | Anyway, it was Bill Faloon from Wally Publishing,
00:28:20.280 | a legitimate publisher, who wanted us to do a book.
00:28:24.360 | And I was leery of doing a book because I told him,
00:28:30.600 | there are tons and tons of books out there written
00:28:35.040 | by people who are much, much smarter than we are.
00:28:39.240 | And why would you want somebody like us to write a book?
00:28:42.280 | I said, the only way I will write a book
00:28:45.040 | is if we can assume that people know nothing.
00:28:49.480 | And we are going to write at that level
00:28:51.920 | because books like Bill Bernstein's first book,
00:28:55.480 | with all the math in it, I said, it's a brilliant book.
00:28:59.360 | He's a brilliant guy.
00:29:00.640 | But if people can't understand it,
00:29:02.920 | they just put the book down.
00:29:04.240 | Their eyes glaze over.
00:29:05.360 | It goes right over their head.
00:29:06.800 | And the book is not useful.
00:29:08.440 | So there are plenty of those kinds of books
00:29:10.600 | out there for the people who want the high end.
00:29:13.400 | I said, the only way I would consider doing it
00:29:15.960 | would be if we could write at a level
00:29:18.000 | that assumed people knew nothing.
00:29:20.720 | So they agreed to that.
00:29:22.200 | So we agreed to do the book.
00:29:24.880 | We brought Michael LaBoeuf in as a co-author.
00:29:29.560 | And the three of us did the book.
00:29:31.680 | Well, the book was successful in the US.
00:29:34.520 | And it started being published in foreign languages.
00:29:39.480 | And I was getting books showing up in a box on my porch
00:29:43.960 | that I didn't recognize.
00:29:45.440 | And it turned out they were the foreign version.
00:29:48.480 | So the book has been very successful.
00:29:50.920 | And it's been printed in a number of different languages.
00:29:54.360 | And hopefully, our message, Jack Bogle's message,
00:29:58.320 | is getting spread around the world.
00:30:01.120 | But the book, one of the things that I'm most proud of
00:30:05.280 | is when I read the reviews on Amazon
00:30:07.840 | where people say that I could understand the book.
00:30:10.960 | They didn't talk down to me, which
00:30:12.720 | means we were on target because that's exactly the audience
00:30:17.240 | that we wanted, people who needed guidance
00:30:20.860 | and didn't feel that this was rocket science.
00:30:24.320 | So the first Bogleheads book is still out there.
00:30:26.320 | It's now in its second printing, if I'm not mistaken,
00:30:28.720 | or its second edition.
00:30:30.120 | There was another book.
00:30:31.520 | And I know there was another book
00:30:33.520 | because I was involved in the other book.
00:30:37.480 | You certainly were, you and the queen of the Bogleheads, Laura,
00:30:41.080 | and Taylor, and I. And I thought this
00:30:44.280 | was the perfect opportunity to display
00:30:47.680 | the talents of the people who were on the Bogleheads forum.
00:30:51.880 | So what we did is created the outline.
00:30:54.880 | And we had people volunteer to write a chapter.
00:30:59.480 | Sometimes it was two or three people
00:31:01.240 | work together on a chapter where they had expertise.
00:31:05.640 | So that book is a showcase of the talents that are
00:31:11.120 | on the Bogleheads.org forum.
00:31:13.480 | Every chapter in there was written by people
00:31:16.640 | who are on the forum and give free advice.
00:31:19.680 | And our job was to put it all together and make it read
00:31:23.080 | like one person wrote it.
00:31:25.560 | But each person got credit for the chapters
00:31:28.960 | they wrote in the chapter.
00:31:31.080 | So it was a community effort.
00:31:34.480 | And I'm very proud of the way that book turned out.
00:31:37.240 | So just to clarify for me, if you will,
00:31:39.560 | the title of the first book and then
00:31:41.080 | the title of the second book.
00:31:43.320 | The first book was The Bogleheads Guide to Investing.
00:31:46.760 | And the second book was The Bogleheads
00:31:49.360 | Guide to Retirement Planning.
00:31:51.680 | There's a third book now, which Taylor put out,
00:31:56.480 | which is The Bogleheads Guide to the Three Fund Portfolio.
