WEBVTT - Remembering the Life and Work of Jonathan Clements 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:11.840 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Masters in 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.440 Business with Barry Ritholts on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.639 This week on the podcast, I get to sit down 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:24.960 with Jason Swig and William Bernstein remembering their friend Jonathan Clements. 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:29.520 Jonathan was a Wall Street Journal personal finance columnist and 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:34.479 author for almost twenty years. He's beloved by those people 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:37.839 in the industry. In many ways, Jonathan has done as 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:42.040 much as anybody to push the idea of indexing, at 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:47.240 least anybody since Jack Bogel. I thought this conversation, despite 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.080 the fact that we know Jonathan received a terminal diagnosis 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.440 and we already know how it ended, I thought this 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:58.240 conversation was interesting, uplifting, and fascinating. I think you will 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:02.760 also with no further ado, my remembrance of Jonathan Clements 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:05.679 with jason's Wig and William Bernstein. 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:07.399 Thanks Barry, glad to be here. 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.760 So let's start out with the beginning. I want to 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.039 talk a little bit about who Jonathan was. We'll talk 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.279 about his two most recent books, including the one coming 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.360 out in May of twenty twenty six. But how did 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.640 each of you meet Jonathan? What were your early impressions 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:24.680 of him like, let's start with you. 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:25.600 You want me to go first. 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:25.920 Yeah. 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.679 So Jonathan and I met the third week of March 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.760 in nineteen eighty seven when I joined Forbes Magazine and 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:43.400 he was already there, and we almost instantly became good friends. 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.320 I would say we probably went out to lunch at 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:54.840 least twice a week for the next four years, certainly 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:59.480 every Wednesday, fish cakes and spaghetti at the New Courtney 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.720 on Urteenth Street in Manhattan, which I think was I 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.320 want to say was four dollars in ninety five cents. 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.400 That's right. The Forbes office is right over there on 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.839 was eighteenth and fifty. All the Faberge eggs were there 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.480 the whole the whole building was kind of uniquely. 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:23.600 Situated Fifth Avenue and twelfth Street, very close. And Jonathan 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:31.320 had a he had a really unusual sparkle. He always 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.480 had a twinkle in his eye. He thought almost everything 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:40.400 was funny, because of course, almost everything is funny if 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:44.040 you think about it the right way. And you know, 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:48.200 he might be writing about some con artist who was 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:53.440 stealing people's money, or some mutual fund that was overcharging people. 0:02:53.919 --> 0:03:01.079 But he always found the humor in the situation and 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:06.080 I loved that about him, and we were friends from 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:07.520 that moment on ever since. 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:09.359 Bill, How'd you meet Jonathan? 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.560 I met him a little later. It wasn't until about 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.560 the mid nineties when I was still practicing medicine and 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:18.600 I was finding my feet in finance and I was 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.440 starting to write. And I did what edny aspiring financial 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:27.440 writer does, which is you start chatting up financial journalists, 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.519 and he responded and he started quoting me on the journal. 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.679 And for many years I was just a source until 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:39.120 you know, maybe the late the early twenty tens, the 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:44.040 late aughts, and then we became friends personal friends after that. 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.840 And you know, he did think that everything was funny, 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:52.000 and he just had such a pleasing personality. He had 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.760 a high hedonic set point. He was always in a 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.760 good mood, and he always thought that everything was funny, 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:03.640 which is a fabulous combedy. And the other personal characteristic 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.320 that he had which just powered his career, I think, 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.800 was that he was willing to talk about the hard 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:13.840 things in his life, his struggles with money, and he 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:15.600 was willing to talk about his divorces, and of course, 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.520 in the end, his impending demise. And so it was 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:25.200 those three things together. I think that really made him 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.039 such a unique financial journalist and human being. 