Ben Stein How Not to Ruin Your Life

__A_YAHOO_USER__ - Thursday, March 6, 2008, 1:40PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

Hi Ben, Thanks for telling everyone to provide the liquidity I needed to bail. A ship that sinks slowly is still doomed and still a disaster. Enjoy your losses. Buffet got rich buying index funds? Yeah, right. Just how stupid do you think your readers are? Maybe I could interest you in a subprime investment...buy Treasurys! Your list

Samuel M - Monday, March 3, 2008, 2:35PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

I read Bogle's book, and I think Ben hit the nail on the head, and you can't argue with common sense and relentless rules of mathematics. Diversify in us, international and bond index funds. Leave the mystism to Cramer.

Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, March 2, 2008, 2:59AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 2/5

Ben Stein has a PhD in Economics.....from Yale no less? Wow, I must have missed that one! Just like the people who in 2006 said "subprime will be completely contained....now is the time to pick up bargains in Bear, Lehman, Merril, Countrywide, Novastar, Citibank......and Miami real estate". How'd that work out? Now is the time to buy? O-K, I'll sell to you....short.

Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, March 1, 2008, 1:47AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

When everyone else is selling ... buy. When everyone else is buying ... sell. You can't do much of one without first doing the other. If "now" isn't quite yet the time to buy, the time to buy is fast approaching. Investing in funds only makes the fund managers wealthy. "Where are all the customer's yachts?" is more than just an old, moldy book. Do your own research and buy/sell your own big-cap stocks through a discount broker. I like Ben's movies but his "advice" is too Kudlowish for anyone to bet their financial well-being on.

Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday, February 28, 2008, 8:33PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 2/5

espresso, plenty of people out there that have PhD's in economics have lost a fortune - they dont have a crystal ball but instead a piece of paper that says they put in their study time! anyways, there comes a time to sell regardless of what Mr.Stein thinks. minimizing loss helps to maximize profit. there is no guarantee that the markets will ever come back....where does it say they are guaranteed to recover? i must have overlooked something.

espresso - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 2:53PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 4/5

wjrorie, if you have only known Dr. Stein as a comedian, then you are just showing how ignorant you are, like all the bearish people who post here. Ben Stein has a Ph.d in economics from Yale (where he taught). Ben's showbiz career was a distraction he found while teaching as a visiting instructor at Pepperdine. this is all pretty well known. Dr. Stein is, acting career aside, an exceptional economist and a very talented writer on the subject. If you think you can dismiss his economic background, then let me point out your fearmongering only shows that you've been investing or paying attention to the economy for maybe five years, at the most. Yes, its that obvious.

Wayne - Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 2:20PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

Am I living in a lead cave here, or is almost everyone else? I've always known Ben Stein as an actor/comedian. As such, I've always read a certain "tongue-in-cheek" quality to his prose here at Yahoo. I found this latest, for example, to be HILARIOUS. Does anyone take advice to ignore a tanking dollar, soaring inflation, dismal job growth, a federal deficit that's growing like Topsy, and a Fed chairman sworn to print his way out of a recession seriously? Come on, people! He's KIDDING! Uh... isn't he?

dick schlong - Monday, February 25, 2008, 8:14PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

INCOME AVERAGE EVERY MONTH PUT MORE $$ IN WHEN THE MARKET FALLS ALOT I LIKE A FUND THAT PAYS BIG DIVIDENDS EVERY MONTH LIKE ALPINE DYNAMIC DIVIDEND FUND IT PAYS ME EVERY MONTH WHILE I WAIT IN A DOWN MARKET

Robert - Monday, February 25, 2008, 3:38PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

Ben Stein, here, is saving you thousands and thousands of dollars.

sentimentum - Monday, February 25, 2008, 12:51PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

Another pundit hit the nail on the head, nobody is fired for writing an optimistic forecast during a doom and gloom period, but a doom and gloom prophet, no matter how accurate, is never venerated. Case in point, the Chairman of Countrywide publicly declared the housing market bust in January, 2006, specifically the Las Vegas housing market. Nobody paid one microsecond of attention to his declaration. Two years later, he's gonna be retired with millions in severance and the housing market is in the flusher. Unless you are the head of a mega corp, if you want to have any money left after the dust settles, forget the writing, no matter how sincere, and decide for yourself whether you stay in or get out. You are smarter than Ben Stein, and it is YOUR money at risk, not Ben's. He don't reimburse for losses incurred based on his predictions.

