Joseph Moore

I'm just saying it's different.

Yes, that's correct.

And I think a little bit of humility goes a long way.

Understanding that when people tell you it has to go up because it always went up.

It's only done that.

So the stock market, this idea of stocks for the long run, which we hear all the time.

Of course, Jeremy Siegel's famous book made this argument.

There's actually an earlier version of that argument in the 19-teens.

And as it turns out, academics went back and...

pieced all that together, and they found there were a lot of stocks that did not make it into that data set, some of which went to zero.

And when you do the whole data set, what you find is that bonds beat stocks for most of the 1800s, and they were tied with stocks until World War II, which means that stocks for the long run is only as old as our last two presidents.

Now that's not nothing, but I'm a historian.

So in my line of work, that's a rounding error.

So the idea that stocks always went up is actually a new idea, but we have been told it's a very old truth.

It's not, it's entirely new.

And so what does that mean for the average everyday person?

Well, you're probably gonna be okay for a while doing what everyone else is doing, but understand you're gonna get what everyone else is getting.

But don't presume or pretend that because this has worked for the last six decades or so, that it's going to keep moving that way for the next six.

Here's an example of something that has changed in our own lifetimes and that is changing right in front of us.

And yet we act as if everything is staying the same.