Don't Count on It! Reflections on Investment Illusions, Capitalism, "Mutual" Funds, Indexing, Entrepreneurship, Idealism, and Heroes

by Bogle, John C.; Blinder, Alan S.

• ISBN13: 9780470643969
• ISBN10: 047064396X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-02
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

Throughout his legendary career, John Bogle-founder of the Vanguard mutual fund group and creator of the first index mutual fund--has helped investors build wealth the right way and led a tireless campaign to restore common sense to the investment world. Based on 25 or so speeches Bogle has delivered to professional groups and college students in recent years, Don't Count on It argues that the world of finance is marked by too much cost, and not enough value; too much speculation, and not enough investment; too much complexity, and not enough simplicity. Broken down into six segments with an introduction to each, Bogle will provide a preface, and a tentative foreword from Alan Blinder. Written in a straightforward and accessible style, Bogle offers his unparalleled insights on money, on the values we should emulate in our business and professional callings, and on what we should consider as the true treasures in our lives.

Author Biography

John C. Bogle is the founder of the Vanguard Group of Mutual Funds and President of its Bogle Financial Markets Research Center. He created Vanguard in 1974 and served as chairman and chief executive officer until 1996 and senior chairman until 2000. In 1999, Fortune magazine named Mr. Bogle as one of the four "Investment Giants" of the twentieth century; in 2004, Time magazine named him one of the world's 100 most powerful and influential people, and Institutional Investor presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, Forbes magazine described him as the person who "has done more good for investors than any other financier of the past century." Mr. Bogle graduated from Blair Academy cum laude in 1947 and Princeton University in 1951, magna cum laude in economics. In 1999, he received the University's Woodrow Wilson Award for distinguished achievement in the nation's service.
Don't Count on It! is Mr. Bogle's ninth book. His earlier books include Common Sense on Mutual Funds, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, and Enough.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Introduction	p. xv
A Note to the Reader	p. xxxi
Investment Illusions	p. 1
Don't Count on It! The Perils of Numeracy	p. 5
The Relentless Rules of Humble Arithmetic	p. 25
The Telltale Chart	p. 49
A Question So Important That It Should Be Hard to Think about Anything Else	p. 71
The Uncanny Ability to Recognize the Obvious	p. 87
The Failure of Capitalism	p. 97
What Went Wrong in Corporate America?	p. 101
Fixing a Broken Financial System	p. 123
Vanishing Treasures: Business Values and Investment Values	p. 137
A Crisis of Ethic Proportions	p. 157
Black Monday and Black Swans	p. 161
The Go-Go Years	p. 187
What's Wrong with "Mutual" Funds	p. 203
Re-Mutualizing the Mutual Fund Industry: The Alpha and the Omega	p. 207
A New Order of Things: Bringing Mutuality to the "Mutual" Fund	p. 237
The Fiduciary Principle: No Man Can Serve Two Masters	p. 273
Mutual Funds at the Millennium: Fund Directors and Fund Myths	p. 297
"High Standards of Commercial Honor … Just and Equitable Principles of Trade … Fair Dealing with Investors"	p. 317
What's Right with Indexing	p. 347
Success in Investment Management: What Can We Learn from Indexing?	p. 351
As the Index Fund Moves from Heresy to Dogma, What More Do We Need to Know?	p. 369
"The Chief Cornerstone"	p. 393
Convergence! The Great Paradox: Just as Active Fund Management Becomes More and More Like passive Indexing, So Passive Indexing Becomes More and More Like Active Fund Management	p. 409
Entrepreneurship and Innovation	p. 435
Capitalism, Entrepreneurship, and Investing: The 18th Century versus the 21st Century	p. 439
Seventeen Rules of Entrepreneurship	p. 455
"Vanguard: Saga of Heroes"	p. 469
When Does Innovation Go Too Far?	p. 493
Idealism and the New Generation	p. 507
Business as a Calling	p. 511
The Right Kind of Success	p. 517
"This Above All: To Thine Own Self Be True"	p. 521
"Enough"	p. 529
If You Can Trust Yourself …	p. 535
The Fifth "Never"	p. 543
"When a Man Comes to Himself"	p. 549
Heroes and Mentors	p. 557
Walter L. Morgan	p. 563
Paul A. Samuelson	p. 569
Peter L. Bernstein	p. 575
Bernard Lown, MD	p. 581
Index	p. 587
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