September 25, 2025 • 29 mins
The “American dream” has always been about money: financial progression and building wealth. But for many the concept is slipping further and further away as the country’s yawning wealth gap widens. So the question is: can you still climb the proverbial wealth ladder, or is the dream dead? And if there is still room to rise, how important is salary versus investments? How can exchange-traded funds help?
On this episode, Joe and Eric speak with Nick Maggiulli, author of the new book, The Wealth Ladder: Proven Strategies for Every Step of Your Financial Life, and chief operating officer and data scientist at Ritholtz Wealth Management. Topics discussed include how the ladder breaks, pros and cons of different strategies for climbing it and how intertwined happiness and wealth are.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Boke No Trillions.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Joel Weber and I'm Eric Balchernas.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Eric, I'm really excited we have Nick Madjulie back on
the podcast today.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I checked. He was on three years ago for his first.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Book called Just Keep Buying, and he's just out with
the second book, The Wealth Ladder, and I want to
know more about the Wealth Ladder, how about you?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, No, this is a Nick is an advisor, and
advisors are the biggest consumer of ETFs, so you always
want to hear from them.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
They are the users of ETFs, but.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
They're not they're using ETFs, but that's just one tiny
part of what they do, and their people use them
as behavioral coaches, life coaches, tax plan It's really a
whole deal.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
And Nick is what I would consider like a cool advisor.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Oh a little younger, you know, the average advisory age
is like sixty sixty five.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
No jug no judging.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Nick is part of Ritholtz and there have really really
changed the way that advisors are even viewed because they're
really they do conferences, they're in the media, they write books.
They're just like just tons of content coming out of it.
And his last book was called Just Keep buying, which
is when he was on our podcast like three years
(01:22):
ago and that was a huge hit, and I told
him this, I thought that phrase just keep buying, really
captured the moment. It's funny because he put it out
right before twenty twenty two when the market went down
a lot, but people in at least etf users they
bought through it, and they also bought through the beginning
of this year. So people have taken that motto to
(01:43):
heart or he captured what they do with a perfect phrase,
and so it's cool to see him back with a
new book.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Okay, this time Nick Majulie.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
He's the chief operating officer and a data scientist at
written Bolk Wealth, this time on trillions the Wealth Letter.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Nick, welcome back, Thanks for having me on guys.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
The book is The Wealth Ladder, Proven strategies for every
step of your financial life. What is the Wealth Ladder?
Speaker 6 (02:14):
The Wealth latter is a new framework for viewing your
finances and the main idea here is I break wealth
into six distinct levels. We can get into those in
a moment, but based on which level you're at, based
on your net worth, it can help influence your spending decisions,
your income decisions, your investment decisions, et cetera. And I
think the main analogy I use, like in the intro,
is like a fitness instructor would give different advice to
(02:37):
someone who's like obese versus someone who's like a well
trained athlete versus.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
So I think that same analogy can apply to your
financial advice. Right, So if you're like just starting out,
you're going to give someone very different advice than if
someone's you know, trying to get to let's say ten
million plus or one hundred million plus, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Does it have to be a ladder? Can it be
an escalator?
Speaker 6 (02:58):
It could, in theory be whatever analogy you want. I
think the term the wealth ladder has been used a lot,
but there's no official like, oh, this is the person
that coined it or anything. It's just been kind of
used as like there's like these stages to wealth, and
so I just wanted to actually finally put you know
my name on this phrase and actually define it.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
And wealth escalator just wouldn't sell it in the same
way that the latter might. Yeah, So one of the
things you say is we've been looking at wealth the
wrong way. Why and how do you want us to
look at it?
Speaker 6 (03:29):
I think people they understand this intrinsically, Like the difference
between zero having no money in ten thousand dollars is
pretty large for people, Like if you go from zero
to ten thousand, that can like reduce a lot of stress,
et cetera. But then even someone going from like one
million to two million may not change their life all
that much, I mean relatively right. And so of course,
like ones a million dollar change the other ones a
(03:49):
ten thousand dollars change, Like, it's not linear in terms
of the happiness, enjoyment changing your life, et cetera. And
so there's this kind of diminishing marginal utility of money.
You know, as you have more of it, it's becomes
less and less valuable. Right, you need a bigger boost
or a bigger hit, so to speak, to see the
same jump and happiness or well being, live satisfaction, et cetera.
And I think people realize that. And so by defining
(04:11):
the wealth ladder and the way I did, I think
it's a better way of looking at money and thinking
about spending income investments, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, I like the way you did this and you
had you posted something on Twitter and I'll just read
off of what it is. And it was a little controversial.
Some people debated this. When you talk about wealth and
like classes, I think people can be touchy.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
But here's what you say.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Under ten thousand, wealth is paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Level one ten.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Thousand to one hundred thousand is grocery freedom, which is
where you can buy groceries without worrying about it. And
then level three is restaurant freedom. That's one hundred thousand
to one million.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And by the way, if you mentioning, this is net worth, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
This is net worth and household net worth, yeah, not income.
And then level four is travel freedom one million to
ten ten million.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
You can travel when and where you want.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Level five is house freedom ten million to one hundred million.
You can afford your dream home with little impact on
your overall finances. And then finally level six, which is
where I am, but Joel wishes he was one hundred
million plus. You can use money to have a profound
impact on the lives of others, you know, businesses engaged
in philanthropy, et cetera. So I think it was the
(05:24):
middle upper middle class where you got a little weird
like if you know, middle class being up to a million,
I think was part of it. But can you talk
about the feedback you got from that and what was
like the points that were most contentious.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I think I noticed that got two point three million
eyeballs that post.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
So yeah, so that post said, like, okay, level one,
which is less than ten thousand, I said, that's lower
class ten thousand to one hundred thousands. Level two that's
working class. Level three, I would say that's middle class.