Jay - Saturday, February 23, 2008, 4:34PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 2/5

Ben forgot these: 8) Mindlessly bet your retirement on the past performance of the stock indices and assume past performance equals future returns. 9) Mindlessly ignore that the economy is in a shambles and that we are headed toward recession (or dare I say depression) 10) Mindlessly ignore that the banking system is in serious trouble 11) fail to read intelligent economic-related blogs such as Mish Shedlock's blog and Karl Denninger's blog 12) Mindlessly watch CNBC and believe what all the pump-monkeys have to say 13) Mindlessly bury your head in the sand and pretend that we are still in a Bull market.

Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, February 23, 2008, 1:33PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

Why don't you give us some good advise, Benny boy, like how and why your buddies at Goldman Sachs make 75% of their profits trading their proprietary accounts--not buying and holding as you suggest we retail paper do?

Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, February 23, 2008, 11:48AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

Ben is laughing as he merrily runs to the bank with your money. Remember, he is an actor.

thomasg - Saturday, February 23, 2008, 7:04AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

The US of A is facing stagflation and stocks,fixed income should be exited.Go into hard assets like commodities(gold,oil,agricultural commodities) using indexes.Buy and hold them until the commodity cycle reverses.Stocks in commodity rich countries may be looked into after the Chinese Olympics,US elections .In a crash even good stocks will be dragged down.As for Warren Buffett he isn't complacent buy and hold-he is buying a lot of defensive sector companies like Kraft foods,Glaxosmithcline Beecham,J & J etc.My point is he is also changing his portfolio according to the current market situation.Yes he still holds mortgage lenders,banks-I am not sure why.Maybe he bought at such low prices that there is a margin of safety.But I certainly wouldn't buy any banks now.Bottomline-consider ETF/ETN like RJI,RJA,USO,DBA,UNG,GLD,SLV for commodities,FXY,FXF for currencies(yen and the swiss franc are the only 2 that are so low that they can't go any lower).If u are the risktaker consider short index funds on the major indices,short the pound and the euro at appropriate time.In short there is a lot that can be done and I suspect with a Harvard law degree this guy can't be stupid ,he must be a crook.Coming from India I have a very high opinion of Ivy League schools,so I find it difficult to believe he doesn't get it.This article might have been entertaining if I didnt have this nagging suspicion that he is setting people up.

seand - Friday, February 22, 2008, 4:55PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

It pays to listen to somebody with some wisdom. The market manipulators depend on the lemings to panic whenever they snap their fingers. People have got to get back to solid fundamentals: savings, balance, and moderation.

Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, February 22, 2008, 11:00AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

If Ben had been around to write a financial column during the 1930's, he would have told everyone to stay out of the stock market, and save your butter containers. Mooooh, mooooohh, muh, muh, moooooh...

Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, February 22, 2008, 10:14AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

Excellent article Ben, as we have come to expect. Thx

Trixie - Friday, February 22, 2008, 9:31AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 3/5

I agree with Jason T. If we are going to use Mr. Buffet as an example, Phil Town wrote in a recent Jan. blog that Buffet was currently sitting on $40 billion in cash right now, because this is still an expensive market. So I also don't agree with the buy index funds and sit mentality. But I do agree with Stein that this is not the time to panic either. Instead, it's time to do less and research more, so you can be sure about your investment choices. Not much room for error in this current market.

palaciosm - Friday, February 22, 2008, 1:46AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

Como siempre consejos al largo plazo. Esa es la unica manera invertir, Wall Street no es Las Vegas; los apostadores generalmente pierden.