00:32:00.240 | It was his lifelong effort, if you will.
00:32:04.360 | So let's continue to move on and talk
00:32:06.040 | about how the Bogleheads continues
00:32:08.400 | to expand in many different directions.
00:32:10.840 | And one, which is incredibly impressive,
00:32:15.080 | is the amount of information and content
00:32:19.160 | that is available on the Bogleheads wiki site.
00:32:23.360 | Oh, yeah, that's a treasure trove of information.
00:32:26.280 | And it is, again, a joint effort by people,
00:32:31.880 | knowledgeable people, knowledgeable Bogleheads,
00:32:34.520 | who volunteer to write the articles, to edit the articles,
00:32:37.920 | to keep them up to date.
00:32:39.720 | And this will live on long, long after we're all gone.
00:32:45.000 | And hopefully people are making use of it.
00:32:48.520 | We're getting lots of reads and hits on it.
00:32:52.200 | And it just continues to expand.
00:32:54.560 | And more and more people are becoming wiki editors.
00:32:58.200 | And it's just an extension, if you will,
00:33:02.400 | of The Bogleheads Guide to Retirement Planning, which
00:33:05.120 | showcased a number of authors.
00:33:07.360 | This is showcasing the wealth of knowledge
00:33:10.680 | that's available on the Bogleheads Forum
00:33:12.960 | on a regular, everyday basis.
00:33:15.280 | Not only does it have retirement planning information,
00:33:17.840 | but there's 529 plans.
00:33:21.440 | There's all kinds of information about the tax efficiency
00:33:25.880 | of various Vanguard funds and other ETFs.
00:33:31.680 | Just you name it, if you're looking
00:33:33.880 | for good quality, unbiased, uncommercial information
00:33:39.360 | about low-cost investing, I mean,
00:33:41.160 | the Boglehead wiki is just a phenomenal resource.
00:33:45.000 | I just can't get over how much information is there.
00:33:48.720 | And it's free.
00:33:49.520 | And you can read it at your pace.
00:33:51.720 | There's another thing there, too.
00:33:53.240 | If you wanted to see the history of the Bogleheads conferences,
00:33:57.920 | there's videotapes on there.
00:34:00.160 | You can go right through the history of all the conferences
00:34:03.280 | and so forth.
00:34:04.400 | In the early days, we had transcripts
00:34:06.880 | of what happened, what was said, what Jack talked about,
00:34:11.080 | the Q&As and so forth.
00:34:13.320 | So there's a wealth of information there,
00:34:16.240 | both from a historical standpoint,
00:34:18.480 | going back to the first Bogleheads conference,
00:34:21.720 | up through today's.
00:34:23.520 | So you could spend hours and hours and hours on there
00:34:26.360 | and never, ever begin to touch all the information that's
00:34:29.680 | available there.
00:34:30.760 | I highly recommend it to people who have time to read
00:34:34.800 | and want to study.
00:34:36.840 | And sometimes you have to read before you even
00:34:39.600 | know what the questions are.
00:34:40.760 | So you can read some of that information.
00:34:42.960 | And then you can go on the forum and ask a question about it.
00:34:46.560 | And you might be getting an answer
00:34:48.600 | from the same person who wrote the wiki article.
00:34:52.600 | I also want to add that it's not only in the US now.
00:34:56.000 | The wiki has extended internationally.
00:34:58.120 | There is a Canadian web ring.
00:35:01.720 | There's other countries now that are adding content
00:35:04.600 | to the wiki.
00:35:06.000 | It's just phenomenal.
00:35:07.720 | We now have a Spanish forum.
00:35:09.760 | And we have a United Arab Emirates forum.
00:35:12.720 | So these are subforums now on our forum
00:35:15.440 | where people come on bogleheads.org
00:35:18.400 | from the United Arab Emirates.
00:35:20.920 | And they talk to each other.
00:35:22.880 | Some people who are in the US wanting
00:35:25.520 | to go to the retarded Emirates, they're
00:35:29.800 | learning about investing there.
00:35:31.440 | So there are subforums on our main forum
00:35:34.720 | for Spain and Canada and the United Arab Emirates now.
