Roger Babson

[laughs]

May I ask where you acquired this Roger Babson babble?

Well, yes.

[laughs] The, the Wall Street Journal.

But in 1929, operating in an unregulated environment, it was standard practice.

So the crash finally hits in the fall of 1929, preceded by the Babson break in early September, when the financial advisor Roger Babson famously warned a major crash was imminent, causing a sharp intraday sell-off.

Right.

But what proves to me that this entire era was driven by pure irrational psychology and not just a miscalculation of future earnings is the historical data on closed-end funds.

Specifically, avoid the wrap accounts aggressively pushed by major wirehouse brokerage firms.

What's a wrap account?

These are accounts where a financial advisor selects a portfolio of outside active managers for you, wrapping all the underlying commissions, trading costs, and advisory costs into one overarching flat percentage fee based on your total assets.

Let's do the compounding math on why a wrap account is so destructive because this is where people lose their wealth without even realizing it.

Right, right.

Okay, this historic marker names Roger Babson.

Is that the same Roger Babson of Babson College fame?

The very same.

And the same Roger Babson who had all those boulders engraved with uplifting sayings in the abandoned Dogtown Commons of Gloucester, Massachusetts?

That's our guy.

I had no idea he had a beef with gravity.

So Roger Babson was a wealthy entrepreneur, investor, businessman, and philanthropist.

She didn't like turning her back on the white dog to haul herself out of the cellar, but she had to do it.

Henry was half pinned against a boulder, one of the few Roger Babson hadn't had engraved.

In front of him there was a huge hulking dog, almost coyote-like with a long muzzle and brindled gray fur.

The dog's jaws were open as it snarled, and those teeth were not human at all, but long and wicked sharp.