That's one hundred thousand to a million dollars. By the way,
that's about forty percent of households. So there's twenty percent
Level one, this is US household US households, twenty percent
L one, twenty percent Level two, forty percent in level three.
(06:03):
So that's now eighty percent of the entire US has
less than a million. About eighteen percent are in level
four that's one to ten million, and then the top
two percent is level five and six, which is ten
million plus. And when I said, you know, one to
ten million was upper middle class, of course, some people
are like, well, if you have you know, six million
dollars in Alabama, you're definitely upper class. I'm like, yes, okay,
you can, you know, use these examples. But like if
(06:25):
you have six million dollars in New York, I wouldn't
say you're necessarily upper class, right, so I think you're
upper middle class.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
You're obviously doing well for yourself.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
But you know, with the price of an apartment even
like it's pretty expensive.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Right.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
So anyways, I said this, it's very controversial. I tried
it to make it as useful as possible and like
agnostic to location, and I think the idea here is,
you know, what I'm especially what I'm seeing is like
the upper middle classes. I define it with the one
to ten million range. There's a lot of people in
that range, eighteen percent of the US, and it's it's
tripled since nineteen eighty nine on an inflation adjusted basis
used to be about seven percent. So yeah, eighteen is
(06:56):
not exactly triple, it's like two and a half times larger.
But that's kind of the big change that's happened in
our society. I'm starting to see it in other ways,
like the AMX lounge is overrun at the airport. You
go to a nice resort and like you have to
go out at seven am to get your pool chair, right,
because people race to get them.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
So it's like.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
There's some sort of scarcity thing going on where the
upper middle class is like being overcrowded. And I think
a lot of people aren't talking about that, and that's
kind of one of the issues I wanted to bring
up with this book as well.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So we talk about these levels, right, what percent or
how would you describe people getting up to these levels
because this stock market went up a lot versus income? Right, Like,
if I look at somebody who has a million in
net worth, is that typically a lot? Like how much
of that is just because the market went up? So
we talk about these like scarcity where you have a
(07:51):
lot of people fighting for chairs and the MX lounge.
How much of that is on the back of the
US stock market because I don't are people really making
that much more money?
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Or is a lot of this the wealth effect because
of stocks?
Speaker 5 (08:05):
It's a mix.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
And so that data I'm quoting that all the data
I use for these percentages was twenty twenty two to
twenty twenty three. It's it's the survey of consumer finances,
which is across those two years, and at the time,
if someone's in level four, so one to ten million,
roughly thirty percent of that wealth on average is in
their primary residence, and in terms of the retirement account,
(08:26):
it's about twenty five percent. So over half of that
wealth of someone in level four is typically going to
be included in their house and their retirement account. So
the other half would be other things vehicles, obviously cash,
other stocks they have if they own a business, anything
like that. So roughly half of that wealth if you're
in level four should be in kind of these less
(08:46):
liquid assets, right retirement home equity. So how much of
that is being due to the stock market going up?
A decent portion of it is obviously over half of it.
But you know, I don't have the new The new
estate is going to come out next year, and we'll
look at it then and see like, oh, has that
gone up, has it gone down, et cetera. But I
do think there is quite a bit of paper wealth
here where like, hey, well my house is worth this,
but you can't really access it outside of like a
(09:08):
heelock or something. So I think the main thing to
think about here is just like, well, either way, there's
still a lot more people in this kind of bucket
level four, as I call it, and because of that,
like they are spending more, they're traveling more. I think
that's what's changing a lot in the United States, and
it's impacting you know, consumer goods in that sector.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
In particular.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
How walled off are each of these levels, Like how
often are we seeing people go from level three to
level four, level four to level five, or you know,
vice versa.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I supposed to.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
Yeah, so it depends on the timeframe. So I covered
this in chapter ten in the book, and this was
actually kind of one of the reasons why I wrote
the books. I basically wanted this like mobility matrix, which
would be like, hey, if you start in level three,
like after ten years, what's the probability you're going to
be in level four?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Because my assumption is that this wall is getting higher, right,
it's getting harder and harder to advance out of levels.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
There's an entrenchment on ust.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
So I haven't looked in that at in particular, like
looking at the switching rate, let's say from nineteen eighty
nine to nineteen ninety nine versus ninety nine to two
thousand and nine. Obviously that's a weird period because of
the GFC, But you get my point, and either way
that in general, most people are in the same wealth
level after a decade, right, So, and that's that's at
least true, like across every wealth level. So if you
(10:22):
start in level two a decade later, you're very likely
to be in level two. If you start in level three,
you're seventy two percent of households will still be in
level three after a decade. If you're in level four,
seventy two percent will still be in level four after
a decade. Three percent make it to level five, et cetera.
And all this data is in the book, right, and
so we can talk about it just in general, like
just across all wealth levels, agnostic with the levels, about
(10:45):
twenty one percent of households will go up one level
within a decade, about three percent will go up two levels,
so one in four are going to be up a
wealth level.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Right.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
So once again, these some of these levels are pretty broad,
like level four is one to ten million, so you
can stay in that wealth level. Doesn't mean you didn't
build wealth, right, So it's another thing to think about here.
It's just I'm trying to say, like what are these
big step changes those are the ones that are kind
of important have probably a bigger impact on our lives.
