THE COLOR OF MONEY COLUMN: A Word We Can All Live By
Date: Friday, September 04, 2009, 10:45 am By: Michelle Singletary
WASHINGTON -- There's a word we all need to live by.It could alleviate the stress that many parents feel every time their darling child's birthday comes around. It would put an end to the need to ever say "Bridezilla." It might mean the cancellation of Bravo's successful "Real Housewives" television series featuring seemingly wealthy women with too much makeup and too tight clothes prancing around with overpriced Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Versace whatevers.It could have saved us from the recession."Enough."That's the word.This two-syllable word drew me to the Color of Money Book Club selection for September. It's the title of John C. Bogle's latest work, "Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life" (Wiley, $24.95).Bogle is the founder of the Vanguard Group, which he created in 1974. In the interest of full disclosure, I own Vanguard mutual funds as part of my 401(k) plan and other investment portfolios. I've had the pleasure of appearing on the stage with Bogle. He strikes me as genuinely caring about the individual investor.Bogle's book may seem a pretentious choice at a time when many people are barely able to pay their mortgages or rent or medical expenses. Or they have been unemployed for so long that they've lost hope. But "Enough" is an insightful reminder of the danger of building an economy too dependent and dominated by the financial industry. Bogle laments that we've created a culture whose heroes are hedge fund managers and moneychangers whose reckless decisions have damaged so many companies, families and retirement portfolios.This isn't a book most people would pick up and read leisurely. Bogle spends a fair amount of page space (but not too much for my taste) criticizing the financial world, although he acknowledges it has brought him great wealth. "Enough" is divided into three sections: "Money," "Business" and "Life."In the section on money, Bogle skewers his own kind -- the investment community."On balance, the financial system subtracts value from our society," he writes. "We have moved to a world where far too many of us seemingly no longer make anything; we're merely trading pieces of paper, swapping stocks and bonds back and forth with one another, and paying our financial croupiers a veritable fortune. In the process, we have inevitably added even more costs by creating ever more complex financial derivatives in which huge and unfathomable risks have been built into the financial system."Amen. Hallelujah and all that jazz.Because we no longer know what enough is, we are never satisfied. We are forever trading up or just trading -- stocks, bonds, cars, homes, and even spouses -- to achieve what we think is something better. This is especially true with our investment expectations. Yes, the money handlers led us down a dark path. But we followed, demanding higher and higher double-digit returns no matter what the larger costs. Stock prices used to go up when a company announced major layoffs while continuing to pay top executives obscene amounts of money.Bogle certainly has an agenda -- to make the case for low-cost mutual funds.He lays out his wish for a better mutual fund industry. Bogle writes: "What I'm ultimately looking for is an industry that is focused on stewardship -- the prudent handling of other people's money solely in the interests of our investors. ... We need a mutual fund industry with both vision and values."Oh my, wouldn't that be nice.Finally, in his life section, Bogle asks this question: What are the things by which we should measure our lives?"We focus too much on things and not enough on the intangibles that make the things worthwhile; too much .....
Date: Friday, September 04, 2009, 10:45 am By: Michelle Singletary
WASHINGTON -- There's a word we all need to live by.It could alleviate the stress that many parents feel every time their darling child's birthday comes around. It would put an end to the need to ever say "Bridezilla." It might mean the cancellation of Bravo's successful "Real Housewives" television series featuring seemingly wealthy women with too much makeup and too tight clothes prancing around with overpriced Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Versace whatevers.It could have saved us from the recession."Enough."That's the word.This two-syllable word drew me to the Color of Money Book Club selection for September. It's the title of John C. Bogle's latest work, "Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life" (Wiley, $24.95).Bogle is the founder of the Vanguard Group, which he created in 1974. In the interest of full disclosure, I own Vanguard mutual funds as part of my 401(k) plan and other investment portfolios. I've had the pleasure of appearing on the stage with Bogle. He strikes me as genuinely caring about the individual investor.Bogle's book may seem a pretentious choice at a time when many people are barely able to pay their mortgages or rent or medical expenses. Or they have been unemployed for so long that they've lost hope. But "Enough" is an insightful reminder of the danger of building an economy too dependent and dominated by the financial industry. Bogle laments that we've created a culture whose heroes are hedge fund managers and moneychangers whose reckless decisions have damaged so many companies, families and retirement portfolios.This isn't a book most people would pick up and read leisurely. Bogle spends a fair amount of page space (but not too much for my taste) criticizing the financial world, although he acknowledges it has brought him great wealth. "Enough" is divided into three sections: "Money," "Business" and "Life."In the section on money, Bogle skewers his own kind -- the investment community."On balance, the financial system subtracts value from our society," he writes. "We have moved to a world where far too many of us seemingly no longer make anything; we're merely trading pieces of paper, swapping stocks and bonds back and forth with one another, and paying our financial croupiers a veritable fortune. In the process, we have inevitably added even more costs by creating ever more complex financial derivatives in which huge and unfathomable risks have been built into the financial system."Amen. Hallelujah and all that jazz.Because we no longer know what enough is, we are never satisfied. We are forever trading up or just trading -- stocks, bonds, cars, homes, and even spouses -- to achieve what we think is something better. This is especially true with our investment expectations. Yes, the money handlers led us down a dark path. But we followed, demanding higher and higher double-digit returns no matter what the larger costs. Stock prices used to go up when a company announced major layoffs while continuing to pay top executives obscene amounts of money.Bogle certainly has an agenda -- to make the case for low-cost mutual funds.He lays out his wish for a better mutual fund industry. Bogle writes: "What I'm ultimately looking for is an industry that is focused on stewardship -- the prudent handling of other people's money solely in the interests of our investors. ... We need a mutual fund industry with both vision and values."Oh my, wouldn't that be nice.Finally, in his life section, Bogle asks this question: What are the things by which we should measure our lives?"We focus too much on things and not enough on the intangibles that make the things worthwhile; too much .....