00:35:40.800 | So yes, our reach is international,
00:35:43.520 | both in the chapters, but also on the main forum now.
00:35:48.800 | I'd also like to add that I had guests from the UK
00:35:53.560 | on the Bogleheads forum last month.
00:35:55.800 | And Robin Powell from the UK is interested in starting
00:36:00.200 | a UK forum on the Bogleheads.
00:36:02.720 | So hopefully, we can connect that together.
00:36:05.240 | Because there's a lot of people in the UK now,
00:36:07.160 | especially with all the changes of the laws over there,
00:36:09.520 | where indexing and low-cost investing
00:36:11.480 | now is just starting to become very popular.
00:36:13.880 | So this Bogleheads phenomenon, the Bogleheads wiki,
00:36:16.880 | the bogleheads.org site, the conferences, the local chapters
00:36:21.360 | is just growing and growing.
00:36:23.280 | I do want to make one plug for something that's on the wiki
00:36:27.480 | that's called "Taylor's Gems," which Taylor has spent years
00:36:33.880 | collecting, reading books.
00:36:36.120 | And maybe you could comment on that.
00:36:37.620 | It's just an incredible collection
00:36:40.160 | that Taylor has put together.
00:36:42.640 | Taylor used to go to the library--
00:36:44.040 | I think it was every Saturday--
00:36:45.880 | and read books.
00:36:47.560 | And he has read so many books over the years.
00:36:51.160 | And he picks out key elements, things
00:36:54.720 | that strike him as being important.
00:36:58.160 | And he makes notes of these.
00:36:59.680 | And they're called "Taylor's Gems."
00:37:01.200 | And each book that he reads, he might end up
00:37:04.560 | with 20, or 30, or even 50 of "Taylor's Gems."
00:37:09.200 | And when he posts these on the forum,
00:37:12.560 | they're available now for everybody.
00:37:15.040 | And basically, this is Taylor's summary of whatever book
00:37:19.640 | it was he read.
00:37:20.920 | So if you want to get the key elements of any particular
00:37:23.520 | book, all you have to do is look through "Taylor's Gems."
00:37:26.040 | And you'll find something that really strikes your interest.
00:37:29.280 | Then you go get the book.
00:37:30.720 | I was just on the wiki site.
00:37:32.280 | And there's lists of dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens
00:37:35.960 | of investment books and finance books
00:37:38.480 | for individual investors.
00:37:40.440 | And next to it are "Taylor's Gems."
00:37:43.440 | So if you want to just read a little bit about what
00:37:46.080 | the book's about, you can just click on "Taylor's Gems."
00:37:48.400 | And you can read.
00:37:49.360 | Because he's already read it.
00:37:50.720 | If it's out there, he's read it.
00:37:52.580 | And he's taken notes.
00:37:53.920 | And he's putting them up there on the bogleheads.org forum.
00:37:57.400 | And also, the people who are putting up
00:37:59.880 | content for the wiki have taken his gems
00:38:02.360 | and have put them on the wiki.
00:38:04.600 | And by the way, the transcripts from these podcasts
00:38:08.280 | that I'm doing are also now being put up on the wiki.
00:38:11.080 | So everything's up there.
00:38:12.920 | These are things that are going to be available for people
00:38:16.720 | long after we're gone.
00:38:17.800 | And I'm so thrilled to see all this happening.
00:38:21.680 | And your podcasts are--
00:38:24.660 | that's today.
00:38:26.660 | Today, people want to listen to podcasts.
00:38:28.740 | And it's great.
00:38:29.480 | I mean, you're doing a super job.
00:38:30.980 | And I'm really thankful for you stepping up and doing this.
00:38:34.900 | It's just another tool in our tool belt of educating
00:38:40.740 | investors.
00:38:42.300 | Yep, it's people helping people.
00:38:44.220 | So Mel, just to be very clear, the Bogleheads
00:38:47.820 | are a non-commercial site.
00:38:49.860 | And there is no one getting paid.
00:38:53.500 | And also, a lot of this is part of the nonprofit organization.
00:38:58.740 | So could you talk about those two things?