And the same thing, how many people fall down the ladder,
It's about twelve thirteen percent over the course of a decade,
(11:13):
even though the course of two decades it's about the same.
So that doesn't really change much, right, So whether they're
talking ten years or twenty years, the number of people
that fall down the ladder is about you know, let's
say one to ten in some fashion. And the number
of people that go up the ladder, as I said,
is about twenty four percent over a ten year period.
Over a twenty year period, it's about thirty seven percent,
so it's.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
A bit higher.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
So there is still a lot of positive mobility. I
don't know about the time factor though, which is what
you brought up.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
It's a good point.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
You have clients in all these ladders, I take it.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
Yeah, we we have clients across the wealth ladder, right,
we have those. I mean technically we don't have a minimum,
So we have people with some probably not many, with
less than ten thousand. Some would just maybe just less
than ten thousand with us, but they may have obviously
assets elsewhere, they own a home, et cetera. But for
the most part, yeah, we have people across that. We
have people technically in one hundred million plus. We don't
have too many of them, but we have a handful
(12:01):
of one hundred million dollars plus clients. And then we
have obviously our our bread and butter is level four
and level five, which is you know, one to ten
and then ten plus.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Because you do talk about like like this is just money, right,
and there's also just like happiness and general you know,
content with yourself and and you talk in here about
some of the you know, there can be some things that.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Go wrong when you get a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Relationships, family dynamics, your kids, stress levels.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Is that something you've noticed.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Like is already correlation to other things like the more
money you have, the more paranoid you get, or the
more you hate taxes in in a weird way, or
I don't know. I'm just thinking about this because sometimes
I sometimes think of that famous chart that USA Today
used to put out with like countries ranked by happiness,
and like I think Nigeria was like number one and
(12:57):
the US is like twentieth, And I wonder if there's
an any kind of other correlations with general disposition or
happiness or anything like that with these brackets.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
So there is data on happiness and income and then
also data on happiness and wealth. And so most of
your audience has probably heard of the conom and deed
and study, which is like, oh, once you earn over
seventy five K year, your happiness doesn't increase. Long story short,
that data wasn't exactly correct. It's the measure was. It
wasn't measuring happiness. It was measuring unhappiness, which is kind
(13:29):
of a weird thing. So it was saying that after
seventy five K year, you can't prevent unhappiness, which is
a weird as a double negative, right, so it's kind
of hard to think about. But long story short, a
guy named Matthew Killingsworth sat down with Condom and they
look through the data and everything. While Cocondom is still alive.
They look through it and they agreed that the measure
was wrong. And so the new takeaways. No, happiness keeps
(13:51):
increasing all the way up with your income, but only
if you're already happy. So if you're unhappy, more money
is not going to make you happy, right, especially if
you have a lot of money. So if you're unhappy.
I mean, let me just summarize the findings. If you're poor,
more money is likely to make you happier. If you're happy,
more money is likely to make you happier. But if
you're not poor and you're not happy, more money's not
(14:13):
going to do a thing, right, That's kind of the
main takeaway. So they found like, hey, if you're unhappy
and you're in level three or level four, money's probably
not the issue. It's something else going on. And I
think that's the big takeaway from the research. It's not
out there people still believe, oh the seventy five thousand
thing that's so old that needs to be like killed
already and just gotten rid of, because there's new data
out there that shows like across income and wealth is
(14:33):
probably even stronger than income. The more you have, the
generally the happier you are, assuming you're already happy.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That is it, flatline though, Like oh it kep's going
to just keeps going.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Out, but you have to be happy. It only goes
up if you're happy. So the people who are like
not even thinking about like, oh I'm not happy right now,
Oh do I need more money? Like that's it it's
a very it's very ironic, like the people that aren't happy.
If you're looking for money is the solution, that's not
the solution. But if you're just if you're loving life,
everything's great. If I just gave you an extra million bucks,
you'd be even everything'd be even happier for you. So
(15:02):
like that's kind of a weird irony here.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
In other words, if you're not happy and you have
this big void inside and you're trying to fill it
with money, it just won't.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
You can never fill it.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Yeah, exactly, not with money.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
It's something else maybybe accomplishment or something else might be
able to fill that. But yeah, if it's not, of course,
and then excluding people who are like very poor, like
if you're if you're in like abject poverty, Like, yes,
money is going to make you happier.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
There's no debate there. It's clear in the data.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It feels like Rosebud fits in here somewhere. Yeah, so
this is a podcast about ETFs. Let's bring it back
to ETFs. How do ETFs figure into the wealth ladder?
Speaker 6 (15:38):
I mean, the big takeaway from the wealth Flatter, at
least on the investment side, is those in levels one
to three, less than twenty five percent of their assets
on average are an income producing assets things like stocks, bonds,
et cetera. That ETFs would you know, you'd hold three ETFs.
Those in levels four to six have over half of
their assets and income producing assets. So like that is
(15:58):
the big difference between those lower on the wealth flatter
and those higher on the wealth flatters. Those lower on
the wealth flatter don't own that many assets that produce income.
Those higher on the wealth flatterer have the majority of
their assets are actually assets that produce income of some sort.