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:32.320 So when I was doing preparation for this, I learned 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.919 a lot of things I was wholly unaware of, including 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.760 a quote from you, Bill, which was, you owe your 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.679 entire career investments to Jonathan's work. You have to explain 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.839 how a neurologist in North Bend's, Oregon ended up having 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:52.600 a career change by a personal finance journalist. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.080 Well, I happened to live in a country that doesn't 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:59.080 have a functioning social safety net, and so I realized 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.520 I was going to have to vest on my own 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.400 if I wanted to survive my retirement financially. And so 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:08.919 I approached it the way I thought anybody would scientific 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.800 training would do, which is I read the peer review literature, 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:17.560 the basic textbooks, and I collected data and I built models. 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:18.960 And when I was done with all that, I had 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.120 actually had something that was useful to small investors and 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:26.920 in a couple of instances even too professional investors. And 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.880 so I started writing about it. The Internet came to 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.440 my community about that time. I put the stuff on 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:37.800 the web, my material on the web, and Jonathan picked 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:41.240 it up, and so he started quoting me in the 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.400 in the in the Wall Street Journal. And then that 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.800 was that opened the door to getting my books published 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.400 and also to you know, a financial advisory business as well. 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.440 And so it's like a lot of a lot of 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:56.760 things in a complex life. It was just serendipity, one 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:57.680 thing leading to another. 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:03.720 Huh, really really interesting, Jason, You're you're with Jonathan at 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.679 Forbes and then you're together at the Wall Street Journal. 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:11.559 But I'm struck by nineteen eighty seven, starting not only 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:16.760 the year of the Great Crash, but long before indexing 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:21.640 was the dominant intellectual framework, certainly in terms of money 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:26.719 flows into mutual funds and ETFs. What was it about 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:33.080 Jonathan's writing that seemed to reshape a lot of the 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.160 conversation about investment. 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:40.719 Well, I would say, I don't think this is an exaggeration. 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:46.200 I would say more than any other individual except Jack Bogel, 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:53.040 Jonathan put index funds on front and center for American investors. 0:06:53.640 --> 0:07:00.159 And you know, he realized very early on, I'm that 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:06.800 active management in the aggregate was not earning its keep. 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:13.320 It was charging more than it could possibly deliver for clients. 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:19.640 And Jonathan realized there's an alternative and I'm going to 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.520 keep telling people that's what they should do. And he 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:28.520 wrote he must have written two or three hundred columns 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.760 telling people that they should buy Index ones and a 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:38.920 lot of his readers, particularly professional readers, hated that because 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:43.400 he was essentially saying, don't hire them, you know, hire 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:48.200 Vanguard or State Street or another Index. Lack rod. 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.560 Think about the Big three, the three biggest mutual fund 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:56.080 of ETF companies today really derive the lion's share of 0:07:56.200 --> 0:08:01.120 their assets, certainly half at black Rock, probably over half 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.560 at Vanguard from Index. 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.360 And you know, you can eat the math is not 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:13.280 hard to do. You know, investors have saved hundreds of 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:18.800 billions of dollars in superfluous management fees by moving from 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:23.800 active to passive investing. And Jonathan deserves a lot of 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:28.520 credit for that because I can attest coming sort of 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.760 coming to it. I don't know what would I say 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:38.560 two or three years behind him, the amount of hate 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:44.040 mail I used to get and hate phone calls. You know, 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:49.160 it's not easy to tell people that they should not 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.600 have a right to make as good a living as 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.000 they have been. They don't like hearing that. But if 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:59.480 it's in the best interest of the larger part of 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.000 your audience, and that's the message you have to deliver. 