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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Masters in

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Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ritholts on Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 2: This week on the podcast, I get to sit down

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Speaker 2: with Jason Swig and William Bernstein remembering their friend Jonathan Clements.

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Speaker 2: Jonathan was a Wall Street Journal personal finance columnist and

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Speaker 2: author for almost twenty years. He's beloved by those people

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Speaker 2: in the industry. In many ways, Jonathan has done as

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Speaker 2: much as anybody to push the idea of indexing, at

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Speaker 2: least anybody since Jack Bogel. I thought this conversation, despite

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Speaker 2: the fact that we know Jonathan received a terminal diagnosis

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Speaker 2: and we already know how it ended, I thought this

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Speaker 2: conversation was interesting, uplifting, and fascinating. I think you will

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Speaker 2: also with no further ado, my remembrance of Jonathan Clements

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Speaker 2: with jason's Wig and William Bernstein.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Barry, glad to be here.

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Speaker 2: So let's start out with the beginning. I want to

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Speaker 2: talk a little bit about who Jonathan was. We'll talk

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Speaker 2: about his two most recent books, including the one coming

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Speaker 2: out in May of twenty twenty six. But how did

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Speaker 2: each of you meet Jonathan? What were your early impressions

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Speaker 2: of him like, let's start with you.

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Speaker 3: You want me to go first.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So Jonathan and I met the third week of March

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Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty seven when I joined Forbes Magazine and

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Speaker 3: he was already there, and we almost instantly became good friends.

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Speaker 3: I would say we probably went out to lunch at

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Speaker 3: least twice a week for the next four years, certainly

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Speaker 3: every Wednesday, fish cakes and spaghetti at the New Courtney

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Speaker 3: on Urteenth Street in Manhattan, which I think was I

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Speaker 3: want to say was four dollars in ninety five cents.

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Speaker 2: That's right. The Forbes office is right over there on

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Speaker 2: was eighteenth and fifty. All the Faberge eggs were there

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Speaker 2: the whole the whole building was kind of uniquely.

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Speaker 3: Situated Fifth Avenue and twelfth Street, very close. And Jonathan

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Speaker 3: had a he had a really unusual sparkle. He always

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Speaker 3: had a twinkle in his eye. He thought almost everything

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Speaker 3: was funny, because of course, almost everything is funny if

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Speaker 3: you think about it the right way. And you know,

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Speaker 3: he might be writing about some con artist who was

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Speaker 3: stealing people's money, or some mutual fund that was overcharging people.

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Speaker 3: But he always found the humor in the situation and

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Speaker 3: I loved that about him, and we were friends from

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Speaker 3: that moment on ever since.

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Speaker 2: Bill, How'd you meet Jonathan?

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Speaker 4: I met him a little later. It wasn't until about

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Speaker 4: the mid nineties when I was still practicing medicine and

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Speaker 4: I was finding my feet in finance and I was

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Speaker 4: starting to write. And I did what edny aspiring financial

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Speaker 4: writer does, which is you start chatting up financial journalists,

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Speaker 4: and he responded and he started quoting me on the journal.

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Speaker 4: And for many years I was just a source until

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Speaker 4: you know, maybe the late the early twenty tens, the

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Speaker 4: late aughts, and then we became friends personal friends after that.

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Speaker 4: And you know, he did think that everything was funny,

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Speaker 4: and he just had such a pleasing personality. He had

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Speaker 4: a high hedonic set point. He was always in a

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Speaker 4: good mood, and he always thought that everything was funny,

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Speaker 4: which is a fabulous combedy. And the other personal characteristic

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Speaker 4: that he had which just powered his career, I think,

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Speaker 4: was that he was willing to talk about the hard

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Speaker 4: things in his life, his struggles with money, and he

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Speaker 4: was willing to talk about his divorces, and of course,

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Speaker 4: in the end, his impending demise. And so it was

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Speaker 4: those three things together. I think that really made him

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Speaker 4: such a unique financial journalist and human being.

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Speaker 2: So when I was doing preparation for this, I learned

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Speaker 2: a lot of things I was wholly unaware of, including

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Speaker 2: a quote from you, Bill, which was, you owe your

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Speaker 2: entire career investments to Jonathan's work. You have to explain

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Speaker 2: how a neurologist in North Bend's, Oregon ended up having

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Speaker 2: a career change by a personal finance journalist.

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Speaker 4: Well, I happened to live in a country that doesn't

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Speaker 4: have a functioning social safety net, and so I realized

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Speaker 4: I was going to have to vest on my own

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Speaker 4: if I wanted to survive my retirement financially. And so

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Speaker 4: I approached it the way I thought anybody would scientific

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Speaker 4: training would do, which is I read the peer review literature,

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Speaker 4: the basic textbooks, and I collected data and I built models.

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Speaker 4: And when I was done with all that, I had

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Speaker 4: actually had something that was useful to small investors and

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Speaker 4: in a couple of instances even too professional investors. And

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Speaker 4: so I started writing about it. The Internet came to

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Speaker 4: my community about that time. I put the stuff on

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Speaker 4: the web, my material on the web, and Jonathan picked

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Speaker 4: it up, and so he started quoting me in the

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Speaker 4: in the in the Wall Street Journal. And then that

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Speaker 4: was that opened the door to getting my books published

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Speaker 4: and also to you know, a financial advisory business as well.

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Speaker 4: And so it's like a lot of a lot of

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Speaker 4: things in a complex life. It was just serendipity, one

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Speaker 4: thing leading to another.

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Speaker 2: Huh, really really interesting, Jason, You're you're with Jonathan at

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Speaker 2: Forbes and then you're together at the Wall Street Journal.

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Speaker 2: But I'm struck by nineteen eighty seven, starting not only

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Speaker 2: the year of the Great Crash, but long before indexing

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Speaker 2: was the dominant intellectual framework, certainly in terms of money

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Speaker 2: flows into mutual funds and ETFs. What was it about

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Speaker 2: Jonathan's writing that seemed to reshape a lot of the

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Speaker 2: conversation about investment.

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Speaker 3: Well, I would say, I don't think this is an exaggeration.

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Speaker 3: I would say more than any other individual except Jack Bogel,

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Speaker 3: Jonathan put index funds on front and center for American investors.

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Speaker 3: And you know, he realized very early on, I'm that

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Speaker 3: active management in the aggregate was not earning its keep.

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Speaker 3: It was charging more than it could possibly deliver for clients.

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Speaker 3: And Jonathan realized there's an alternative and I'm going to

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Speaker 3: keep telling people that's what they should do. And he

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Speaker 3: wrote he must have written two or three hundred columns

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Speaker 3: telling people that they should buy Index ones and a

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Speaker 3: lot of his readers, particularly professional readers, hated that because

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Speaker 3: he was essentially saying, don't hire them, you know, hire

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Speaker 3: Vanguard or State Street or another Index. Lack rod.

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Speaker 2: Think about the Big three, the three biggest mutual fund

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Speaker 2: of ETF companies today really derive the lion's share of

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Speaker 2: their assets, certainly half at black Rock, probably over half

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Speaker 2: at Vanguard from Index.