So that's you know, you could be retirement account with
an ETF, individual stocks or you know stock ETFs things
like that, or owning an individual business. So in terms
(16:21):
of like what are the things to think about, and
I kind of show this in chapter three. It shows
like how much percentage by each wealth level, like what
percentage is in retirement accounts, what percentage is in businesses,
is in stocks, real estate, et cetera. And looking through that,
it's very clear that you know, level four, which is
like the most the largest wealth level after you know,
in the upper end they primarily have a lot of
(16:43):
their money in stocks, retirement accounts, other types of income
producing assets of that sort.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
When it comes to ETFs, I've always thought, you know,
and I wrote when I wrote the Bogel book, especially
low cost Vanguardian type ETFs, that they are kind of
a gift for advisors in any people because you don't
have to worry about them, Like, once you lock into those,
they're so low cost, you can literally just get.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Married to them.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
You don't have to fuss with your investments that much
because you know you're in the good stuff.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Do you find that is true with.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Those people, that their ability to keep buying, as you
would put it, is easier because the products they're in
are lovable and reliable versus thirty years ago when you're
chasing active managers and active mutual funds, and it's harder
to be well behaved if you feel like you're not
(17:35):
in the right fund in a downturn, Whereas if you
have Voo or something and it's a market down ton
you're like, well, what the hell's am I going to do?
I'll just hold it and we all know that's the
better move.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
We win in the end with that attitude, have.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
You because I always thought, you know, I interviewed Michael
Lewis for the book, The Bogle Book, and he said
ETFs have like helped me become a better writer. I
can just focus on that. I don't have to check
this stuff at all. So that's something I just as curious.
From your role as an advisor, they seem like a
godsend because you just buy these like really easy going ETFs,
maybe customize the portfolio a little bit, and then we'll
(18:10):
focus on other stuff.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
I mean, I completely agree with that. I think it's
allowed passive investors to just free ride off all the
work that all the active investors are doing to set prices.
And now, of course, how good is price discovery that's
obviously debatable, especially as the passive share gets bigger and bigger.
I think just in general, yeah, it's one of those
things where like I don't have to worry about it.
You know, you put and this is only going to
(18:32):
work for people who get it. Not everyone's gonna get this.
They're not going to believe that. And if they don't
believe that, when there's a downturn, maybe they will abandon
their VTI or their VOO. Most people don't because they
get it. They're like, I just got to keep buying
over time and just do this and the market generally
goes up. And that has been shown to be true
over a very long period. We can go back to
nineteen twenty six. You see that in the US market.
Of course, there are exceptions. There's Japan, there's Greece, there's Russia. Right,
(18:55):
we can talk. I know all the exceptions very well.
There's very dark periods for equities where this can happen.
But if you're diversified across a broad range of assets,
it's very unlikely that you're going to lose money on
an inflation adjusted basis over a long period.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Of time, especially if you're buying over time.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I agree, if you put all your money in at once,
there's a little bit more risk, right, because you're not
diversifying across time with your payments or I'm sorry, with
your contributions. But that's just something else to consider when
you're thinking about this stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Right, I'm going to assume that most of our listeners
are in level four, maybe level three, let's say the
wash of.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
The majority as you as you call it.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
What are the actionable takeaways that you want them to
hear from this book?
Speaker 6 (19:45):
So level three is a little different than level four.
Level three obviously it's keep investing and usually a lot
of these people wrote that book already, Yeah, I know,
just keep buying. Yeah, well that is the lesson of
level three, So there's not much. I mean, if you've
already read just keep buying, you and you're in level three,
that's kind of the main takeaway that if you're in.
I mean, the other thing you consider is like people
starting side hustles, thinking about your career, how do you
raise your income? That's something I focus on a lot
(20:07):
in level three. In level four, it's actually a different lesson,
and the lesson in level four is like what got
you here won't get you there. So the thing to
get into level three and level four they're very similar,
just usually takes more time, and that's you know, get
a good job, save money, invest in ETFs, et cetera.
You know, diversification in coome producing assets, you'll get there.
To get to level five, which is ten million plus,
(20:28):
that's a completely different ball game, and I think that
requires in general, outside of celebrities, athletes, entertainers, some sort
of entrepreneurship, right, unless you're making you know, tens of
millions of dollars a year. You're not going to get
into level five unless you have a business that brings
in a lot of income and you either you know,
save that income for a long time or you sell
the business for a lot one day. So I think
(20:48):
the big decision point for those in level four is
like do I need to keep doing this?
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Do I take my foot off the gas?
Speaker 6 (20:54):
There's ideas of coast fire or fire financial independence. There's
a lot of these things come up in level four
because you start to think, like how much am I
even impacting my finances anymore?
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Right?
Speaker 6 (21:04):
So let me just a simple example. If you're saving
one hundred K a year and you have a million dollars,
that's ten percent you're impacting your wealth every year. By
the time you have five million dollars, it's only moving
your wealth by two percent. So over time, like your
labor is going to get less impactful on an annual
basis in terms of impacting your wealth. So the question
is like, do I need to keep working? Should I
take a step back and I do something I enjoy
(21:25):
more that pays less A treadmill? Yeah, I think it's
I think it's one of those things where you have
to think about, like what do I do at this point?
And that's like the big decision idea in level four
is like do I take a step back? Do I
need to change my my path completely? If I want
to get to level five. I'm not saying you need
to get to level five. I don't think that's necessary whatsoever.
But for some people that want that, okay, maybe you
(21:47):
need to take a different route.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
To get there.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
So, as Eric mentioned, he's he's level six, I'm level five.
What's he doing that I'm not doing?
Speaker 6 (21:58):
He probably just either he had a business that he
worked on for longer than you, or he sold his
first business and then learned all those bad lessons from
selling that one, and then, you know, start a second business.
That's typically what happens. It's not their first business, their
second business.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
They got to be something else. Because I don't I
don't think that's him or ETFs.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
Does he have a lot? Is he an ETF is shuer?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Maybe No, I think that would be a conflict of interest.
