The Experts

The System has been revealed in studies and recommendations from some of the world's most prominent finance professors, authors and investors. See more expert quotes here.

John Bogle, Founder of the Vanguard Group, Inc.

John Bogle invented index fund investing, the principal tool used in The System. Most people do not know that Bogle formed Vanguard as a non-profit organization in order to protect working Americans from the onerous fees charged by Wall Street. Mr. Bogle took a lot of flack over this unique concept of an index fund and was even labeled Un-American. Vanguard is now the 2nd largest fund organization in the world with current assets totaling $1 trillion. Mr. Bogle served as chairman and chief executive officer until 1996 and senior chairman until 2000. In 1999, Fortune magazine named Mr. Bogle as one of the four "Investment Giants" of the twentieth century; in 2004, Time named him one of the world's 100 most powerful and influential people, and Institutional Investor presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

How Bogle's advice relates to The System Mr. Bogle's 10 books all promote using the central underlying thesis of The System, offer statistical proof of its validity, and are highly critical of the mutual fund and investment management industries. Here's great quote from Bogle's speech to West Point graduates: "You'll just have to forgive my continuing enthusiasm for indexing and my unshakable conviction that low-cost index funds are the way...at least listen to Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson of MIT, who called the creation of that first index fund as 'the equivalent to the creation of the alphabet and the wheel.' Or listen to Jack Meyer, the former manager of Harvard's incredibly successful endowment fund: 'The investment business is a giant scam. Most people think they can find fund managers who can outperform, but most people are wrong. You should simply hold index funds. No doubt about it.' Or listen to one of the most successful mutual fund managers of all time, Fidelity Magellan Fund's Peter Lynch: 'Most investors would be better off in an index fund.' If that's not enough, listen to Warren Buffett: 'When the dumb investor realizes how dumb he is and buys a low-cost index fund, he becomes smarter than the smartest investors.'"