Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.1220973
EAN: 9780300119718
ISBN: 0300119712
Label: Yale University Press
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2006-11-27
Publisher: Yale University Press
Studio: Yale University Press

Customer Rating:
Summary: An Insiders Call for Investment Reform.
Comment: The main attraction of this book is the author. John Bogle is an insider with a long history in investment.

Throughout the book Mr.Bogle addresses problems in the investment sector. Some are known, some are factors that John Q. Public may not be aware of.
His main argument is about ownership. Who controls investments? One would expect that shareholders do. But in reality it's the fund managers. That's the author's point- "owner's capitalism" vs. "manager's capitalism".

He provides a witty quote from Herbert Hoover on capitalism. "You know, the only trouble with capitalism is capitalists. They're too darn greedy."

Some of the issues that Mr. Bogle covers in this book are:
$Accounting fiction $Unrealistic Speculation $Loose Accounting Standards $Restatements of Financial Reporting $Short Term Speculation vs. Long Term Investing $Consideration of Federal Chartering for Corporations.

The author highlights the importance of full and fair disclosure.

Executive perks are discussed as well as undeserved compensation for CEOs that failed their companies.

This book touched on a general, fundamental change in society.
"In all, professional relationships with clients have been increasingly recast as business relationships with customers. In a world where every user of services is seen as a customer, every provider of services becomes a seller."

This is a very good book about capitalism and investing in the markets.
The reform ideas are thoughtfully presented by an executive that has been there for decades.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Exellent, details and outlines the problem with the stock market.
Comment: This book should be taught in a college class. This details exactly what has happened and what needs to be done to correct what has happened the last 20 years.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Very academic, excellent but suited for investment amateurs
Comment: Loved the feel of this book and there is tons of great information here about the inner workings of investments, funds and financial shenanigans. Some of the info was over my head but where I could digest it, it was great.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: He's got it right
Comment: Today's financial situation is the result of the battle the suthor so clearly describes. Why can't we listen?

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Customer Rating:
Summary: About What We Investors Don't Know
Comment: The first half of Bogle's volume gives a detailed explanation of the problems with our stock market; the second half gives his solution proposals. And if John Bogle doesn't know what is going on both openly and behind closed doors (read his qualifications), then no one does.

This book describes how stock (mutual fund and corporate) managers are not "honest, competent and fair-minded...[or] doing the right thing." (p. 89) And just how the "managers' interest [are placed] ahead of the owners' interest." (p. 90) The recurrent theme is that corporate America has moved from owners' capitalism to managers' capitalism.

Bogle describes "the pervasive...'happy conspiracy' among corporate managers, CEOs, CFOs, directors, auditors, lawyers, Wall Street investment brokers, sell-side security analysts, buy-side portfolio managers, and indeed investors themselves--individual and institutional alike." (p. 98)

"More than one-fifth of...growth returns...during the past two decades has been siphoned off by fund managers.... More than three-fourths of the cumulative financial wealth produced...over an investment lifetime will be consumed by fund managers, leaving less than 25 percent for the investors. Yet it is the [95 million] investors ['individuals of modest means--often via retirement plans'] who put up 100 percent of the capital and assume 100 percent of the risk." (p.xxii)

Not only does the author write about the "Captains of Industry" (or robber barons)--Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Carnegie--he deals with the current "casino mentality of so many institutional investors..." (p. 98) Yes, you will read of "the conspiracy between corporate money managers and institutional money managers. [We have] a gambler's market instead of an investor's market," declares Bogle. (p. 118)

Bogle explains why "institutional investors [should] move away from their present obsession with short-term earnings of dubious validity and towards a new obsession focused on the creation of intrinsic value over the long term." (p. 114)

Finally, Bogle does not let we individual investors off easy, either, by explaining "the failure of investment America to exercise its ownership rights over corporate America.

As stated earlier, Bogle has solutions which you will read about in the second half of the book.

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