I'll have to talk to him offline about that. He's
become suspiciously quiet.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, I know, I don't have an answer for this.
I don't want to reveal my secrets for unlike private
equity companies, I'm not looking to democratize this great thing
I have. Okay, all right, but by the way, this
idea of like, okay, people try to get a good job,
(22:53):
they try to get a good salary. Then like then
they invest, and then they tend to the investing really
powers half their funds.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Later on, there's this I think the bill.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Passed, right, so there's a in twenty twenty six, they're
going to have a opportunity where kids will get one
thousand dollars put into an account. This is a Trump account,
and I think it's gonna the.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
What the Trump account?
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what they're calling.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Is that what is called the child?
Speaker 6 (23:23):
I mean, yeah, they're putting a thousand dollars per child born.
I think in twenty two. I don't know if it's
this year or in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, next year, it's just twenty twenty six, and then
parents can obviously do it's like a four to one
k for your kid in a way, and they can
put money into it. This was an idea put forth
by Tyrone Ross, who you know.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
He thought this was the solution.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
To killing the wealth gap in America. He had one
other stipulation which I liked, which is that you can't
get the money out as the kid until you're eighteen,
and you have to pass a financial literacy test. Because
so many people don't know what the hell's going on
with investing. The only thing they might have gotten is
like a stock picking competition in like middle school.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
This seems like a good idea. Is there any downside?
Do you think this will help with the ladder climbing?
Speaker 6 (24:15):
I guess the question. I mean, I think it's it's
better than not doing it, right. I think a lot
of a lot of the issues we see. As long
as the account can't be raided, you can't take money
out of it like you have to. It's almost like
a it's like a private equity lock in, right, that's
actually the it's a pheasic canvas.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Right.
Speaker 6 (24:30):
If you can't take the money out, that's eighteen years
of compounding. Right, even even if we go very conservative
and say four percent per year inflation adjusted, that's like
still very good, right, Like it will build wealth. Now,
the question is, as soon as these people turn eighteen,
what do they do with the money. And even if
you pass a test, you can study for a test.
That doesn't mean, like, just because I know the right
answer doesn't mean I'm gonna do the right thing right.
(24:50):
So there is the possibility of someone, you know, they
finally get there, they have you know, how much is
in this account. Let's say it's I don't know, fifty
grand maybe I don't know, and they could it all
right away. I mean, so it's a question of you know,
people at eighteen are not necessarily the best decision makers.
I think we all know that I wasn't the best
decision maker when I was eighteen.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
But isn't isn't part of the idea that a lot
of parents would be able to use this money for
college versus having to borrow it, which can be brutal
later on.
Speaker 6 (25:18):
I mean, that's another option as well. But I guess
is it the question now? Is is it the child's
money or the parents money to use for college?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Like?
Speaker 6 (25:25):
How how is this? Who's the account under? And when
does the custody transfer or whatever? Like all these types
of questions matter in terms of how it actually plays out.
So I think it's a good idea. I actually liked
the idea of a sovereign wealth fund at the same time,
like it's better than nothing.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
I think just getting people.
Speaker 6 (25:40):
In levels one, two, and three to own more income
producing assets is a good thing period, Like full stop.
I think that will help with the wealth inequality. It's
not going to solve it completely, because there's just existing
inequality that's just being exacerbated over time. And if people
aren't you know, don't have enough income to buy and
come producing assets, then that's not going to help either. Right,
A lot of people can't afford or to even put
(26:00):
money into an ETF.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Unfortunately, Nick, I'm curious, what do you know now having
done the book that you didn't know before you did
the book?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
What'd you learn?
Speaker 5 (26:11):
There's a few things.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
I think The stuff I talk about on level four
with like the difference between getting out of that level
versus getting into that level was even more striking than
I thought it would be. And I use this. I
used some math to show this, Like once again, a
million dollar portfolio, you're saving one hundred k a year.
Let's say you're it's growing by five percent a year
after inflation, how long does it take to get to
(26:33):
ten million? The answer is twenty eight years. So like,
even like you're saving one hundred k year, that's a
lot of money. You're doing well, you're grinding, it still
takes you thirty years. And that's after you already hit
a million, right, which could take someone a few decades
to get there, right, So you think about that and
you're like, wow, like doing all these things, the nine
to five going through that, like it is a rough
grind to get to ten million from here, and so
(26:53):
a lot of people rationally so will say, you know what,
I'm not gonna do that. I don't care about doing
that and take their foot off the break our foot
off the game, so to speak. And that was one
of the big things I learned. And then also just
seeing how much business interest is at the higher end
of the wealth flatter. I knew that was true, but
when I saw it in the data, it's like overwhelmingly,
you know, the higher you go up the wealth flatter,
the more people just have their own businesses, right. And
(27:15):
it's just, of course there's some survivorship bias there. I
understand all that, but if you just look at people
in level six, all of them, it's like the vast
majority of their wealth is in their businesses one way
or another.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Last question for you, you're a little fine print at
the beginning to my father for teaching me the game
don't move until you see it?
Speaker 6 (27:34):
What's that about Bobby Fisher that it's an old movie.
He taught me chess when I was, like, you know,
very young thing. I was four or five when he
started teaching me, and I started playing as friends, and
it really made me realize that, you know, like chess
as an analogy for like life is actually probably more
true than almost any game out there, because you're looking
at the board. For any thee that's played chess, you
(27:55):
look at the board a certain point in time and oh,
I want to make this move. Oh I can't make
this move because they could do that a few moves later.