00:39:01.580 | Yeah, the Bogleheads forum, no one gets paid for giving
00:39:09.300 | advice.
00:39:10.200 | No one gets paid for commercials.
00:39:13.500 | No one in the Bogleheads organization makes any money.
00:39:19.100 | No one is paid anything.
00:39:21.660 | The same thing is true for the John C. Bogleheads Center
00:39:26.380 | for Financial Literacy.
00:39:28.180 | It's a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation
00:39:32.620 | approved by the IRS.
00:39:35.020 | We can take donations.
00:39:39.540 | And we use our donations to help support the forum.
00:39:45.620 | And for educational purposes, to try to spread the word any way
00:39:51.180 | we can.
00:39:52.380 | And also, the Bogleheads Center puts on the annual conferences.
00:39:58.540 | Mel, you've done a fabulous job.
00:40:00.700 | You and Taylor have done a fabulous job
00:40:03.180 | getting the Bogleheads up and running and just pushing
00:40:06.820 | this thing along for 20 years.
00:40:08.660 | You're to be commended.
00:40:10.660 | It's a crusade that Jack started.
00:40:12.580 | And it's turned into a freight train that just keeps
00:40:16.820 | on picking up boxcars and moving faster and faster down the track.
00:40:20.900 | In the 20 plus years I've been involved in it,
00:40:23.660 | it went from a really small thing to what
00:40:27.180 | I feel now is something that will carry on long after I'm
00:40:30.700 | gone.
00:40:31.200 | And we've got people like you and others
00:40:34.100 | that are spreading the message.
00:40:36.140 | And hopefully, you guys will be carrying it on
00:40:39.460 | after we're gone.
00:40:41.060 | But you can outlive me, Mel, so I don't have to worry about that.
00:40:45.300 | Well, my goal is, Rick--
00:40:50.020 | I know you're a pickleball player.
00:40:51.820 | And you're a higher ranked pickleball player than I am.
00:40:56.260 | However, I'm pretty good for my age.
00:41:00.980 | And I can hold my own.
00:41:02.220 | And there's not many guys my age that can keep up with me.
00:41:05.620 | My goal is to be playing pickleball at 100.
00:41:09.940 | Well, that would be great.
00:41:12.140 | And I'm doing everything I can to stay in shape.
00:41:15.700 | I play pickleball a couple hours a day.
00:41:18.140 | I walk four miles on the beach.
00:41:20.220 | And I'm doing all I can to reach my goal.
00:41:24.660 | I told Taylor, I said, Taylor, I'll make a deal with you.
00:41:28.340 | I'll come to your 100th if you come to my 100th.
00:41:32.300 | Taylor, of course, we have to clarify,
00:41:34.100 | Taylor is 95 or 96 years old?
00:41:37.460 | Yeah, he is, and I'm 81, so.
00:41:41.020 | Mel, I really appreciate the time today that you've taken
00:41:44.700 | and what you've done to help investors educate themselves
00:41:49.180 | and avoid all the biases that take place out there,
00:41:53.380 | all the noise that happens out there.
00:41:55.540 | And thank you for everything you've
00:41:58.660 | done for continuing to spread the word.
00:42:01.980 | And I know you're going to be doing this for a long, long
00:42:03.900 | time.
00:42:04.740 | Well, Rick, it's been great being with you.
00:42:06.620 | And I want to thank you for your service
00:42:08.820 | and for everything you've done for the Bogleheads.
00:42:12.020 | You're an important part, and I'm
00:42:14.020 | looking forward to seeing you in October in Philly.
00:42:17.780 | Thank you, Mel.
00:42:19.380 | This concludes the 11th episode of Bogleheads on investing.
00:42:24.060 | I'm your host, Rick Ferry.
00:42:26.300 | Join us each month to hear a new special guest.
00:42:29.660 | In the meantime, visit bogleheads.org
00:42:33.020 | and the Bogleheads Wiki.
00:42:34.740 | Participate in the forum and help others find the forum.
00:42:38.980 | Thanks for listening.
00:42:41.060 | [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:42:44.420 | [MUSIC ENDS]
00:42:47.780 | (upbeat music)