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Speaker 3: And you know, you can eat the math is not

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Speaker 3: hard to do. You know, investors have saved hundreds of

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Speaker 3: billions of dollars in superfluous management fees by moving from

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Speaker 3: active to passive investing. And Jonathan deserves a lot of

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Speaker 3: credit for that because I can attest coming sort of

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Speaker 3: coming to it. I don't know what would I say

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Speaker 3: two or three years behind him, the amount of hate

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Speaker 3: mail I used to get and hate phone calls. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's not easy to tell people that they should not

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Speaker 3: have a right to make as good a living as

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Speaker 3: they have been. They don't like hearing that. But if

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Speaker 3: it's in the best interest of the larger part of

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Speaker 3: your audience, and that's the message you have to deliver.

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Speaker 3: And that's the choice Jonathan made really before any other

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Speaker 3: investing or personal finance journalist in the country. And once

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Speaker 3: he made that choice, he would not be moved.

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Speaker 4: Go ahead, Bill, Yeah, I mean fortune favors the prepared,

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Speaker 4: and I think what prepared Jonathan for that was from

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Speaker 4: about what nineteen ninety to what nineteen ninety four he

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Speaker 4: covered mutual fund managers, and boy, that's an awful sandbox

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Speaker 4: to have to play. And because how do you get

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Speaker 4: into that sandbox, Well, you take a lot of risk

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Speaker 4: and you get lucky, and going forward the track record

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Speaker 4: is not so good. And he saw that often enough

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Speaker 4: that I think it drove him to the conclusion that

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Speaker 4: Jason was just talking about.

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Speaker 2: I think it was Professor French at Dartmouth of FAMA

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Speaker 2: French fame said it takes about twenty years to figure

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Speaker 2: out if a fund manager is skillful or lucky. At

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Speaker 2: least two or three years of returns certainly only doesn't

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Speaker 2: tell us anything.

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Speaker 4: Yes, he has one example that just stays in my memory,

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Speaker 4: which is that if you have a hedge fund manager

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Speaker 4: who can beat the market by five percent per year,

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Speaker 4: and the extendard deviation of stocks is twenty percent per yeer.

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Speaker 4: If you grind through statistics on that, it takes sixty

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Speaker 4: four years to get the statistical significance.

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Speaker 2: Wow, that's quite amazing. He called the at his own

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Speaker 2: advocacy for index funds an obsession that some readers found irritating.

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Speaker 2: And when I read that line, I thought of your quote,

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Speaker 2: which is your job is to write the same column

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Speaker 2: week after week after week, but in a way that

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Speaker 2: neither your readers or your editors figure out. So how

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Speaker 2: do you continually write about indexing if your readers are

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Speaker 2: finding it irritating?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think Jonathan arrived at the same place I did.

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Speaker 3: And of course, even though he was slightly younger than me,

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Speaker 3: he was a couple of years ahead of me because

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Speaker 3: he just started on this topic earlier than I did.

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Speaker 3: But we both ended up in the same place, which

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Speaker 3: is you you keep your message consistent, but you frame it,

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Speaker 3: you tell it, you ornament it in different ways every

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Speaker 3: single time. And Jonathan was an unparalleled master at writing

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Speaker 3: what some people you know, disparagingly call listicles. He would,

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Speaker 3: you know, come up with twenty five funny things that

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Speaker 3: active managers say to justify their underperformance. And you know,

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Speaker 3: he would run through all these bullet points, each one

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Speaker 3: of which would be very funny, and then at the

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Speaker 3: end he would say, and that's why I think you

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Speaker 3: should put all your money in next ONNDS.

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Speaker 2: I wonder how many of those lines came from angry

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Speaker 2: emails from fund manager.

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Speaker 3: Probably a lot of them.

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Speaker 2: So so one of his core principles is that successful

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Speaker 2: investing should be comprehensively, almost aggressively boring, which is kind

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Speaker 2: of ironic. Both asset management and financial journalism are unusually noisy,

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Speaker 2: fomo based industries. So how do you make a message

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Speaker 2: stick as an island of rationality in a sea of

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Speaker 2: noise and emotional driven stimulus.

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Speaker 4: Silence. That's that's that's a tough one. You've become what

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Speaker 4: Jason has become a master of, which is saying the

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Speaker 4: same thing and in so many different ways that your

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Speaker 4: editors and your readers don't notice that you're saying the

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Speaker 4: same thing over and over again.

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Speaker 3: No doubt about and very sorry if I can jump in.

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Speaker 3: You know, I think one thing that is underappreciated about

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Speaker 3: somebody like Jonathan is the amount of integrity and courage

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Speaker 3: it takes to stick to a simple message. You know,

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Speaker 3: the job of the job of an investigative journalist is

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Speaker 3: to get people who don't want to talk to you

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Speaker 3: to tell you things they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 3: The job of a mainstream journalist is to tell your

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Speaker 3: readers things that they need to know, whether they want

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Speaker 3: to hear them or not. And that's what Jonathan was

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Speaker 3: brilliant at.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's again, the word integrity comes up so

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Speaker 4: many different times when you're talking about Jonathan because here

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Speaker 4: he is working in a sandbo you know, active fund managers,

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Speaker 4: that's how he pays, he's paying his mortgage, and he,

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Speaker 4: you know, wakes up one morning and he says, this

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Speaker 4: is intellectually dishonest. I've got to find something else. I've

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Speaker 4: got to find some other message. And very few journalists,

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Speaker 4: i think, make that choice. They just keep on plugging

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Speaker 4: away and don't question what they're doing.

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Speaker 2: Really interesting, and you know, we're talking about investing in money,

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Speaker 2: but Clements emphasized this wasn't about getting rich, it was

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Speaker 2: about building a good life. So when do you think

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Speaker 2: his thinking shifted from simple building a portfolio to something

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Speaker 2: a little more philosophical.

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Speaker 4: I think that that happened in the early two thousands,

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Speaker 4: when I think all three of us started to come across,

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Speaker 4: and maybe all four of us started to come across

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Speaker 4: the well being research that academic neuropsychologists were doing. What

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Speaker 4: makes people have money is a very small part of that.

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Speaker 4: And that's what Jonathan you made into. I think his

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Speaker 4: mission and financial journalism was it was exploring the connection

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Speaker 4: between money, money and happiness, and that's not something of

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Speaker 4: very many financial journalists venture into.

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Speaker 2: I know, there is more money when you're broke is

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Speaker 2: better than less money, but it plateaus holding steady for

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Speaker 2: things like divorce and illness. It plateaus surprisingly rapidly. So

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Speaker 2: let's channel Jonathan for a moment. What is the purpose

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Speaker 2: of money and how does it help one live a

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Speaker 2: rich fulfilling life.

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Speaker 3: Well, so Jonathan really explored that research into hedonic psychology,

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Speaker 3: particularly the implications of does money by happyiness? How can

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Speaker 3: you use money to achieve happiness? And there's an enormous,

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Speaker 3: voluminous amount of research on this in very very obscure

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Speaker 3: academic journals, and when Jonathan started working on this, very

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Speaker 3: few non academics were even aware that this research existed.