The board's changed. Now that move that didn't make sense
can now make sense. And I think the same thing
was true when I was writing The Well Ladder. Oh
I could do this now, but maybe that's not the
right move. Like starting a business when you're twenty two,
some people have succeeded it, most would fail. I think
most of the successful business owners are actually in their
(28:17):
forties because they've actually had industry experience, they have more connections,
and they have money to start the business. So the
move doesn't make sense at twenty two makes a lot
more sense at forty two, right, And so I think
thinking through that is when you realize, like wow, life
is more like a chess game than and first glance.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Nick Majulia, thanks for joining us on Trillions.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
Thanks Pridman, guys appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Thanks for listening to Trillions until next time. You can
find us on the Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever else you'd like to listen.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Hit us up on social I'm at Joe Weber Show,
He's at Eric Faultiness.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Trillions is produced by Magnus Hendrix's Brendan Newman is our
executive producer. Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast
Boke No Trillions.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Joel Weber and I'm Eric Balchernas.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Eric, I'm really excited we have Nick Madjulie back on
the podcast today.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I checked. He was on three years ago for his first.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Book called Just Keep Buying, and he's just out with
the second book, The Wealth Ladder, and I want to
know more about the Wealth Ladder, how about you?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, No, this is a Nick is an advisor, and
advisors are the biggest consumer of ETFs, so you always
want to hear from them.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
They are the users of ETFs, but.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
They're not they're using ETFs, but that's just one tiny
part of what they do, and their people use them
as behavioral coaches, life coaches, tax plan It's really a
whole deal.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
And Nick is what I would consider like a cool advisor.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Oh a little younger, you know, the average advisory age
is like sixty sixty five.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
No jug no judging.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Nick is part of Ritholtz and there have really really
changed the way that advisors are even viewed because they're
really they do conferences, they're in the media, they write books.
They're just like just tons of content coming out of it.
And his last book was called Just Keep buying, which
is when he was on our podcast like three years
(01:22):
ago and that was a huge hit, and I told
him this, I thought that phrase just keep buying, really
captured the moment. It's funny because he put it out
right before twenty twenty two when the market went down
a lot, but people in at least etf users they
bought through it, and they also bought through the beginning
of this year. So people have taken that motto to
(01:43):
heart or he captured what they do with a perfect phrase,
and so it's cool to see him back with a
new book.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Okay, this time Nick Majulie.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
He's the chief operating officer and a data scientist at
written Bolk Wealth, this time on trillions the Wealth Letter.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Nick, welcome back, Thanks for having me on guys.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
The book is The Wealth Ladder, Proven strategies for every
step of your financial life. What is the Wealth Ladder?
Speaker 6 (02:14):
The Wealth latter is a new framework for viewing your
finances and the main idea here is I break wealth
into six distinct levels. We can get into those in
a moment, but based on which level you're at, based
on your net worth, it can help influence your spending decisions,
your income decisions, your investment decisions, et cetera. And I
think the main analogy I use, like in the intro,
is like a fitness instructor would give different advice to
(02:37):
someone who's like obese versus someone who's like a well
trained athlete versus.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
So I think that same analogy can apply to your
financial advice. Right, So if you're like just starting out,
you're going to give someone very different advice than if
someone's you know, trying to get to let's say ten
million plus or one hundred million plus, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Does it have to be a ladder? Can it be
an escalator?
Speaker 6 (02:58):
It could, in theory be whatever analogy you want. I
think the term the wealth ladder has been used a lot,
but there's no official like, oh, this is the person
that coined it or anything. It's just been kind of
used as like there's like these stages to wealth, and
so I just wanted to actually finally put you know
my name on this phrase and actually define it.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
And wealth escalator just wouldn't sell it in the same
way that the latter might. Yeah, So one of the
things you say is we've been looking at wealth the
wrong way. Why and how do you want us to
look at it?
Speaker 6 (03:29):
I think people they understand this intrinsically, Like the difference
between zero having no money in ten thousand dollars is
pretty large for people, Like if you go from zero
to ten thousand, that can like reduce a lot of stress,
et cetera. But then even someone going from like one
million to two million may not change their life all
that much, I mean relatively right. And so of course,
like ones a million dollar change the other ones a
(03:49):
ten thousand dollars change, Like, it's not linear in terms
of the happiness, enjoyment changing your life, et cetera. And
so there's this kind of diminishing marginal utility of money.
You know, as you have more of it, it's becomes
less and less valuable. Right, you need a bigger boost
or a bigger hit, so to speak, to see the
same jump and happiness or well being, live satisfaction, et cetera.
And I think people realize that. And so by defining
(04:11):
the wealth ladder and the way I did, I think
it's a better way of looking at money and thinking
about spending income investments, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, I like the way you did this and you
had you posted something on Twitter and I'll just read
off of what it is. And it was a little controversial.
Some people debated this. When you talk about wealth and
like classes, I think people can be touchy.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
But here's what you say.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Under ten thousand, wealth is paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Level one ten.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Thousand to one hundred thousand is grocery freedom, which is
where you can buy groceries without worrying about it. And
then level three is restaurant freedom. That's one hundred thousand
to one million.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And by the way, if you mentioning, this is net worth, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
This is net worth and household net worth, yeah, not income.
And then level four is travel freedom one million to
ten ten million.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
You can travel when and where you want.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Level five is house freedom ten million to one hundred million.
