I would caution anyone ever usinging returns on equity of any sort to understand this simply statistic is often meaningless.
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clearly was misunderstood, ignoring that he did not say "meaningless", but "often meaningless", which in this respect is completely different.

It is true that the word 'often' is in there, and qualifies the claim. But then, there are other words that make the affirmation stronger: 'I would caution anyone ever usinging returns on equity of any sort to understand this simply statistic is often meaningless.

And then, the sullen refusal to back down, appealing to age and experience against what he infers is just nice sounding prose.

If you want to make brazen claims about general investing principles and can't back them up with strong arguments and data, then you have to expect some pushback, especially when you're wrong. And if you are lucky, it will be from someone who rebuts your argument politely by saying something like 'I would draw the opposite conclusion', without attacking you personally.

I have been known to overstate a claim or three, but when this next happens to me, and someone pushes back with a better argument, I hope I will be honest enough to admit it gracefully, saying something like 'I have overstated my case', or 'I stand corrected', or at the least, just mumble 'Whatever', and not attack my critic. The capacity to acknowledge error is being lost in our public discourse, and so you may be right about the psychology behind the refusal to back down, but I very much agree with Manlobbi's insistence that it is the argument that needs to be addressed, not the argument's author.