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Speaker 3: But I would say there's a handful of takeaways from

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Speaker 3: that work that research. One is that possessions don't generally

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Speaker 3: make people happy. Now there's exceptions to that, but as

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Speaker 3: a general rule, the bigger house, the fancier car, the

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Speaker 3: painting on the wall, the bigger couch generally don't move

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Speaker 3: people's happiness as much as they expect. And that's really

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Speaker 3: the key is the difference. It's the gap between what

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Speaker 3: you spend and what and the happiness you expect to

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Speaker 3: get from the spending that causes the disappointment that people feel.

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Speaker 3: And you know, I think everyone listening has had a

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Speaker 3: similar experience. You know, you've been in a starter house.

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Speaker 3: You see a new house you love, you talk about

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Speaker 3: it with your significant other, you agree we're going to

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Speaker 3: take the plunge. You buy the house and you move

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Speaker 3: in and you're just thrilled. And then you know a

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Speaker 3: year later you look around and the paint is chipping,

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Speaker 3: and you know, there's like rats in the attic, and

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Speaker 3: it's more money, more problems.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 3: And the next level beyond that observation that possessions are

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Speaker 3: not the key, is that you want to use your

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Speaker 3: money to create experiences with people you love, shared experiences.

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Speaker 3: You want to use money to create memories, and so

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Speaker 3: you spend your money on things you can do with

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Speaker 3: friends and family, joint vacations, commemorative events, family reunions, things

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Speaker 3: like that. And then it's the final level that Jonathan

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Speaker 3: explored more and more in the later years of his life,

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Speaker 3: and especially after he got his terminal diagnosis, which is

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Speaker 3: using money to create, meaning finding something bigger than yourself

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Speaker 3: that you can support or promote or strengthen with your money,

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Speaker 3: giving to a cause you care about, putting something front

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Speaker 3: and center in your life. You know, supporting a nonprofit, volunteering,

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Speaker 3: all of those activities can really move the needle much

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Speaker 3: more than you would get if you bought a new

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Speaker 3: table or some other possession you've had your eye on.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and the thing about Jonathan was he he lived

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Speaker 4: that ethic every day of his life. And you know,

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Speaker 4: he didn't make a lot of money as a financial journalist.

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Speaker 4: I think he worked for a couple of years at

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Speaker 4: citycarp and made a pretty decent salary, but you know,

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Speaker 4: his lifetime earnings were not that high, and yet he

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Speaker 4: amassed a significant amount of assets by hammering away at

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Speaker 4: being frugal and amassing enough financial capital so that so

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Speaker 4: that he didn't have to depend upon his human capitals.

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Speaker 4: As he put it, I never saw him so happy

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Speaker 4: as when he shows up at our place in Portland

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Speaker 4: having spent two dollars to take the Max train in

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Speaker 4: from the airport, you know. And then the other thing

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Speaker 4: that so Jason just just explained very nicely the three

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Speaker 4: levels that he climbed, and I think there was yet

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Speaker 4: another level on top of that, which is to have

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Speaker 4: enough assets to so that you don't have to worry

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Speaker 4: about assets, in other words, to happen now. It's the

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Speaker 4: only purpose of money, I think for Jonathan was not

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Speaker 4: having to worry about.

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Speaker 2: Money, right right, you know, he said something and I

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Speaker 2: may even be lifting this from the headline of one

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Speaker 2: of his early diagnosis articles, which was dying as easy,

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Speaker 2: but a state planning and taking care of your loved

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Speaker 2: ones after you're gone is hard. And that struck me

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Speaker 2: just as such a quirky, matter of fact observation about

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Speaker 2: something we all are going to face. That well, eventually,

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Speaker 2: he just had to face a little earlier, and with

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Speaker 2: the sense of humor dying, you know, the old joke

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Speaker 2: about dying is easy. Coin is hard. No. No, estate

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Speaker 2: planning and taking care of your loved ones, that's what's hard.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I mean, if there's one thing that Jonathan didn't believe,

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Speaker 4: it's that he who dies with the most toy wins, right. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Coming up, we continue our conversation with William Bernstein and

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Speaker 2: jason's Wig Remembering Jonathan Clements, discussing his most recent book,

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Speaker 2: The Best of Jonathan Clements. I'm Barry Richolts. You're listening

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Speaker 2: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Barry Ridults.

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Speaker 2: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio in

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Speaker 2: an extra special edition of the show. This week is

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Speaker 2: all about remembering Jonathan Clements, the Wall Street Journal personal

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Speaker 2: finance columnist and author. And my special guests are William

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Speaker 2: Bernstein and jason's Wig, who know and have worked with

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Speaker 2: Jonathan for many decades. So let me pull on one

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Speaker 2: little thread, which is the idea of delayed gratification. And

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Speaker 2: I already know what your answer is going to be,

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Speaker 2: but I have to pose the question. So here's somebody

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Speaker 2: who's diligent about saving, diligent about postponing that sort of gratification,

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Speaker 2: and then, unfortunately doesn't get the full fruits to enjoy it.

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Speaker 2: Give us, give us your explanation as to how and

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Speaker 2: why he was perfectly fine with that.

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Speaker 3: Well, So I talked a lot with Jonathan the last

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Speaker 3: year of his life. I'm you know, I think he

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Speaker 3: called me maybe two or three weeks after he got

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Speaker 3: word of his terminal diagnosis. And the thing that struck me, Barry,

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Speaker 3: was that, you know, having been his friend for decades,

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Speaker 3: I could instantly tell that none of this was an act.

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Speaker 3: You know, most of us if we got a terminal diagnosis,

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Speaker 3: particularly one like Jonathan's where he was given five to

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Speaker 3: originally five to twelve months, I think is what they said,

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Speaker 3: right Bill, we would put on a brave face, we

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Speaker 3: would like be faking it for our friends and family.

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Speaker 3: But Jonathan was from the very beginning, he was totally

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Speaker 3: at peace with it. And I can't tell you that

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Speaker 3: I can totally explain that. I think he meant what

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Speaker 3: he said, which is he felt he had lived the

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Speaker 3: best life he could have, and he had done everything

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Speaker 3: he wanted, He accomplished most of what he wanted to achieve,

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Speaker 3: and he was somehow he was okay with the news

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Speaker 3: that would just absolutely devastate most people.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean. Neuropsychologists use a personality scale as a

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Speaker 4: five item scale, and one of the items is something

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Speaker 4: called neuroticism, which is basically how much you focus on

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Speaker 4: the problems in your life. And he had a very

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Speaker 4: high Haydonic set point. He was always in a good

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Speaker 4: mood most of the time, and so his neuroticism score,

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Speaker 4: as far as I could tell, was zero, and he

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Speaker 4: was in a good nude most of the time. So

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Speaker 4: he dealt with his own mortality as as well as

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Speaker 4: he could. A sense of humor. My gosh, you know,

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Speaker 4: he joked to everybody what a great marketing strategy terminal

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Speaker 4: diagnosis was. If you're trying to flog a book.

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Speaker 2: Don't recommend it. You only get to use it once.