You can afford your dream home with little impact on
your overall finances. And then finally level six, which is
where I am, but Joel wishes he was one hundred
million plus. You can use money to have a profound
impact on the lives of others, you know, businesses engaged
in philanthropy, et cetera. So I think it was the
(05:24):
middle upper middle class where you got a little weird
like if you know, middle class being up to a million,
I think was part of it. But can you talk
about the feedback you got from that and what was
like the points that were most contentious.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I think I noticed that got two point three million
eyeballs that post.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
So yeah, so that post said, like, okay, level one,
which is less than ten thousand, I said, that's lower
class ten thousand to one hundred thousands. Level two that's
working class. Level three, I would say that's middle class.
That's one hundred thousand to a million dollars. By the way,
that's about forty percent of households. So there's twenty percent
Level one, this is US household US households, twenty percent
L one, twenty percent Level two, forty percent in level three.
(06:03):
So that's now eighty percent of the entire US has
less than a million. About eighteen percent are in level
four that's one to ten million, and then the top
two percent is level five and six, which is ten
million plus. And when I said, you know, one to
ten million was upper middle class, of course, some people
are like, well, if you have you know, six million
dollars in Alabama, you're definitely upper class. I'm like, yes, okay,
you can, you know, use these examples. But like if
(06:25):
you have six million dollars in New York, I wouldn't
say you're necessarily upper class, right, so I think you're
upper middle class.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
You're obviously doing well for yourself.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
But you know, with the price of an apartment even
like it's pretty expensive.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Right.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
So anyways, I said this, it's very controversial. I tried
it to make it as useful as possible and like
agnostic to location, and I think the idea here is,
you know, what I'm especially what I'm seeing is like
the upper middle classes. I define it with the one
to ten million range. There's a lot of people in
that range, eighteen percent of the US, and it's it's
tripled since nineteen eighty nine on an inflation adjusted basis
used to be about seven percent. So yeah, eighteen is
(06:56):
not exactly triple, it's like two and a half times larger.
But that's kind of the big change that's happened in
our society. I'm starting to see it in other ways,
like the AMX lounge is overrun at the airport. You
go to a nice resort and like you have to
go out at seven am to get your pool chair, right,
because people race to get them.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
So it's like.
Speaker 6 (07:12):
There's some sort of scarcity thing going on where the
upper middle class is like being overcrowded. And I think
a lot of people aren't talking about that, and that's
kind of one of the issues I wanted to bring
up with this book as well.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So we talk about these levels, right, what percent or
how would you describe people getting up to these levels
because this stock market went up a lot versus income? Right, Like,
if I look at somebody who has a million in
net worth, is that typically a lot? Like how much
of that is just because the market went up? So
we talk about these like scarcity where you have a
(07:51):
lot of people fighting for chairs and the MX lounge.
How much of that is on the back of the
US stock market because I don't are people really making
that much more money?
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Or is a lot of this the wealth effect because
of stocks?
Speaker 5 (08:05):
It's a mix.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
And so that data I'm quoting that all the data
I use for these percentages was twenty twenty two to
twenty twenty three. It's it's the survey of consumer finances,
which is across those two years, and at the time,
if someone's in level four, so one to ten million,
roughly thirty percent of that wealth on average is in
their primary residence, and in terms of the retirement account,
(08:26):
it's about twenty five percent. So over half of that
wealth of someone in level four is typically going to
be included in their house and their retirement account. So
the other half would be other things vehicles, obviously cash,
other stocks they have if they own a business, anything
like that. So roughly half of that wealth if you're
in level four should be in kind of these less
(08:46):
liquid assets, right retirement home equity. So how much of
that is being due to the stock market going up?
A decent portion of it is obviously over half of it.
But you know, I don't have the new The new
estate is going to come out next year, and we'll
look at it then and see like, oh, has that
gone up, has it gone down, et cetera. But I
do think there is quite a bit of paper wealth
here where like, hey, well my house is worth this,
but you can't really access it outside of like a
(09:08):
heelock or something. So I think the main thing to
think about here is just like, well, either way, there's
still a lot more people in this kind of bucket
level four, as I call it, and because of that,
like they are spending more, they're traveling more. I think
that's what's changing a lot in the United States, and
it's impacting you know, consumer goods in that sector.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
In particular.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
How walled off are each of these levels, Like how
often are we seeing people go from level three to
level four, level four to level five, or you know,
vice versa.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I supposed to.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
Yeah, so it depends on the timeframe. So I covered
this in chapter ten in the book, and this was
actually kind of one of the reasons why I wrote
the books. I basically wanted this like mobility matrix, which
would be like, hey, if you start in level three,
like after ten years, what's the probability you're going to
be in level four?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Because my assumption is that this wall is getting higher, right,
it's getting harder and harder to advance out of levels.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
There's an entrenchment on ust.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
So I haven't looked in that at in particular, like
looking at the switching rate, let's say from nineteen eighty
nine to nineteen ninety nine versus ninety nine to two
thousand and nine. Obviously that's a weird period because of
the GFC, But you get my point, and either way
that in general, most people are in the same wealth
level after a decade, right, So, and that's that's at
least true, like across every wealth level. So if you
(10:22):
start in level two a decade later, you're very likely
to be in level two. If you start in level three,
you're seventy two percent of households will still be in
level three after a decade. If you're in level four,
seventy two percent will still be in level four after
a decade. Three percent make it to level five, et cetera.
And all this data is in the book, right, and
so we can talk about it just in general, like
just across all wealth levels, agnostic with the levels, about
(10:45):
twenty one percent of households will go up one level
within a decade, about three percent will go up two levels,
so one in four are going to be up a
wealth level.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Right.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
So once again, these some of these levels are pretty broad,
like level four is one to ten million, so you
can stay in that wealth level. Doesn't mean you didn't
build wealth, right, So it's another thing to think about here.
