The Long View

Today’s guest is Meb Faber. Meb is a co-founder and the chief investment officer of Cambria Asset Management. Meb just released a new book called Investing in America: The Rise of a 250-Year Bull Market. We enjoyed so many things about our conversation with Meb, but first and foremost was the overall tone of hope and optimism looking back over the long history and the long success of American financial markets. We also really liked his comments about the importance of having a written investment plan, and why he thinks we’re starting to see a bull market in diversification.
Episode Highlights
Introduction
Investing in America and US Market Resilience
AI, Innovation, and Investment Booms
What Could Drive a Market Rotation?
Why Investors Should Diversify Beyond US Stocks
Hetty Green and the Future of US Investing
Putting Your Investment Plan in Writing
Do Private Markets Belong in Portfolios?
Why Faber Is Optimistic About Investing
More From The Long View
Joseph Moore: The Investments That Matter Most May Not Be in Your Portfolio
Robin Wigglesworth: Why Bonds Are Behind Every Financial Boom and Bust
David Booth: ‘The Markets Work Well for Everybody, Not Just the Insiders’

If you have a comment or a guest idea, please email us at TheLongView@Morningstar.com.
Follow Christine Benz (@christine_benz) and Ben Johnson (@MstarBenJohnson) on X, and Christine Benz, Amy Arnott, and Ben Johnson on LinkedIn.
Visit Morningstar.com for new research and insights from Christine, Ben, and Amy.
Subscribe to Christine’s weekly newsletter, Improving Your Finances.
Check out Amy’s reader mailbag column, Ask the Analyst.
If you want more Morningstar podcasts, check out The Morning Filter and Investing Insights.


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Today on the podcast, we welcome back Dr. Jim Dahle. Jim is a practicing ER physician, and he’s also the founder of The White Coat Investor, which is a financial education platform for healthcare professionals. The White Coat Investor includes a podcast, blog, conferences, and other educational resources. He is also the author of several books about money and investing, including his most recent, The White Coat Investor’s Guide to Asset Protection. One of the highlights from the episode was Jim’s explanation of how he shifted to become a “recovering optimizer” with his finances. We also liked his idea of creating a “20s fund” for your children as a way to shift part of their inheritance to an earlier point in life, and we found his discussion of his climbing accident to be impactful, particularly how the experience made him think about what really matters in life.
Episode Highlights
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:00 Managing Unexpected Portfolio Wealth
00:03:37 When to Use Cash, Bonds, and TIPS
00:13:02 Weighing Private Investment Trade-Offs
00:22:58 Direct Indexing and Tax-Loss Harvesting
00:27:02 Optimizers, Satisficers, and the “Too Hard Pile”
00:33:43 Behavioral Biases and Teaching Kids About Money
00:44:19 Lessons From Jack Bogle
00:49:52 Finding What Matters After a Climbing Accident
More From The Long View
Jean Chatzky: How to Create a Forever Paycheck for Retirement
Andy Clarke and Nelson Wicas: Index Funds Aren’t Really Passive, and Other Lessons for Building a Better Portfolio
Bill Yount: How Late Starters Can Find Financial Independence
If you have a comment or a guest idea, please email us at TheLongView@Morningstar.com.
Follow Christine Benz (@christine_benz) and Ben Johnson (@MstarBenJohnson) on X, and Christine Benz, Amy Arnott, and Ben Johnson on LinkedIn. Visit Morningstar.com for new research and insights from Christine, Ben, and Amy. Subscribe to Christine’s weekly newsletter, Improving Your Finances.
If you want more Morningstar podcasts, check out The Morning Filter and Investing Insights.

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Our guest on the podcast today is Joseph Moore, a historian and author of the bestselling book, How to Get Rich in American History: 300 Years of Financial Advice That Worked & Didn’t, where he chronicles all of the various things Americans have tried to do to get ahead over three centuries. He’s also an investor who went from being an academic to funding a tech startup, buying land on the moon, founding a cryptocurrency, and owning dozens of investment properties. This was a really fun conversation where we covered a lot of ground about the history of financial advice in the US as well as Joseph’s own adventures in investing and money-making ventures. One of the really interesting things he said was that who you marry can be a strong indicator of financial success. We also enjoyed his discussion of the often overlooked role of women in household financial decision-making and found his take on what he calls the “despair industrial complex” especially thought-provoking.
Episode Highlights
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:41 Financial History and America’s ‘Go-Ahead’ Culture
00:15:24 Wealth, Mobility, and the American Dream
00:18:14 Fast Time, Career Risk, and Building Wealth
00:24:38 The Rise of Financial Advising as a Profession
00:35:34 Startups, Shorting Stocks, and Beating the Market
00:41:15 When Bonds Historically Beat Stocks
00:43:40 Marriage, Money, and Financial Success
00:47:58 Failing Upward in Real Estate
More From The Long View
Robin Wigglesworth: Why Bonds Are Behind Every Financial Boom and Bust
Nick Maggiulli: Climbing the Wealth Ladder
Erin Moriarity: My Dad Lost About $1.5 Million on Bad Investments. Here’s How to Avoid His Mistakes
If you have a comment or a guest idea, please email us at TheLongView@Morningstar.com.
Follow Christine Benz (@christine_benz) and Ben Johnson (@MstarBenJohnson) on X, and Christine Benz, Amy Arnott, and Ben Johnson on LinkedIn. Visit Morningstar.com for new research and insights from Christine, Ben, and Amy. Subscribe to Christine’s weekly newsletter, Improving Your Finances.
If you want more Morningstar podcasts, check out The Morning Filter and Investing Insights.