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Speaker 2: But that is only someone with the sense humor can

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Speaker 2: say that. So let's talk about the book the best

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Speaker 2: of How did this book come together? Whose idea was it?

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Speaker 2: What was it like working on a project with Jonathan

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Speaker 2: under his awareness of his terminal diagnosis.

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Speaker 4: Who's who'se I well, I think I was going to

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Speaker 4: look at you and say, whose idea was it? I

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Speaker 4: think it was. I think I think it was Jonathan's idea. Actually, yeah,

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Speaker 4: he just decided he wanted to put together a compilation

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Speaker 4: and I think his his main goal was to raise

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Speaker 4: funds for a charitable purpose, which it took us a

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Speaker 4: while to evolve. Uh and and and that was that

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Speaker 4: was the project.

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Speaker 2: And so let me just interrupt you. The Jonathan Clements

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Speaker 2: getting going on savings initiative funding roth Ira contributions for

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Speaker 2: young adults from low income households. That sounds less like

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Speaker 2: a book torn more like a policy intervention.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. And that was It turned

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Speaker 4: out that that translating that idea into something practical was

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Speaker 4: a bit harder than everybody had than anybody he realized,

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Speaker 4: but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

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Speaker 4: And so Jason and I and Jonathan put together a

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Speaker 4: list of his columns on I think it was Jonathan

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Speaker 4: who basically gave us the list, and Jason helped me

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Speaker 4: organize it, and we self published it through through Amazon,

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Speaker 4: and it has raised a substantial amount of money for

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Speaker 4: the initiative which we eventually arrived at, which I don't

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Speaker 4: know if we want to talk about that, just.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, sure we could talk about it. Let's talk a

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Speaker 2: little bit about how much money did it raise and

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Speaker 2: did anyone have any targets in mind? Was this was

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Speaker 2: this all upside surprise?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, all in the order of about sixty thousand dollars,

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Speaker 4: which a substantial amount of money. We actually raised a

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Speaker 4: lot more money through the through the Bogel Center, through

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Speaker 4: personal donations that came into the John C. Bogels and

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Speaker 4: our financial literacy, So you know, even that that raised

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Speaker 4: a whole lot more money, and that money is going

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Speaker 4: into a research project. You know, Jason, I nevermember what

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Speaker 4: JPAL stands for. So that's that's that's the group, the

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Speaker 4: research group is doing this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So JPAL is behavioral economics research institute based at

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Speaker 3: MIT in Boston and it's run part partly by Esther

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Speaker 3: Duflow who shared a Nobel Prize in economics and I

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Speaker 3: want to say twenty twenty three. And j PAL does

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Speaker 3: all kinds of interventions based on behavioral economics research trying

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Speaker 3: to encourage people from low income households around the world,

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Speaker 3: by the way, to form more construction of savings habits,

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Speaker 3: to borrow more prudently, to become long term investors. And

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Speaker 3: we partnered with them because we really felt that getting

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Speaker 3: Jonathan's vision from an idea into an actual program was

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Speaker 3: beyond us. We needed help, and so JPOW works with

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Speaker 3: academics at universities all around the world, and between Boston University,

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Speaker 3: University of Chicago, and some other Northeastern Northeastern we were

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Speaker 3: able to round up some great economists and researchers to

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Speaker 3: make the program a reality, and it last summer. It

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Speaker 3: was piloted with some basically high school kids in Boston

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Speaker 3: from poor families who were randomly selected to get money

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Speaker 3: to open a roth ira. And we're testing whether there's

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Speaker 3: particular kinds of messaging or other techniques that can not

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Speaker 3: only encourage them to invest, but then to turn them

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Speaker 3: into investors by changing their own behavior over the long term.

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Speaker 3: And it's still very early. We don't know whether it'll work,

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Speaker 3: but we hope it will, and even if it fails,

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Speaker 3: we're pretty confident we'll learn some useful things about how

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Speaker 3: to encourage good long term investing behavior here.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it turns out it's really hard to give away

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Speaker 4: money to kids for a roth ira.

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Speaker 2: Yep, this is before we passed. I don't know if

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Speaker 2: you want to call them baby bonds or Trump accounts

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Speaker 2: or whatever. That thousand dollars initial tax.

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Speaker 4: To parity predates that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so so, and by the way, that dates back

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Speaker 2: to I'm drown a blank on his name, but he's

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Speaker 2: a VC out in California who might as well first

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Speaker 2: first proposed this, you know, a decade ago, and it

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Speaker 2: was slogging away trying to get it accepted. So let's

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Speaker 2: let's those are what the proceeds are going to be

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Speaker 2: used for. Let's talk about the book itself. Sixty sixty

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Speaker 2: columns out of over a thousand. That has to be

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Speaker 2: a tough list. Anything on the list surprise you make

437
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 2: you scratch your head. What how do you think of

438
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 2: the arc? Now that you guys helped structure and organize this,

439
00:30:57,160 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 2: which really is half the battle. Once you have it structured,

440
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 2: it becomes a whole lot of ease.

441
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 3: Yeah.

442
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 4: I don't think that Jonathan had an organizing principle. I

443
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 4: think he just went through his his thousand and nine

444
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 4: columns actually was more than that two and he picked

445
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 4: out just his favorite ones and then it fell to

446
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 4: the three of us to organize the book, which which

447
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 4: took some took some work, and you know, they were

448
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 4: organized according to you know, the things that Jonathan wrote

449
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 4: about I mean, you know, the principles of indexing, the

450
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 4: importance of saving, how to calculate how much money you need,

451
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 4: and then all of the behavioral issues that we that

452
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 4: we talked about, and so I think we came up

453
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 4: with seven or eight basic chapter headings.

454
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 3: But also Jonathan did something else that was unusual and

455
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 3: frankly risky, which is he wrote really often about his

456
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 3: family and their issues with money. Particularly he I don't

457
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 3: think Hannah and Henry would mind my saying this. He

458
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 3: sort of used his kids as guinea pigs to test

459
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 3: out how do you motivate children, to say, how do

460
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:21,239
Speaker 3: you get them to become long term investors? And we

461
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 3: did not do this in my household. And on the

462
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 3: one hand, I'm glad we didn't, because I think it

463
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 3: can make your kids a little crazy if you turn

464
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 3: them into lab rats. But on the other hand, his

465
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 3: kids probably have a probably have healthier finances than my kids.

466
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 4: Do, and healthier financial outlook too. I mean, Mike, I'm

467
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 4: about a decade older than more than that than than

468
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 4: Jonathan was, and so are my kids. In fact, you're

469
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 4: considerably older than his because I had my kids later

470
00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 4: than he did. And a couple of the tricks that

471
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 4: he came up with. I just like, God, damn, I

472
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 4: wish I had thought of that. You know, when your

473
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 4: kid asks for a soda, you know, the four dollars

474
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 4: soda at the restaurant, it's like, I'll give you a

475
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 4: buck if you take the water. You know, I'd be

476
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 4: richer if I, you know, I brought to have a

477
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 4: couple of grand I'd be a couple of grand richer

478
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 4: if I'd thought of that one first.

479
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 2: That's a great parenting hat. Share some others. What other

480
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 2: financial tricks was he using that ended up having a

481
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 2: good impact on the on the children either of you.

