Joseph Moore

So to give an example, we think that everyone always got ahead by using compound interest, right?

This is if you just walk into your generic financial advisor, the message will be compound interest is the magic superpower that's going to get you where you want to go.

I argue in the book that's actually a very new phenomenon, because if you go back through most of American history, compound interest is not how people actually got ahead.

Compound interest depends on two things.

Time, 99% of Warren Buffett's wealth, I think the stat goes, was made after his 65th birthday.

That's a birthday most Americans never lived to see.

So time was not on their side.

And secondly, most of their wealth was in land, which doesn't compound.

So, you know, we all get this experience of going into the financial advisor, right?

And they slide across what I call the chart.

And, you know, it doesn't matter when you go.

It's always the same chart.

The dates have changed.

Mine was 1929, $10,000 invested in 19.

The guy said a mere, I remember him saying a mere $10,000 invested in 1929 would today be worth more than $10 million.

And he slides this across to me, expecting me to be blown away.

And I looked down and I thought, okay, a house did not cost $10,000 in 1929.

So you're telling me that someone invested their life savings.

They lost 80% of it in the crash.

They fought Nazis, feared nuclear Holocaust, saw double digit inflation, cried when Ross and Rachel got back together.