April 2, 2022

How the Middle Class joined the Money Class.

DealBook
April 2, 2022





Illustration by The New York Times; Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters
A nation of investors
Author Headshot
By Joe Nocera

Among the trailblazers who made finance more accessible to the masses starting in the 1970s — John Bogle of Vanguard with his index fund, Charles Schwab with his discount brokerage and Louis Rukeyser with his weekly interrogation of one Wall Street sage or another — Edward C. Johnson III, the longtime leader of Fidelity Investments, was the least well known yet arguably the most important.

The others were all public figures, but Mr. Johnson, who died last week at the age of 91, was a Boston patrician with a patrician’s aversion to the spotlight. Despite his upper-class background, he is credited with helping to change the way the middle class thought about its money, transforming Americans from savers to investors. That’s why he matters.

Mr. Johnson, widely known as Ned, was 42 when he took over Fidelity, a small mutual fund company his father had run for three decades. The year was 1972: The market was in the doldrums, inflation was on the rise and Fidelity’s assets were in decline.


Like other financial executives, Johnson realized that a new investment vehicle recently approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission might offer a way to attract more money. This vehicle was called a money market fund; by investing in ultrasafe bonds, it could generate returns that matched real-world interest rates. At a time when bank interest was regulated — fixed by law at 5.25 percent — these higher-yielding funds were sold as an alternative to savings accounts.

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April 2, 2022

Gen. Mick Ryan on why Russia is hiring mercenaries:

https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1510042863505055745

April 2, 2022

Gen. Mark Hertling on the Ukraine attack on a fuel depot in Russia

https://twitter.com/MarkHertling/status/1510074832544841732

Short thread

When FDR was asked about the Doolittle raid on Japan shortly after Pearl Harbor he said the bombers must have come from Shangri La.

April 1, 2022

NY Times confirms retreat from Kyiv!

They put the story up an hour ago. It was on DU 3 and a half hours ago:


https://twitter.com/julianbarnes/status/1510005106577752070

April 1, 2022

Victory in Kyiv. This appears to be real

Happening as we speak;

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1509928906513653765

https://twitter.com/mrsorokaa/status/1509883144396283904

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1509962799220506630
Some good news, some bad:
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1509975457105600519