482
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 4: Well, the bank of Mom and Dad. He closed that

483
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 4: so instead of you know, you know, opening your wallet

484
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 4: for the endless supply of five and tens and twenties

485
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 4: when they wanted something, you know, at age eleven or twelve,

486
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 4: he gave them ATM cards that he would load up,

487
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 4: you know, at the beginning of the month, and then

488
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 4: when the money was gone, the money was gone, and.

489
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 2: That's until the next month.

490
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's that's that's a great trick.

491
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 2: I got to imagine a lot of parents are listening

492
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 2: to this and saying closing the bank of mom and dad.

493
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 2: What happens when they burn through the ATM in week one?

494
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 2: Now you have three weeks of whining? How do you

495
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 2: how do you manage around that?

496
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 4: Yeah? That's that's tough. That's tough, monkies.

497
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, you ignore the whining.

498
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 2: Apparently, plan better next month and we won't be having

499
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:20,320
Speaker 2: this conversation, right that that's really that's really pretty amazing.

500
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 2: So it appears to me that Jonathan spent a big

501
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,280
Speaker 2: part of his career and I always hate this word,

502
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 2: but democratizing good financial advice. It sounds like this initiative

503
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 2: is the culmination of all of that, and and maybe

504
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 2: further because he's trying to reach people that are normally

505
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 2: completely ignored by the wealth management and mutual funds world.

506
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we you know, part of the problem

507
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 4: that we have is is the behavioral problem of getting

508
00:34:55,320 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 4: people to save. And hopefully, you know, this initiat, this

509
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 4: research project will shed a little bit of light on that.

510
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 4: That will that will help people you know, save in

511
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,239
Speaker 4: their own for their for their own retirement, both through

512
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 4: employer plans and on their own.

513
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 2: So, so let's talk a little bit about the behavior

514
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 2: gap both of you have written about this. Jonathan has

515
00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 2: written extensively about it. Essentially, it's what people know they

516
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 2: should do and then what they end up doing despite

517
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 2: knowing what they should do. How do we, uh, how

518
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 2: do we contextualize this behavior gap from Jonathan's perspective?

519
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 3: Well, I think Jonathan did something really important, which is

520
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 3: there was a firm which I won't name, that in

521
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 3: the nineties used to say that the behavior gap was

522
00:35:55,719 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 3: oh seven or eight percent a year for people who

523
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 3: didn't use stockbrokers to buy their mutual funds. And in

524
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 3: other words, if you were willing to pay an upfront

525
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 3: sales charge to buy a mutual fund, you would end

526
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 3: up earning a much higher return than somebody who didn't

527
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 3: go through a stockbroker.

528
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 2: Does the math bear that out?

529
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 3: The math does not bear that. No, No, the behavior

530
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 3: gap is real, but it's in nowhere near that big two.

531
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 2: To three percent. Something along those lines are.

532
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 3: Mostly a little smaller.

533
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 2: I remember a Vanguard's study that specifically said for people,

534
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 2: for people who have behavior issues, it's worth paying half

535
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 2: a percent of one percent to somebody if it prevents

536
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:52,120
Speaker 2: them from making three four percent in eras I'm talking

537
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 2: my book, they were talking their book. How do you

538
00:36:54,640 --> 00:37:00,360
Speaker 2: perceive the ability for someone to talk and invent or

539
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:04,279
Speaker 2: off the ledge when every instinct in their body is like, no, no,

540
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 2: we want to sell now because in March o nine

541
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 2: or March twenty twenty, this is going to get much

542
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 2: worse than this right now.

543
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's that's a completely separate issue than what

544
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 4: we're talking about. I mean, you know what we're talking

545
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 4: about is what is the gap? And the answer is

546
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 4: it's not seven or eight percent. It's closer to one

547
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 4: percent or one or one and a half percent, which

548
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:32,240
Speaker 4: is less than the cost of engaging conventional advice, certainly

549
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 4: through a full service financial institution. The other issue, what

550
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,320
Speaker 4: you're asking is how do you prevent people from jumping

551
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 4: off the ledge? And the answer is that's very hard

552
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 4: to do because you have to be able to impart

553
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 4: a sense of financial history to people, which is something

554
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 4: that maybe one out of fifty investors takes.

555
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 2: Seriously, that's a low the numbers are that low because

556
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about your quote about managing your own Olympics system.

557
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:04,800
Speaker 2: If you can't do that, you're going to die poor.

558
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:09,280
Speaker 2: Tell us about how all these columns and the book

559
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:10,320
Speaker 2: from Jonathan.

560
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,359
Speaker 4: Well, the Olympic system, very very crudely is system one.

561
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 4: It's the fast moving system that you know, engages when

562
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 4: we when we see that, when we hear the hiss

563
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 4: of the snake or the see the yellow and black

564
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:24,759
Speaker 4: stripes in our peripheral vision on the African savannahs. We

565
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 4: overcome it with our system two, which is our our

566
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 4: thinking part of the brain, the neocortex basically, and the

567
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 4: neocortex has to learn something about financial history, and good

568
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 4: luck with that.

569
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:40,279
Speaker 2: Well, good luck with not only teaching it. But it

570
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 2: seems that half life of financial literacy is really short

571
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 2: that even if you teach people stuff, you got to

572
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:51,240
Speaker 2: keep drumming it in because events seem to move so fast.

573
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 2: People kind of forget pretty quickly.

574
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, people, people you know, do learn when they get

575
00:38:57,520 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 4: hit over the head by two by four, which they did.

576
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 4: And wait two thousand and you know, Einstein is supposed

577
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 4: to have said that the most powerful force in the

578
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:08,240
Speaker 4: universe has compound interest, which of course he never said.

579
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:12,880
Speaker 4: But the most powerful force in the financial universe is amnesia.

580
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:14,239
Speaker 4: People forget it.

581
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 2: But what's the Galbrith quote? The one thing we learned

582
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 2: about financial history is no one learns from financial history.

583
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 2: So it's really true. So let's talk a little bit

584
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 2: about this book, starting with first of all, who gets

585
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 2: a terminal diagnosis and says, I know I will write

586
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 2: a book. I mean, every one of us at this

587
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 2: table have written more than one books, and I think

588
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 2: we would all admit they're kind of a slog. Where

589
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 2: did this come from? What was the motivation here?

590
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:52,439
Speaker 3: You know, Jonathan never told He didn't tell me he

591
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 3: was doing it. I don't know if he told you.

592
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 4: Bill, No, he did not.

593
00:39:54,840 --> 00:40:00,399
Speaker 3: I only found out about it several months after he died,

594
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:06,760
Speaker 3: and I think it was part of how he coped

595
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 3: with knowing that, you know, his time was limited. He

596
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 3: just wanted to make the most of the time he

597
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 3: had left. He spent a large part of every day

598
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:25,280
Speaker 3: with family and friends and you know, creating new memories

599
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 3: that the people who remained behind when he was gone

600
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 3: would be able to cherish. But I think he also

601
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 3: spent part of every day doing what he liked best,

602
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 3: which was writing.

