Jack Bogle:
When our financial system—essentially our money managers, marketers of investment products and stockbrokers—put up zero percent of the capital and assume zero percent of the risk yet receive fully 80 percent of the return, something has gone terribly wrong in our financial system. As I note in the book, “the shift in our system from owners’ capitalism to managers’ capitalism has been devastating to investors.”
The principles of sensible savings and investing are time-tested, perhaps even eternal. The way to wealth, it turns out, is to avoid the high-cost, high-turnover, opportunistic marketing modalities that characterize today’s financial service system and rely on the magic of compounding returns. While the interests of the business are served by the aphorism “Don’t just stand there. Do something!” the interests of investors are served by an approach that is its diametrical opposite: “Don’t do something. Just stand there!”
Sounds sensible. The entire thing is a great read.