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.240 And that's the choice Jonathan made really before any other 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.680 investing or personal finance journalist in the country. And once 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.080 he made that choice, he would not be moved. 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:18.240 Go ahead, Bill, Yeah, I mean fortune favors the prepared, 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.400 and I think what prepared Jonathan for that was from 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.400 about what nineteen ninety to what nineteen ninety four he 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.719 covered mutual fund managers, and boy, that's an awful sandbox 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:30.440 to have to play. And because how do you get 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:33.080 into that sandbox, Well, you take a lot of risk 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:38.320 and you get lucky, and going forward the track record 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.120 is not so good. And he saw that often enough 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.080 that I think it drove him to the conclusion that 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:45.960 Jason was just talking about. 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.000 I think it was Professor French at Dartmouth of FAMA 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.280 French fame said it takes about twenty years to figure 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.600 out if a fund manager is skillful or lucky. At 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:00.559 least two or three years of returns certainly only doesn't 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:01.320 tell us anything. 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.240 Yes, he has one example that just stays in my memory, 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.280 which is that if you have a hedge fund manager 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.840 who can beat the market by five percent per year, 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.360 and the extendard deviation of stocks is twenty percent per yeer. 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.360 If you grind through statistics on that, it takes sixty 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.760 four years to get the statistical significance. 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.600 Wow, that's quite amazing. He called the at his own 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:29.439 advocacy for index funds an obsession that some readers found irritating. 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.200 And when I read that line, I thought of your quote, 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:35.880 which is your job is to write the same column 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.240 week after week after week, but in a way that 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:43.440 neither your readers or your editors figure out. So how 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:48.160 do you continually write about indexing if your readers are 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:49.239 finding it irritating? 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:54.720 Well, I think Jonathan arrived at the same place I did. 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.160 And of course, even though he was slightly younger than me, 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.480 he was a couple of years ahead of me because 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:06.240 he just started on this topic earlier than I did. 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.280 But we both ended up in the same place, which 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:16.839 is you you keep your message consistent, but you frame it, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:23.760 you tell it, you ornament it in different ways every 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:32.600 single time. And Jonathan was an unparalleled master at writing 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:39.160 what some people you know, disparagingly call listicles. He would, 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:43.960 you know, come up with twenty five funny things that 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:49.600 active managers say to justify their underperformance. And you know, 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:53.400 he would run through all these bullet points, each one 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.240 of which would be very funny, and then at the 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.120 end he would say, and that's why I think you 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.439 should put all your money in next ONNDS. 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.000 I wonder how many of those lines came from angry 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:06.040 emails from fund manager. 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.040 Probably a lot of them. 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:13.000 So so one of his core principles is that successful 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:19.920 investing should be comprehensively, almost aggressively boring, which is kind 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:28.120 of ironic. Both asset management and financial journalism are unusually noisy, 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:33.000 fomo based industries. So how do you make a message 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:38.720 stick as an island of rationality in a sea of 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:43.760 noise and emotional driven stimulus. 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:53.800 Silence. That's that's that's a tough one. You've become what 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.280 Jason has become a master of, which is saying the 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.320 same thing and in so many different ways that your 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:01.719 editors and your readers don't notice that you're saying the 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:03.439 same thing over and over again. 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.240 No doubt about and very sorry if I can jump in. 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:13.800 You know, I think one thing that is underappreciated about 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:19.360 somebody like Jonathan is the amount of integrity and courage 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:25.240 it takes to stick to a simple message. You know, 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:30.400 the job of the job of an investigative journalist is 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:32.600 to get people who don't want to talk to you 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.480 to tell you things they don't want you to know. 