603
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, where you ask Jonathan who he was and what

604
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 4: he did, he would say, first of all, it's about

605
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 4: my family, and then secondly, who I am is a

606
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 4: writer and he could no sooner stop writing, as if

607
00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:58,360
Speaker 4: he could stop breathing.

608
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 2: So the book Money and Me combines a lot of

609
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 2: writing he did at the Humble Dollar, as well as

610
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:12,360
Speaker 2: some fairly personal reflections on his diagnosis. Is this book

611
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 2: very different in tone and goals and ambitions and his

612
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 2: earlier writings. What are your thoughts on this?

613
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a biography. It's a not a biography.

614
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 2: It's a biography, but I, having not read it yet,

615
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:30,359
Speaker 2: I suspect it's a biography with a lot of insightful

616
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 2: lessons learned along the way.

617
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 4: Yeah. We covered a lot of those in the first

618
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 4: segment of the interview, which is, you know, what's what's

619
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 4: money for? What's life all about? What's the meaning? What's

620
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 4: the meaning of life?

621
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:46,759
Speaker 2: You know?

622
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 4: That's that's that's what he wanted to approach. He wanted

623
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 4: to put a coda onto his life, and I think

624
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 4: that's that's what the book was, for a CODEA.

625
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean I I've been thinking a lot about

626
00:41:56,800 --> 00:42:03,319
Speaker 3: this because I mentioned Jonathan and the writing he did

627
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 3: at the end of his life in a book I've

628
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:11,959
Speaker 3: just finished of my own, and the way I sort

629
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 3: of came out was that I think Jonathan took heart

630
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 3: from giving heart. He gave heart to so many people

631
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 3: in the last year of his life by writing incredibly

632
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 3: candidly about what is it like to know you're dying?

633
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 3: You know, what do you have to do before you're done?

634
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 3: And how do you go about accomplishing everything you want

635
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 3: to achieve in the very limited time that's left to

636
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 3: you while retaining your dignity, while spending time with the

637
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,920
Speaker 3: people you love, And how do you set those priorities

638
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 3: and how do you put all that in context? And

639
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 3: Jonathan got not hundreds, but thousands of emails and letters

640
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 3: from people who were dying, people who were taking care

641
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 3: of loved ones who were dying, people whose loved ones

642
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 3: had died, people who were afraid of death, people who

643
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 3: had gotten a terminal diagnosis and then gone into remission

644
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:35,080
Speaker 3: or been cured completely, and over and over again, those

645
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:41,320
Speaker 3: people just it was this incredible outpouring of gratitude and love.

646
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:45,840
Speaker 3: And you know, the thing that I think is the

647
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 3: biggest tribute to Jonathan is, you know, in the writing

648
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 3: that I did about him in the last year of

649
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 3: his life in my column and also in the newsletter

650
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 3: I do for The Wall Street Journal, got. I easily

651
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 3: got three four hundred emails myself. And the single most

652
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 3: common thing that readers said about Jonathan was he was

653
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 3: my friend. And they said that even though none of

654
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 3: them had ever met him. They all said he was

655
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 3: my friend. And it was true. He was because he

656
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:29,920
Speaker 3: really cared about the average person. He loved his readers,

657
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 3: even the ones he'd never met, and he understood that,

658
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 3: you know, when you're an individual investor, you're just like

659
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 3: this little piece of plankton in a sea of sharks

660
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 3: and barracudas, and you're at the bottom of the food chain.

661
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 3: And Jonathan was their advocate. And then when he got

662
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 3: that terminal diagnosis, he realized he could be an advocate

663
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:02,439
Speaker 3: for an entirely new group of people, you know, those

664
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 3: who have been touched by by terminal illness.

665
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, he had an ability that almost no journalist has,

666
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 4: which is that you read him and you say, this

667
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 4: man knows my life. And even before he got his

668
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 4: terminal diagnosis, you know, he quits City Corp. Around two

669
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 4: thousand and eighteen or no, twenty fourteen or so, and

670
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 4: he says, well, what am I going to do? I'm

671
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 4: going to give back, And so he founds Humble Dollar,

672
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 4: which you know, continues publishing even after after he's gone.

673
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 4: So he's created something that's still you know, was very

674
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:48,280
Speaker 4: useful while he was publishing it, and it's still providing

675
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 4: a service. So you know, I mean that his life

676
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:52,959
Speaker 4: was service more than anything else.

677
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 2: Coming up, we continue our conversation with William Bernstein and

678
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 2: jason's Wig discussing Jonathan Element's forthcoming book, Money and Me.

679
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:07,279
Speaker 2: I'm Barry Rittolts. You're listening to Masters in Business on

680
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Radio. I'm Barry Riddolts. You're listening to Masters in

681
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 2: Business on Bloomberg Radio. My extra special guests today are

682
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:37,760
Speaker 2: Jason Zwig and William Bernstein. We are remembering Jonathan Clements,

683
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 2: the Humble Dollar and Wall Street Journal personal finance columnist.

684
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 2: He has a new book coming out posthumously, Money and Me.

685
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about service, not just

686
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 2: to his readers, but to his family. So if you

687
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 2: preach delayed gratification and then you realize, hey, that window

688
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 2: is only small, you then want some of that gratification.

689
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 2: When I interviewed him after his diagnosis, he was planning

690
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 2: a number of events and travel and other sorts of

691
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:16,320
Speaker 2: things with his family. Tell us a little bit about

692
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:18,880
Speaker 2: what he got to do in the last year of

693
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 2: his life that he might have postponed under different circumstances

694
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 2: until years later.

695
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, we should be

696
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:33,879
Speaker 3: respectful of Jonathan's privacy, but I think I can share

697
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 3: most of this.

698
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 2: He did, He did discuss a lot of it, and

699
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 2: I'm assuming some of this is in the book, so

700
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 2: I'm not asking for secrets. No, no, tell us what he

701
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 2: was public.

702
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 3: I mean, his son was planning to get engaged, and

703
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 3: got engaged and got married, and Jonathan and his wife, Elaine,

704
00:47:56,400 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 3: got to travel to London to you know, go the wedding.

705
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:09,280
Speaker 3: Jonathan himself accelerated his engagement and marriage to Elaine, his wife.

706
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:14,839
Speaker 3: He did, he did. He organized those things knowing that

707
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:21,080
Speaker 3: they were important to him and his family. And he

708
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:25,280
Speaker 3: also went on a bunch of trips with his mom

709
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 3: and and his siblings, and you know, he had to

710
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:33,240
Speaker 3: cancel a couple of trips because he was at various

711
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:39,879
Speaker 3: points he was too sick to travel. But his siblings

712
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 3: and kids would meet in Philadelphia, they would meet, they

713
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 3: went to a couple other places together, and he just

714
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 3: maximized the amount of time that he spent with his family,

715
00:48:53,719 --> 00:48:58,839
Speaker 3: but also with his friends. I mean I visited him twice.

716
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 3: An another mutual friend of ours from our days at

717
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 3: Forbes Magazine went with me on one of those visits.

