There are large elements to truth in this piece, but it also references a period where NOTHING was easier and smarter and cheaper than being long on US large cap equities and 30 year Treasury bonds, asset classes which due to their size and liquidity are the most intelligent places in which index. Might it be harder in the future or does the past always work? And this piece also ignores the “social implications” of blindly indexing all the world’s assets which at its most extreme application eliminates any sense of “capital allocation.” Since the author claims moral high ground, trillions of dollars not being able to curate its direction other than by market cap factor is not remotely socially responsible? And see our last post on what’s going into the indexes.  Blindly putting pension assets into what an “elite composition committee” determines is right -what has just recently done well and is being clamored for by the consensus -is the right thing to do for the great unwashed masses desiring a reasonable retirement? Oh, and PLEASE leaves us alone when it comes to fee issues when you are 30% in alts. 🙂

Read the original post at the Social Science Resource Network here.