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:41.240 The job of a mainstream journalist is to tell your 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:45.120 readers things that they need to know, whether they want 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:49.640 to hear them or not. And that's what Jonathan was 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:50.480 brilliant at. 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.199 Yeah, and it's again, the word integrity comes up so 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.959 many different times when you're talking about Jonathan because here 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:02.040 he is working in a sandbo you know, active fund managers, 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.560 that's how he pays, he's paying his mortgage, and he, 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:07.920 you know, wakes up one morning and he says, this 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.520 is intellectually dishonest. I've got to find something else. I've 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.079 got to find some other message. And very few journalists, 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.439 i think, make that choice. They just keep on plugging 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:19.240 away and don't question what they're doing. 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:24.720 Really interesting, and you know, we're talking about investing in money, 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.840 but Clements emphasized this wasn't about getting rich, it was 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:34.400 about building a good life. So when do you think 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:39.920 his thinking shifted from simple building a portfolio to something 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.440 a little more philosophical. 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.800 I think that that happened in the early two thousands, 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.560 when I think all three of us started to come across, 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:52.560 and maybe all four of us started to come across 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:59.080 the well being research that academic neuropsychologists were doing. What 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:04.160 makes people have money is a very small part of that. 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:08.520 And that's what Jonathan you made into. I think his 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.160 mission and financial journalism was it was exploring the connection 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.960 between money, money and happiness, and that's not something of 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.440 very many financial journalists venture into. 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.640 I know, there is more money when you're broke is 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.800 better than less money, but it plateaus holding steady for 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:35.080 things like divorce and illness. It plateaus surprisingly rapidly. So 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.760 let's channel Jonathan for a moment. What is the purpose 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.520 of money and how does it help one live a 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:46.080 rich fulfilling life. 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:54.120 Well, so Jonathan really explored that research into hedonic psychology, 0:15:54.200 --> 0:16:01.480 particularly the implications of does money by happyiness? How can 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:07.600 you use money to achieve happiness? And there's an enormous, 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:12.000 voluminous amount of research on this in very very obscure 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:17.360 academic journals, and when Jonathan started working on this, very 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:22.600 few non academics were even aware that this research existed. 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:30.360 But I would say there's a handful of takeaways from 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:36.520 that work that research. One is that possessions don't generally 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:41.400 make people happy. Now there's exceptions to that, but as 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:49.680 a general rule, the bigger house, the fancier car, the 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:57.320 painting on the wall, the bigger couch generally don't move 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.920 people's happiness as much as they expect. And that's really 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:05.600 the key is the difference. It's the gap between what 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.920 you spend and what and the happiness you expect to 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:14.639 get from the spending that causes the disappointment that people feel. 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:20.040 And you know, I think everyone listening has had a 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:24.760 similar experience. You know, you've been in a starter house. 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:29.080 You see a new house you love, you talk about 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:31.480 it with your significant other, you agree we're going to 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.720 take the plunge. You buy the house and you move 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.840 in and you're just thrilled. And then you know a 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.680 year later you look around and the paint is chipping, 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:44.639 and you know, there's like rats in the attic, and 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:47.800 it's more money, more problems. 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:48.120 Right. 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:58.840 And the next level beyond that observation that possessions are 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:04.760 not the key, is that you want to use your 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:11.840 money to create experiences with people you love, shared experiences. 