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Our guest on the podcast today is Mike Piper. Mike is the author of several personal finance books, the latest of which is called Household Cybersecurity: A CPA’s Guide to Protecting Your Accounts and Personal Information. Mike also writes a wonderful blog called Oblivious Investor, and he’s developed a free tool exploring Social Security claiming decisions called Open Social Security. One thing we loved about the conversation with Mike and about Mike’s book is his attention to the interplay between cybercrimes and cognitive decline as we age. He has a lot of helpful tips for troubleshooting that issue. One of the really interesting points he made was that financial problems can actually be an early warning sign of cognitive decline for an older parent or other family member. Mike shared simple, helpful tips that are easy to implement, including why you should create a guest network that’s separate from your main network at home, and how that can improve your cybersecurity.
Episode Highlights
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:41 Why Cybercrime Is Increasing
00:04:10 How AI Is Making Scams More Convincing
00:08:25 How to Spot Cyber Fraud
00:15:21 How to Create Stronger Passwords
00:19:25 Multifactor Authentication and Passkeys
00:33:27 How to Secure Devices and Home Networks
00:36:53 Are Bank or Investment Accounts Safer?
00:39:21 Can Financial Problems Signal Cognitive Decline?
00:45:24 When to Bring in a Financial Professional
More from The Long View
Dana Anspach: Don’t Let Fear Ruin Your Retirement
Erin Moriarity: My Dad Lost About $1.5 Million on Bad Investments. Here’s How to Avoid His Mistakes
Jean Chatzky: How to Create a Forever Paycheck for Retirement
If you have a comment or a guest idea, please email us at TheLongView@Morningstar.com.
Follow Christine Benz (@christine_benz) and Ben Johnson (@MstarBenJohnson) on X, and Christine Benz, Amy Arnott, and Ben Johnson on LinkedIn. Visit Morningstar.com for new research and insights from Christine, Ben, and Amy. Subscribe to Christine’s weekly newsletter, Improving Your Finances.
If you want more Morningstar podcasts, check out The Morning Filter and Investing Insights.

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Today, we’re happy to welcome two guests from the Morningstar Center for Retirement & Policy Studies. Spencer Look is the associate director of retirement studies and public policy for Morningstar, and Jack VanDerhei is the director of retirement studies and public policy. Jack previously worked as the research director at the Employee Benefit Research Institute from 1996 through 2022. Spencer and Jack both produce a lot of really helpful research on retirement outcomes, Social Security reform, and retirement policy. One of the highlights was their more balanced take on whether there’s really a retirement crisis in the US. We hear a lot of really dire warnings about that, so we appreciated their perspective on where there’s room for improvement, as well as data on things that aren’t quite as bad as some people might have us believe. You won’t be surprised to hear that we really enjoyed the discussion about long-term care. Spencer and Jack have both concluded that the retirement planning community has underrated long-term care as a risk factor for people’s retirement plans.
Episode Highlights
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:52 Modeling US Retirement Outcomes
00:07:06 Is There a Retirement Crisis?
00:11:17 Evaluating Retirement Policy Reform
00:14:49 Planning for Social Security Changes
00:18:01 Access, Auto‑Enrollment, and Accumulation
00:21:14 How the Saver’s Match Works
00:30:52 Turning Savings Into Retirement Income
00:34:45 Planning for Long-Term-Care Costs and Longevity
More from The Long View
Jean Chatzky: How to Create a Forever Paycheck for Retirement
Dana Anspach: Don’t Let Fear Ruin Your Retirement
Jamie Hopkins and Bonnie Treichel: Why You Can’t Set and Forget a Retirement Plan
If you have a comment or a guest idea, please email us at TheLongView@Morningstar.com.
Follow Christine Benz (@christine_benz) and Ben Johnson (@MstarBenJohnson) on X, and Christine Benz, Amy Arnott, and Ben Johnson on LinkedIn. Visit Morningstar.com for new research and insights from Christine, Ben, and Amy. Subscribe to Christine’s weekly newsletter, Improving Your Finances.
If you want more Morningstar podcasts, check out The Morning Filter and Investing Insights.

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