Alex Mayyasi

And therefore, they also charge those high fees, more similar to an American Express card.

But stores can't say, no, no, no, we don't want to accept those higher fee credit cards, because Visa says, no, if you want to accept Visa, you've got to accept all Visa cards, even the one with higher fees.

And so this lawsuit was saying, hey, we shouldn't have to.

That's anti-competitive behavior.

And a ruling did come down that sided with the retailers and stores against the credit card companies, saying that they should be able to distinguish between credit cards with higher and lower fees.

So it is possible we will see changes here.

People who watch this closely are a bit skeptical that stores will really want to start charging fees to people who use some of these kind of like fancier credit cards.

Those are often customers who, you know, it's just something you do.

Do you really want to tell your customers, oh, hey, you have to use it feels like nickel and dime and you have to pay a little bit more if you want to use that card.

But that is one potential way that we might get to a better place with credit cards.

What really changed was the rise of Vanguard.

And Vanguard is Wall Street firm, but not a place you go to buy and sell individual stocks.

The main thing you go to Vanguard for, and what their original purpose was, was index funds, as you said earlier.

A way to, instead of buying and selling individual stocks, just more or less almost invest in the entire stock market.

And so as the entire stock market grows, because the economy tends to grow,

then your money will grow too.

Very simple, very basic.

And they charge very, very, very low fees.

And it took a while, but index funds really took off.

And that has really squeezed all those people on Wall Street, all those financiers who want you to give them their money and they want to charge you high fees because they're really smart and they know how to invest your money.