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:16.080 You want to use money to create memories, and so 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.439 you spend your money on things you can do with 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:26.359 friends and family, joint vacations, commemorative events, family reunions, things 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:30.120 like that. And then it's the final level that Jonathan 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.439 explored more and more in the later years of his life, 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.359 and especially after he got his terminal diagnosis, which is 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:44.159 using money to create, meaning finding something bigger than yourself 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:50.919 that you can support or promote or strengthen with your money, 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:56.639 giving to a cause you care about, putting something front 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:05.960 and center in your life. You know, supporting a nonprofit, volunteering, 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:12.560 all of those activities can really move the needle much 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:16.200 more than you would get if you bought a new 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:20.560 table or some other possession you've had your eye on. 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.040 Yeah, and the thing about Jonathan was he he lived 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:30.280 that ethic every day of his life. And you know, 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.320 he didn't make a lot of money as a financial journalist. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:33.760 I think he worked for a couple of years at 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.520 citycarp and made a pretty decent salary, but you know, 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:41.000 his lifetime earnings were not that high, and yet he 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:46.160 amassed a significant amount of assets by hammering away at 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:52.560 being frugal and amassing enough financial capital so that so 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.639 that he didn't have to depend upon his human capitals. 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.560 As he put it, I never saw him so happy 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:00.920 as when he shows up at our place in Portland 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.280 having spent two dollars to take the Max train in 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:08.240 from the airport, you know. And then the other thing 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.840 that so Jason just just explained very nicely the three 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:13.800 levels that he climbed, and I think there was yet 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.560 another level on top of that, which is to have 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:21.160 enough assets to so that you don't have to worry 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.119 about assets, in other words, to happen now. It's the 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.199 only purpose of money, I think for Jonathan was not 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:26.440 having to worry about. 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.280 Money, right right, you know, he said something and I 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:31.680 may even be lifting this from the headline of one 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:37.320 of his early diagnosis articles, which was dying as easy, 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.320 but a state planning and taking care of your loved 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:43.919 ones after you're gone is hard. And that struck me 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:48.879 just as such a quirky, matter of fact observation about 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.280 something we all are going to face. That well, eventually, 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.560 he just had to face a little earlier, and with 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:58.880 the sense of humor dying, you know, the old joke 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.040 about dying is easy. Coin is hard. No. No, estate 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.080 planning and taking care of your loved ones, that's what's hard. 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:05.640 Yeah. 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.680 I mean, if there's one thing that Jonathan didn't believe, 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.320 it's that he who dies with the most toy wins, right. Yeah. 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.920 Coming up, we continue our conversation with William Bernstein and 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:22.119 jason's Wig Remembering Jonathan Clements, discussing his most recent book, 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:26.399 The Best of Jonathan Clements. I'm Barry Richolts. You're listening 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:42.359 to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Barry Ridults. 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:46.359 You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio in 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:50.159 an extra special edition of the show. This week is 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:54.440 all about remembering Jonathan Clements, the Wall Street Journal personal 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:59.080 finance columnist and author. And my special guests are William 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:03.560 Bernstein and jason's Wig, who know and have worked with 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:07.480 Jonathan for many decades. So let me pull on one 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:12.159 little thread, which is the idea of delayed gratification. And 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:13.800 I already know what your answer is going to be, 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:17.800 but I have to pose the question. So here's somebody 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:22.760 who's diligent about saving, diligent about postponing that sort of gratification, 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:28.119 and then, unfortunately doesn't get the full fruits to enjoy it. 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.640 Give us, give us your explanation as to how and 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:35.000 why he was perfectly fine with that. 