John Bogle On Managers Income

[yakers]

Recent presentation by Bogle: Vanguard founder questions money managers' takes | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Business Columnists: Cheryl Hall

One of the reasons I like VG and Bogle and maybe TIAA-CREF is that they do tend to want their members to do as well as the managers. I am not against a brutal, Darwinian market that makes the market efficient. What does bother me is the number of people with responsibilities for managing assets and providing advice who do not do well by their customers. My wife has a 403b and what I have come to know of the sharksadvisors from insurance companies and most school district management its just criminal IMHO, that decent advice is not the default mode for working people's investments. I don't mean market beating funds, I mean just index funds and especially low fees. For the more sophisticated, let them speculate in the market and watch their own expenses. I work for the Federal Govt and have the TSP program, no killer returns just wide indexes and low fees. Not the ultimate, Buffett will beat the hell out of it, probably the better investors here too, but decent and transparent. There is not mystery in the system, the system or one like it could be available to everyone with not much work.

Thank you for listening.

Rant off.

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yakers Recent presentation by Bogle: Vanguard founder questions money managers' takes | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Business Columnists: Cheryl Hall One of the reasons I like VG and Bogle and maybe TIAA-CREF is that they do tend to want their members to do as well as the managers. I am not against a brutal, Darwinian market that makes the market efficient. What does bother me is the number of people with responsibilities for managing assets and providing advice who do not do well by their customers. My wife has a 403b and what I have come to know of the sharksadvisors from insurance companies and most school district management its just criminal IMHO, that decent advice is not the default mode for working people's investments. I don't mean market beating funds, I mean just index funds and especially low fees. For the more sophisticated, let them speculate in the market and watch their own expenses. I work for the Federal Govt and have the TSP program, no killer returns just wide indexes and low fees. Not the ultimate, Buffett will beat the hell out of it, probably the better investors here too, but decent and transparent. There is not mystery in the system, the system or one like it could be available to everyone with not much work. Thank you for listening. Rant off.

TSP is not available to the average American, so that's problem #1.

The insurance companies like Principal and others bury high fees in a bundled product so complex that a CFO can barely decipher it.

The Feds look the other way on a lot of that stuff.

That's the way it's been for 30 years............

[MasterBlaster]

I really liked a couple of the lines in that link...

"At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, the late Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, the author Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel, Catch-22, over its whole history. Heller responds, 'Yes, but I have something he will never have: Enough.' "

"And for God's sake, think about who you are."

[pfpelican]

There appears to be a pound sign # at the end of that URL....and that explodes IE. Taking that off makes it work fine.

[yakers]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pfpelican There appears to be a pound sign # at the end of that URL....and that explodes IE. Taking that off makes it work fine.

Actually when I posted it I used the tinyurl site and pasted in the result so I was surprised to see the long title. But when I clicked on it using firefox it worked so I didn't figure it was worth more attention. I am sorry to think that different browsers might have problems, the article is worth reading IMHO (of course, I posted it originally) I do like the line about 'knowing who you are', not what you expect to hear from financial advisors speeking to financial students.

[clifp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yakers Recent presentation by Bogle: Vanguard founder questions money managers' takes | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Business Columnists: Cheryl Hall One of the reasons I like VG and Bogle and maybe TIAA-CREF is that they do tend to want their members to do as well as the managers. I am not against a brutal, Darwinian market that makes the market efficient. What does bother me is the number of people with responsibilities for managing assets and providing advice who do not do well by their customers. My wife has a 403b and what I have come to know of the sharksadvisors from insurance companies and most school district management its just criminal IMHO, Rant off.

I think it is a useful rant, and one worth repeating, especially to folks outside this group of money akamai (wise in Hawaii) people.

Honestly there is no execuse for the number of civil servants, stuck with 403B with horrible choices like variable annuities with total expense running 2-3% and lousy returns. My roommate a Yale educated Nurse Midwife works for local Health Clinic. Her 403B offers VA from RiverSource, yet another weird spin off AMEX/AmeriPrice. There is literally 50 sub-accounts that she can invest in and they all suck. Seemly every month they send her a 200 page tome, which is barely decipherable to me, much less somebody without MBA and 25 years of investment background. For the one half of the population with IQs<100 they might as well write it in Greek or Klingon.

The collusion between public employee unions, insurance companies, and adminstrators is in borderline criminal. We could give almost every local and state employees a large raise if we demanded an end to these practices.

The irony of course is that the TSP is such a good program, far superior to most private company 401ks.

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp IThe irony of course is that the TSP is such a good program, far superior to most private company 401ks.

So, WHY AGAIN is TSP NOT available to anyone but govt. workers? I'd love to invest in it..........