718
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:12,240
Speaker 3: Is this, to London, No, No, to Philadelphia huh unfortunately

719
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 3: to Philadelphi. Philadelphia is great, Don't get me wrong. I

720
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 3: love Philly, but London is maybe more is more fun,

721
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:28,840
Speaker 3: maybe for an American anyway. But he and I guess

722
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 3: the thing I would point out, because I saw this firsthand,

723
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:36,759
Speaker 3: is that that may not sound like that being a

724
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 3: deal to most people listening or watching us, you know,

725
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:42,719
Speaker 3: sort of like, oh yeah, your time is limited, so

726
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 3: speed stuff up and make it happen. Making it happen

727
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 3: isn't as easy as it sounds. I mean, you know,

728
00:49:52,920 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 3: you're getting chemo, you're getting radiation therapy, you're getting you know, uh,

729
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:06,879
Speaker 3: surgical cement squirted into your spine, You're you know, you're

730
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 3: getting cut open for this thing or that thing. Uh,

731
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 3: you know, your hair is falling out eventually. You know,

732
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 3: walking is difficult. And through all that, Jonathan was like, yeah,

733
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 3: come on, you know, come next Tuesday. Uh, you know,

734
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:25,280
Speaker 3: I got nothing but time.

735
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 2: No, nothing but nothing but time when you we all

736
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 2: have limited time, and and he knows pretty pretty realistically

737
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:41,719
Speaker 2: how short that is. It sounds like this could be

738
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:47,759
Speaker 2: a morbid or depressing category. But uh, but knowing how

739
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:52,880
Speaker 2: he discussed things after his diagnosis, I have a sneaking

740
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 2: suspicion that this book is more uplifting than depressing. Tell

741
00:50:57,320 --> 00:51:01,400
Speaker 2: us a little bit about the tone he takes in

742
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 2: what most of us would think of as really difficult circumstances.

743
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 4: Well, most of the book doesn't cover his his terminal illness.

744
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 4: That's maybe five that's maybe ten or fifteen percent of

745
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:17,800
Speaker 4: the book. And he does a beautiful job of describing

746
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:21,080
Speaker 4: just what Jason did. What he's really describing is his

747
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:29,480
Speaker 4: journey through the relationship between money and happiness and how

748
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:31,759
Speaker 4: he arrived at the place that he that he that

749
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 4: he did. You know, the thing that that struck me

750
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:38,800
Speaker 4: when when I would go to visit him was and

751
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 4: talk to him on the phone, was you know, I've

752
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 4: been in the practice of medicine, I spent a lot

753
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 4: of time talking to dying patients, and he was just

754
00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 4: the easiest person to talk to. You would you would

755
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 4: you would get off the phone with him, you would

756
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:55,839
Speaker 4: come off away from a visit with him, you would

757
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 4: feel uplifted. That's I can tell you that's not true

758
00:51:58,880 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 4: most of the time.

759
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 2: And does that translate into the book.

760
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:05,920
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I mean what I would jump in with

761
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 3: Barry is that I think the I mean it may

762
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:13,720
Speaker 3: sound like a strange word, but the word I guess

763
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 3: I would use his joy. I mean, Jonathan talked about,

764
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:28,239
Speaker 3: talked and wrote about dying from the most positive perspective

765
00:52:28,360 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 3: you could possibly imagine. And you know, it's as if

766
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:39,440
Speaker 3: he really felt that he had lived the life he

767
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 3: wanted to live, and above all, he wanted to go

768
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 3: out on a high note, and he wanted to bring

769
00:52:49,160 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 3: everybody along with him.

770
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:53,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was his great gift and his great endowment.

771
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,880
Speaker 4: We talked a bit about hedonic set point. You know,

772
00:52:56,960 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 4: he just wasn't a glass half full kind of guy.

773
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:01,000
Speaker 4: He was a glass seven it's full kind of grind.

774
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 2: Well, just that headline I remember it was the Journal

775
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:08,640
Speaker 2: or the Times piece Dying as easy, planning for death

776
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:13,640
Speaker 2: as hard, just is filled with that sort of mischievous

777
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 2: sense of humor about something that everybody else takes very

778
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 2: seriously and when confronted with it, it's like, hey, you got

779
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:23,440
Speaker 2: no choice but to laugh and plow ahead, And that

780
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 2: seems to be what he did.

781
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:28,279
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, one of the lines he used that

782
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 3: I'll never forget is and it was maybe the second

783
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:36,719
Speaker 3: to last phone conversation I had with him. He said,

784
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:40,239
Speaker 3: you know, when when I got my original diagnosis, they

785
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 3: told me I had five to twelve months to live,

786
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:47,840
Speaker 3: and that was I want Now. I may not be

787
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:50,839
Speaker 3: remembering correctly. I think I think at the time he

788
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 3: was talking with me, it was maybe thirteen months prior.

789
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 3: And he said, so, you know, I'm I'm already playing

790
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 3: in time. And I mean, I burst out laughing just

791
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 3: the way you did. My friend is dying, and I'm laughing,

792
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 3: but I'm laughing with him as he jokes about him. Yes,

793
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:17,879
Speaker 3: And and he wasn't. It wasn't like if that if

794
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 3: that had been me, I might have been joking, but

795
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 3: I would have been joking to like cover my fear

796
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:26,280
Speaker 3: and whatever. And he was joking because he thought.

797
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 2: It was funny.

798
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 4: Yeah.

799
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:30,759
Speaker 2: So, so there's a line from Howard Marx that I

800
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:35,839
Speaker 2: suspect reflects a lot of what's within this book. And

801
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:39,920
Speaker 2: I'm just curious as to your thoughts experiences, what we

802
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 2: get when we don't get what we want and in

803
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 2: the journey of the overlap between happiness and money and

804
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:54,960
Speaker 2: that then diagram which has I suspect less overlap than

805
00:54:55,040 --> 00:55:00,879
Speaker 2: most people realize until they get that experience which might

806
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:06,200
Speaker 2: not be what they wanted. How, How has his journey evolved?

807
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:12,280
Speaker 2: How has his perspective Jonathan's perspectives changed about his thoughts,

808
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:16,360
Speaker 2: his thoughts about money, happiness, and the purpose of living

809
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:19,000
Speaker 2: a rich life.

810
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:21,839
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think he started out as a

811
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:23,799
Speaker 4: young man the way he describes in the book, with

812
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 4: a conventional view of money, which is that, you know,

813
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 4: money is to to buy things and to help you

814
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:36,640
Speaker 4: get by in life. When he started out his his

815
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:40,040
Speaker 4: career in journalism, he had credit card debt, he had

816
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:44,440
Speaker 4: student debt, and you know, probably all that he was

817
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 4: thinking about was getting out from from under that. And

818
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 4: unlike most people, he evolved beyond that very very very quickly.

819
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:56,280
Speaker 4: Uh to you know, get to the higher the higher

820
00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:58,320
Speaker 4: uses of money that we've been talking about.

821
00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:05,280
Speaker 3: Anything to add to that, I mean, I guess maybe

822
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:13,120
Speaker 3: the thing I would add, Barry is just that it

823
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:16,359
Speaker 3: takes a lot after all the years that I've been

824
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:23,320
Speaker 3: doing financial journalism to get me to feel I really

825
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 3: learned something important because i've sort of, I guess I

826
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 3: haven't seen it all, but I've seen most of it.