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:42.280 Well, So I talked a lot with Jonathan the last 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.919 year of his life. I'm you know, I think he 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.440 called me maybe two or three weeks after he got 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:55.919 word of his terminal diagnosis. And the thing that struck me, Barry, 0:22:56.200 --> 0:23:02.760 was that, you know, having been his friend for decades, 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:08.640 I could instantly tell that none of this was an act. 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:14.240 You know, most of us if we got a terminal diagnosis, 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:18.960 particularly one like Jonathan's where he was given five to 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:22.520 originally five to twelve months, I think is what they said, 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:28.040 right Bill, we would put on a brave face, we 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.439 would like be faking it for our friends and family. 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:39.200 But Jonathan was from the very beginning, he was totally 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:43.840 at peace with it. And I can't tell you that 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:49.159 I can totally explain that. I think he meant what 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:53.000 he said, which is he felt he had lived the 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:58.760 best life he could have, and he had done everything 0:23:58.920 --> 0:24:02.560 he wanted, He accomplished most of what he wanted to achieve, 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:12.720 and he was somehow he was okay with the news 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:15.520 that would just absolutely devastate most people. 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:19.320 Yeah, I mean. Neuropsychologists use a personality scale as a 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:22.359 five item scale, and one of the items is something 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:26.240 called neuroticism, which is basically how much you focus on 0:24:26.359 --> 0:24:28.719 the problems in your life. And he had a very 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:30.640 high Haydonic set point. He was always in a good 0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:33.560 mood most of the time, and so his neuroticism score, 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:35.479 as far as I could tell, was zero, and he 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:38.159 was in a good nude most of the time. So 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:43.120 he dealt with his own mortality as as well as 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:46.159 he could. A sense of humor. My gosh, you know, 0:24:46.400 --> 0:24:50.760 he joked to everybody what a great marketing strategy terminal 0:24:50.760 --> 0:24:53.240 diagnosis was. If you're trying to flog a book. 0:24:54.280 --> 0:24:57.240 Don't recommend it. You only get to use it once. 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:01.440 But that is only someone with the sense humor can 0:25:01.520 --> 0:25:05.040 say that. So let's talk about the book the best 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:08.480 of How did this book come together? Whose idea was it? 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:11.919 What was it like working on a project with Jonathan 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:16.880 under his awareness of his terminal diagnosis. 0:25:17.400 --> 0:25:19.840 Who's who'se I well, I think I was going to 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:21.480 look at you and say, whose idea was it? I 0:25:21.720 --> 0:25:25.440 think it was. I think I think it was Jonathan's idea. Actually, yeah, 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:28.639 he just decided he wanted to put together a compilation 0:25:29.119 --> 0:25:33.080 and I think his his main goal was to raise 0:25:33.760 --> 0:25:37.439 funds for a charitable purpose, which it took us a 0:25:37.480 --> 0:25:43.199 while to evolve. Uh and and and that was that 0:25:43.359 --> 0:25:44.000 was the project. 0:25:44.040 --> 0:25:46.879 And so let me just interrupt you. The Jonathan Clements 0:25:46.960 --> 0:25:52.000 getting going on savings initiative funding roth Ira contributions for 0:25:52.160 --> 0:25:56.879 young adults from low income households. That sounds less like 0:25:56.960 --> 0:25:59.800 a book torn more like a policy intervention. 0:26:00.560 --> 0:26:04.119 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. And that was It turned 0:26:04.119 --> 0:26:07.359 out that that translating that idea into something practical was 0:26:07.400 --> 0:26:11.879 a bit harder than everybody had than anybody he realized, 0:26:12.160 --> 0:26:14.040 but it seemed like a good idea at the time. 0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:19.600 And so Jason and I and Jonathan put together a 0:26:19.640 --> 0:26:21.479 list of his columns on I think it was Jonathan 0:26:21.520 --> 0:26:24.399 who basically gave us the list, and Jason helped me 0:26:24.640 --> 0:26:29.119 organize it, and we self published it through through Amazon, 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:33.000 and it has raised a substantial amount of money for 0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:37.120 the initiative which we eventually arrived at, which I don't 0:26:37.119 --> 0:26:38.360 know if we want to talk about that, just. 0:26:38.359 --> 0:26:41.040 Yeah, sure we could talk about it. Let's talk a 0:26:41.040 --> 0:26:43.399 little bit about how much money did it raise and 0:26:43.440 --> 0:26:46.280 did anyone have any targets in mind? Was this was 0:26:46.320 --> 0:26:47.600 this all upside surprise? 0:26:47.840 --> 0:26:50.160 Yeah, all in the order of about sixty thousand dollars, 0:26:50.320 --> 0:26:53.840 which a substantial amount of money. We actually raised a 0:26:53.840 --> 0:26:57.240 lot more money through the through the Bogel Center, through 0:26:57.400 --> 0:27:00.080 personal donations that came into the John C. Bogels and 0:27:00.119 --> 0:27:06.440 our financial literacy, So you know, even that that raised 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:09.280 a whole lot more money, and that money is going 0:27:09.320 --> 0:27:14.679 into a research project. You know, Jason, I nevermember what 0:27:15.000 --> 0:27:18.040 JPAL stands for. So that's that's that's the group, the 0:27:18.080 --> 0:27:19.199 research group is doing this. 0:27:19.440 --> 0:27:26.000 Yeah. So JPAL is behavioral economics research institute based at 0:27:26.119 --> 0:27:33.800 MIT in Boston and it's run part partly by Esther 0:27:33.960 --> 0:27:38.119 Duflow who shared a Nobel Prize in economics and I 0:27:38.160 --> 0:27:43.679 want to say twenty twenty three. And j PAL does 0:27:43.760 --> 0:27:50.000