A subject that is never brought up successfully without controversy amongst friends and family is that of sound investment principles.
Enter John C. Bogle, the founder of The Vanguard Group. He died yesterday at 89.
As I sat down this morning to read e-mails and get started with my work day, this news derailed me a little bit. I’m not going to spend much time going over my personal strategies a.) because you likely don’t care and b.) it’s not really the point of my writing this.
I just wanted to throw something together simply because if you’ve never heard of John, his story, and what he accomplished in the financial industry, he’s worth a few minutes of your time.
As I started thinking about this, I turned to Reddit, where I knew I would find others similarly seeking to eulogize Bogle and his impact on society. One Reddit user captured Bogle’s essence in a simple way I really liked:
“…he could have been a billionaire. Instead, he was able to make so many millionaires.
Bogle graduated from Princeton in 1951 with a degree in economics. His senior thesis, titled “The Economic Role of the Investment Company”, laid the foundation for what became a massive potential power shift toward the consumer in the financial industry.
I want to get my hands on the full thesis and read it again – I went through it in graduate school and it had a huge influence on me. I found a location with some excerpts from it online to start.
The TL;DR of Bogle’s philosophy (admittedly through only the lens of my personal understanding, so your mileage may vary) is that individual investors (i.e., you and I) should not be paying exorbitant management fees to simply earn average investment returns.
Put another way, every individual should be given the opportunity to invest in the market at a reasonable cost.
There’s a belief in society that if you can afford to pay “more”, you’re guaranteed “better” quality. Bogle challenged this idea from the very start of his career.
He found that the average manager of a mutual fund simply did no better or worse over the long term than the actual market performed. (He’s not the only one who’s challenged the industry on this – famous investor Warren Buffett also won a bet under this pretense over the last decade)
The Vanguard Group, founded in 1974, is lauded for basically being unwaveringly committed to this principle of giving affordable market access to the public.
Those of you who have/have had the experience of setting up deferred contribution retirement accounts through your employers have probably seen the name Vanguard before – you may have even picked one of their funds.
If you have, Mr. Bogle is the reason that fund exists. I’d go on and on about this for paragraphs, but I need to get back to work. Have a day, folks.
The M.I.P.P.A. Blog 
Thank you. I enjoyed your blog. Your thoughts were insightful. (Honestly, I didn’t know much about how regular folks gained access to the market. If he helped in developing access, then I posthumously share some gratitude towards him)
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