BAGDACK - Thursday, February 21, 2008, 4:44PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 4/5

He's making a mockery of the imbecilic oaf's who only listen to the drive-by media and their horses a-- rhetoric about the economy collapsing and everything as we know it going to hell in a handbasket. If you haven't figured this out... your probably one of the imbecilic oafs...

Jason T - Thursday, February 21, 2008, 4:23PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

So tired of hearing the same old cliche of diversify and sit. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing research, noticing that the economy is in trouble and will be for some time, and making informed decisions to protect your hard earned cash. Warren Buffett also said the number one rule of investing is not to lose money and that is the best investment advice ever given. This article is tired, overly plagiarized, and just plain lazy.

Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 5:35PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

I agreee with Ben Stein -- stay the course!

Jim - Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 5:28PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

ALl you goobers saying you got out at the top are lieing. Those of you that are saying august was when you got out - the S&P was at 1400 then. It is at 1350 now. WOAH..big savings...when you finally decide to get back in, it will be at 1500 or higher. Yeah, sounds like that is a smart move to me. Stocks are cheap. Tech is sold off for NO REASON at all...buy QLD now and you will be up 40% in 2 years easy. Let's see your CD do that for at the "lucky" rate of 5.5% that you got.

Wendle - Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 3:56PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 2/5

That bait gets dropped all the way to the bottom before they jerk it back up.

Brian k - Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 3:14PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

You are a fool Ben..Just like the President!

Midwestern countryboy - Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 1:53PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

Ben o' Ben, No one can predict what is going to happen next. Your "stay the course" philosphy just can't be supported today. I would like to see what you have "invested" in for the last 6 months. I bet nothing! These are very serious financial times, nothing like this has been seen since the great depression. You should be informing people on how to preserve their "ass"ets now. Preservation of capital for the time being is my priority. Ben o' Ben.

Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 12:20PM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 4/5

Ben always has good advice, even if it's no different than what true financial experts have said for a century or more. Most of the negative comments seem to be from inexperienced "investors" and daytraders. Most inexperienced investors will eventually learn from experience, and any advice given in this column is not applicable to daytraders. To others, all I would say is that I found the most marvelous investment opportunity in the world! It gives me regular income, the income generally increases year after year, and the annualized rate of return is nearly infinite. It's called, a "job." Yep, it's really hard to beat. So, what do I do with the money from this "investment"? First, I make absolutely certain that as much as possible goes into a single target fund in my 401k. Know what? Even with the poor market performance of 2007, that target fund still managed to return 9%! Now, I always have considerable cash left over after I pay my bills, because I keep my "bills" very manageable. Most of my left-over money goes into a brokerage account where I can buy stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, CDs, etc. I use this account as my "laboratory." I experiment. This makes investing fun and enjoyable. It's a hobby, not a vocation. I don't worry about major bad decisions because I am reasonably conservative, and I know that the bulk of my savings is in my 401k where it is professionally managed in a target fund. My 401k has returned an average of 11% annualized for 19 years, and my "hobby" investments have returned 8% annualized for 15 years. Life is good; life is fun.

Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 11:43AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

A lot of naysayers disparaging Ben Stein. But let's remember, you read his opinion here free of charge. He doesn't care what you think. He is getting no commission fee from you. He is offering up his honest opinion. For those of you who think the market is coming off all time highs that were unrealistic in their valuations...think again...internationally. There is still a lot of pent up buying potential in those markets that will eventually dwarf the US market. Forget that, pull your money, and run and hide, and you will miss out.

norfolk n chance - Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 11:24AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 1/5

Isn't this the same article he writes every week? Someone sounds desparate Ben - I think it must be you. I sold out back in the Autumn - remember - when you said stocks were cheap?

Bradley - Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 11:11AM ET  Report Abuse

• Overall: 5/5

Wonderful approach Ben, reverse psychology. Your views are excellent. Remember when the DOW crossed 6,000 ? That was so speculative and an uncertain milestone in it's day. Had the average Joe Q public investor bought in any of the financial instruments you advocate then. Today, let's say.. You'll never see anyone taking money off the table upset because it appreciated so much. Time, time, time, patience, patience, patience.