827
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:44,719
Speaker 3: And I really learned from Jonathan that, you know, how

828
00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:51,440
Speaker 3: you live under sort of the ordinary conditions of daily

829
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 3: life is one thing, but how you live when you've

830
00:56:57,719 --> 00:57:02,240
Speaker 3: got a death sentence is something else. And he really

831
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:08,680
Speaker 3: shows that. I'm you know, you can still celebrate, and

832
00:57:09,480 --> 00:57:14,000
Speaker 3: you should, and you should figure out how to comfort

833
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:17,480
Speaker 3: the people who love you in a way that will

834
00:57:17,520 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 3: always console them after you're gone. And you know, the

835
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:29,440
Speaker 3: book really shows that, of course we're all afraid of dying,

836
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 3: but we're probably afraid of it for the wrong reasons.

837
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:36,960
Speaker 3: And I think what Jonathan really showed is the thing

838
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:41,880
Speaker 3: you should be afraid of about dying is going out

839
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:46,880
Speaker 3: the wrong way, like not giving the people who will

840
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:53,959
Speaker 3: live after you the positive things that you can give

841
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:55,840
Speaker 3: them as gifts. And that's what he did.

842
00:57:56,520 --> 00:57:59,120
Speaker 4: Yeah. And the other thing which he was aware of

843
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:02,320
Speaker 4: is he he realized he was a very positive person

844
00:58:02,360 --> 00:58:05,760
Speaker 4: and that he was dealing with his terminal illness as

845
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:07,840
Speaker 4: well as any person could, and he was much more

846
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:10,440
Speaker 4: acutely aware of how much harder it was for the

847
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:12,920
Speaker 4: people around him, and he talked about that a lot,

848
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 4: about about how hard it wasn't, particularly on his kids.

849
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 2: That makes perfect sense. So so last question. If Jonathan

850
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:27,480
Speaker 2: were here, what do you think he would want the

851
00:58:27,520 --> 00:58:31,600
Speaker 2: takeaway to be from the book about the relationship between

852
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 2: money and a life well lived?

853
00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:37,520
Speaker 4: He would tell you to figure out who the heck

854
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 4: you are and what you really enjoy doing, and that's

855
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 4: what the money is for.

856
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:47,920
Speaker 2: Sounds wise, Jason, you want to.

857
00:58:48,240 --> 00:58:50,240
Speaker 3: I have I have nothing to add.

858
00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:54,080
Speaker 2: Did we did we miss anything? Is there something I

859
00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:57,360
Speaker 2: haven't brought up that you guys? Because I don't want

860
00:58:57,360 --> 00:59:01,880
Speaker 2: this to be a morbid conversation. We're all solemn, but

861
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 2: I know each of you have a long and positive

862
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:13,320
Speaker 2: relationship with Jonathan, So I don't want this all to

863
00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:17,280
Speaker 2: come across as morbid, because just because it involves death,

864
00:59:17,320 --> 00:59:21,480
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean it's said or morbid. What else do

865
00:59:21,520 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 2: you want listeners to take away from Jonathan's life, his work,

866
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:30,640
Speaker 2: his books? What should people be aware that this isn't

867
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:35,160
Speaker 2: a downbeat book, This isn't depressing. We're being respectful, but

868
00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:39,640
Speaker 2: at the same time, he was a happy, joyful person.

869
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:43,680
Speaker 3: We don't want to get into anything that's morbid, but

870
00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:47,160
Speaker 3: you know, or when I was in My dad died

871
00:59:47,200 --> 00:59:50,880
Speaker 3: when I was in college, when I was twenty two,

872
00:59:52,200 --> 00:59:57,040
Speaker 3: and I remember the thing that he was most worried

873
00:59:57,080 --> 01:00:01,640
Speaker 3: about as he like, as he lay dying, because he

874
01:00:02,000 --> 01:00:04,400
Speaker 3: died of lung cancer. He kept saying to me, I

875
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:07,280
Speaker 3: don't want you to remember me like this, you know,

876
01:00:07,640 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 3: as a sick person. And I kept saying to him,

877
01:00:10,760 --> 01:00:13,400
Speaker 3: I'm not going to remember you like this. And I

878
01:00:13,440 --> 01:00:17,480
Speaker 3: couldn't know that that was true, but it was. I

879
01:00:17,520 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 3: don't remember my dad as a sick person. I remember

880
01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:27,840
Speaker 3: him as this incredibly vital, physically strong, you know, mentally agile,

881
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 3: impressive person. And what I will always remember about Jonathan

882
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 3: is every time I think of him, I hear him laughing.

883
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:43,640
Speaker 3: That's the first thing that comes in my head. Is

884
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 3: he didn't just laugh, He cackled, and his laughter was

885
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:54,920
Speaker 3: contagious and it never stopped. The last conversation I had

886
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:59,600
Speaker 3: with him, he was laughing at himself at how you know,

887
01:01:00,200 --> 01:01:04,680
Speaker 3: dying with such a weird thing. And you know, if

888
01:01:04,720 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 3: people only knew what it was like, could they, you know.

889
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:10,400
Speaker 2: They wouldn't fear it. They wouldn't well, they would fear

890
01:01:10,400 --> 01:01:15,600
Speaker 2: it less. Well, gentlemen, I really appreciate you guys coming

891
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 2: in to talk about the life and times of Jonathan Clements.

892
01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 2: It was a absolutely unique life, one that left behind

893
01:01:30,440 --> 01:01:34,520
Speaker 2: a tremendous legacy for all of his not just friends

894
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 2: and family, but readers, the ability to touch tens of

895
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 2: thousands of people and in a very positive way. It

896
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:46,280
Speaker 2: is a very very rare thing. I hope people appreciate

897
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:52,760
Speaker 2: the conversation not as a morbid remembrance, but as a

898
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:56,560
Speaker 2: hopeful and uplifting one for somebody who left a very

899
01:01:56,600 --> 01:01:57,680
Speaker 2: positive mark behind.

900
01:01:57,840 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 3: Yeah.

901
01:01:58,440 --> 01:02:01,960
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, gentlemen for being so generous with your time.

902
01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:05,760
Speaker 2: We have been speaking with Jason Dwig and William Bernstein

903
01:02:06,520 --> 01:02:11,720
Speaker 2: remembering the lifetimes and writings of Jonathan Clements in anticipation

904
01:02:11,960 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 2: of his final book, Money and Me, coming out May

905
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:20,080
Speaker 2: twenty sixth, twenty twenty sixth. I would be remiss if

906
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:22,120
Speaker 2: I didn't thank the Cracked team that helps put these

907
01:02:22,160 --> 01:02:26,960
Speaker 2: conversations together each week. Alexis Noriega is my video producer.

908
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:32,680
Speaker 2: Sean Russo is my researcher. Anna Luke is my podcast producer.

909
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:37,040
Speaker 2: I'm Barry Ridolts. You've been listening to Masters in Business

910
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:39,200
Speaker 2: on Bloomberg Radio