Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 48
Morningstar Conversation
financial crisis. One of the things we do poorly is to look at the past and project erroneously to the future. People looked at the past, and housing prices had gone up 25%. They said it was going to keep going that way. The economics in the book held up pretty well—namely, that the incentives are just horribly misaligned at so many different levels. Why is your bank loaning you this money? Well, it probably wasn’t your bank; it was a mortgage broker paid on commission with someone else’s cash. Why is the bank allowing the mortgage broker to do it? Because they can securitize it and sell it to Goldman Sachs. Why is Goldman Sachs doing that? Because they’re taking a cut and selling it off. Why is somebody buying that bad debt? Well, because they’ve got bad ratings, because the rating agencies were being paid by the issuers. What’s amazing is that you can just go up this chain, and at every rung, the incentives are misaligned. You know, economics is really about incentives, and I was struck how it hews so closely to what happened. In my revision, I just used new examples, but I think that that part of the book held up pretty well. Then, I added a chapter on international economics that addresses China, currencies, and so on. We are lacking a Bretton Woods II. The whole currency system is in a state of flux. You have these growing imbalances between China and the United States, which are working beautifully in the short run, but they can’t go on forever. The question is, how do they unravel? Is it in a peaceful, orderly way, or might there be something that disrupts this that could actually have quite pernicious consequences? K
Peng Chen is president of Ibbotson Associates, a Morningstar company.
One of the things we do poorly is to look at the past and project erroneously to the future. People looked at the past, and housing prices had gone up 25%. They said it was going to keep going that way.
Charles Wheelan
analogy I use is that this is a great country if you’ve got a child who falls in a well. Right? The 2-year-old is down there, it’ll be on the news, we’ll mobilize people, thousands of people will get out there, we’ll watch all around the country, and we’re going to get that kid out of the well, safe and healthy. But if someone prepares a report saying that there are 5,000 dangerous wells that kids could fall down, we will do nothing about it. I’ve seen that with infrastructure. The U.S. Society of Engineers did a report saying that we’ve got $2 trillion worth of infrastructure needs. By and large it was ignored. But when a bridge falls in the river, then we pay attention.
Revised, but Still Naked
PC: A lot of our readers have also read your popular book, Naked Economics. There’s a new edition coming out pretty soon. What are the new things that you address? CW: The new edition is coming out in April. I did most of the revisions in December and January. It was interesting to see how the book had held up and what had changed. There are a couple of places where I added emphasis. One is behavioral economics, which I think gets mentioned briefly in the first edition, which was written in 2001. But there’s been so much interesting research done on the ways in which we make decisions poorly and use information in ways that don’t lead us to the right place. It played a role in the
48 Morningstar Advisor April/May 2010
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010
Contents
New On MorningstarAdvisor.com
Contributors
Letter from the Editor
Our Job: Building Better Investors
What’s Your Biggest Long-term Concern for the Economy?
An Early Start
Women’s Work
Investment Briefs
Markowitz 2.0
Asset Allocation Is King
A Decade of Riskier Assets ...
... but with plenty of Silver Linings
Be Prepared
Facing up to the Economy’s Problems
Levelheaded
Surviving on Conviction
Four Picks for the Present
Pharmaceutical Firms Get the Urge to Merge
Funds That Look Cheaper Than the Market
Finding Dividend Leaders
Mutual Fund Analyst Picks
50 Most Popular ETFs
Undervalued Stocks with Wide Moats
VAs: Assets Rise as New Sales Slip
New at Morningstar
When You Wish Upon a Star
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Cover2
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 1
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 2
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Contents
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 4
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 5
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - New On MorningstarAdvisor.com
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 7
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Contributors
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Letter from the Editor
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 10
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Our Job: Building Better Investors
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 12
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 13
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - What’s Your Biggest Long-term Concern for the Economy?
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 15
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - An Early Start
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 17
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Women’s Work
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 19
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Investment Briefs
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 21
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Markowitz 2.0
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 23
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 24
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 25
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 26
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 27
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Asset Allocation Is King
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 29
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 30
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 31
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 32
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 33
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - A Decade of Riskier Assets ...
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - ... but with plenty of Silver Linings
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 36
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Be Prepared
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 38
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 39
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 40
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 41
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 42
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 43
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Facing up to the Economy’s Problems
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 45
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 46
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 47
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 48
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 49
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Levelheaded
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 51
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 52
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 53
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Surviving on Conviction
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 55
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 56
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 57
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Four Picks for the Present
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 59
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 60
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Pharmaceutical Firms Get the Urge to Merge
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 62
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 63
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Funds That Look Cheaper Than the Market
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 65
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Finding Dividend Leaders
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 67
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Mutual Fund Analyst Picks
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 69
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 70
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 71
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 50 Most Popular ETFs
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 73
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Undervalued Stocks with Wide Moats
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 75
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - VAs: Assets Rise as New Sales Slip
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 77
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - 78
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - New at Morningstar
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - When You Wish Upon a Star
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Cover3
Morningstar Advisor - April/May 2010 - Cover4
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