6 ms·

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Articles like this showed up for Enron and MCI/WorldCom and all the others, extolling one virtue or another and showcasing their succ

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Articles like this showed up for Enron and MCI/WorldCom and all the others, extolling one virtue or another and showcasing their success. Now we have one for Vanguard, ergo it will fail. I'm not serious, of course. But pride does seem to come before the fall, and just out of an excess of caution I might move some money out of my vanguard funds next week.

tim333 10y ago
You've got to take in to account that Vanguard doesn't actually do much - just buy stocks on your behalf and charge 0.12% for doing so. If it stopped doing that because some other operator was doing it for 0.08% it wouldn't be a big deal. The bigger deal would be if the general market collapsed for some reason but that would affect everyone, not just Vanguard.
- debatem1 10y ago
  Ok. I'm curious why you're telling me this. What's your motivation? There's certainly no point in arguing with me, since I'm both reasonably poorly informed and aware of it; I have made no bones about the fact that my post was unserious. Yet you leap to the defense of what should, after all, be a very unexciting thing. And you aren't alone in doing so. That, like this breathless article, is mildly troubling to me. These institutions should engender no loyalty, embody no attributes; only then does the market actually work. Evidence of those tendencies suggests the distorting effect of human psychology. And in tone it is too much like what we saw before the collapse for my liking.
  - askafriend 10y ago
    > Yet you leap to the defense of what should, after all, be a very unexciting thing. I actually think finance is interesting to read about and it can be exciting to try to make sense of the chaos. If all of this really was that boring, you probably wouldn't have even clicked to read the comments!
  - icebraining 10y ago
    You're reading way too much into the motivations for comments. The simplest explanation is usually the best: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
  - tim333 10y ago
    Well I've known Vanguard for about 30 years and am a fan as it's saved the investing public many billions over that time, certainly if you compare them to normal fund management companies even if just buying and holding shares directly is probably cheaper still. But I was just pointing out they offer a rather dull, value for money service and are not going to collapse Enron style. They could decline Sears style however.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
pocketsquare2 10y ago
You're comparing Vanguard to Enron & MCI / WorldCom. Would you mind explaining your analogy? It doesn't make sense to me. I don't think, for example, my investments in Vanguard funds are precarious because they are over-leveraged in bespoke weather derivatives.
sunnyps 10y ago
You know that post hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy, right?

tim333 10y ago

You've got to take in to account that Vanguard doesn't actually do much - just buy stocks on your behalf and charge 0.12% for doing so. If it stopped doing that because some other operator was doing it for 0.08% it wouldn't be a big deal. The bigger deal would be if the general market collapsed for some reason but that would affect everyone, not just Vanguard.

debatem1 10y ago
Ok. I'm curious why you're telling me this. What's your motivation? There's certainly no point in arguing with me, since I'm both reasonably poorly informed and aware of it; I have made no bones about the fact that my post was unserious. Yet you leap to the defense of what should, after all, be a very unexciting thing. And you aren't alone in doing so. That, like this breathless article, is mildly troubling to me. These institutions should engender no loyalty, embody no attributes; only then does the market actually work. Evidence of those tendencies suggests the distorting effect of human psychology. And in tone it is too much like what we saw before the collapse for my liking.
- askafriend 10y ago
  > Yet you leap to the defense of what should, after all, be a very unexciting thing. I actually think finance is interesting to read about and it can be exciting to try to make sense of the chaos. If all of this really was that boring, you probably wouldn't have even clicked to read the comments!
- icebraining 10y ago
  You're reading way too much into the motivations for comments. The simplest explanation is usually the best: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
- tim333 10y ago
  Well I've known Vanguard for about 30 years and am a fan as it's saved the investing public many billions over that time, certainly if you compare them to normal fund management companies even if just buying and holding shares directly is probably cheaper still. But I was just pointing out they offer a rather dull, value for money service and are not going to collapse Enron style. They could decline Sears style however.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

pocketsquare2 10y ago

You're comparing Vanguard to Enron & MCI / WorldCom. Would you mind explaining your analogy? It doesn't make sense to me. I don't think, for example, my investments in Vanguard funds are precarious because they are over-leveraged in bespoke weather derivatives.

sunnyps 10y ago

You know that post hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy, right?