It's just I'm trying to say, like what are these
big step changes those are the ones that are kind
of important have probably a bigger impact on our lives.
And the same thing, how many people fall down the ladder,
It's about twelve thirteen percent over the course of a decade,
(11:13):
even though the course of two decades it's about the same.
So that doesn't really change much, right, So whether they're
talking ten years or twenty years, the number of people
that fall down the ladder is about you know, let's
say one to ten in some fashion. And the number
of people that go up the ladder, as I said,
is about twenty four percent over a ten year period.
Over a twenty year period, it's about thirty seven percent,
so it's.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
A bit higher.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
So there is still a lot of positive mobility. I
don't know about the time factor though, which is what
you brought up.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
It's a good point.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
You have clients in all these ladders, I take it.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
Yeah, we we have clients across the wealth ladder, right,
we have those. I mean technically we don't have a minimum,
So we have people with some probably not many, with
less than ten thousand. Some would just maybe just less
than ten thousand with us, but they may have obviously
assets elsewhere, they own a home, et cetera. But for
the most part, yeah, we have people across that. We
have people technically in one hundred million plus. We don't
have too many of them, but we have a handful
(12:01):
of one hundred million dollars plus clients. And then we
have obviously our our bread and butter is level four
and level five, which is you know, one to ten
and then ten plus.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Because you do talk about like like this is just money, right,
and there's also just like happiness and general you know,
content with yourself and and you talk in here about
some of the you know, there can be some things that.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Go wrong when you get a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Relationships, family dynamics, your kids, stress levels.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Is that something you've noticed.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Like is already correlation to other things like the more
money you have, the more paranoid you get, or the
more you hate taxes in in a weird way, or
I don't know. I'm just thinking about this because sometimes
I sometimes think of that famous chart that USA Today
used to put out with like countries ranked by happiness,
and like I think Nigeria was like number one and
(12:57):
the US is like twentieth, And I wonder if there's
an any kind of other correlations with general disposition or
happiness or anything like that with these brackets.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
So there is data on happiness and income and then
also data on happiness and wealth. And so most of
your audience has probably heard of the conom and deed
and study, which is like, oh, once you earn over
seventy five K year, your happiness doesn't increase. Long story short,
that data wasn't exactly correct. It's the measure was. It
wasn't measuring happiness. It was measuring unhappiness, which is kind
(13:29):
of a weird thing. So it was saying that after
seventy five K year, you can't prevent unhappiness, which is
a weird as a double negative, right, so it's kind
of hard to think about. But long story short, a
guy named Matthew Killingsworth sat down with Condom and they
look through the data and everything. While Cocondom is still alive.
They look through it and they agreed that the measure
was wrong. And so the new takeaways. No, happiness keeps
(13:51):
increasing all the way up with your income, but only
if you're already happy. So if you're unhappy, more money
is not going to make you happy, right, especially if
you have a lot of money. So if you're unhappy.
I mean, let me just summarize the findings. If you're poor,
more money is likely to make you happier. If you're happy,
more money is likely to make you happier. But if
you're not poor and you're not happy, more money's not
(14:13):
going to do a thing, right, That's kind of the
main takeaway. So they found like, hey, if you're unhappy
and you're in level three or level four, money's probably
not the issue. It's something else going on. And I
think that's the big takeaway from the research. It's not
out there people still believe, oh the seventy five thousand
thing that's so old that needs to be like killed
already and just gotten rid of, because there's new data
out there that shows like across income and wealth is
(14:33):
probably even stronger than income. The more you have, the
generally the happier you are, assuming you're already happy.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That is it, flatline though, Like oh it kep's going
to just keeps going.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Out, but you have to be happy. It only goes
up if you're happy. So the people who are like
not even thinking about like, oh I'm not happy right now,
Oh do I need more money? Like that's it it's
a very it's very ironic, like the people that aren't happy.
If you're looking for money is the solution, that's not
the solution. But if you're just if you're loving life,
everything's great. If I just gave you an extra million bucks,
you'd be even everything'd be even happier for you. So
(15:02):
like that's kind of a weird irony here.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
In other words, if you're not happy and you have
this big void inside and you're trying to fill it
with money, it just won't.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
You can never fill it.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Yeah, exactly, not with money.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
It's something else maybybe accomplishment or something else might be
able to fill that. But yeah, if it's not, of course,
and then excluding people who are like very poor, like
if you're if you're in like abject poverty, Like, yes,
money is going to make you happier.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
There's no debate there. It's clear in the data.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It feels like Rosebud fits in here somewhere. Yeah, so
this is a podcast about ETFs. Let's bring it back
to ETFs. How do ETFs figure into the wealth ladder?
Speaker 6 (15:38):
I mean, the big takeaway from the wealth Flatter, at
least on the investment side, is those in levels one
to three, less than twenty five percent of their assets
on average are an income producing assets things like stocks, bonds,
et cetera. That ETFs would you know, you'd hold three ETFs.
Those in levels four to six have over half of
their assets and income producing assets. So like that is
(15:58):
the big difference between those lower on the wealth flatter
and those higher on the wealth flatters. Those lower on
the wealth flatter don't own that many assets that produce income.
Those higher on the wealth flatterer have the majority of
their assets are actually assets that produce income of some sort.
So that's you know, you could be retirement account with
an ETF, individual stocks or you know stock ETFs things
like that, or owning an individual business. So in terms
(16:21):
of like what are the things to think about, and
I kind of show this in chapter three. It shows
like how much percentage by each wealth level, like what
percentage is in retirement accounts, what percentage is in businesses,
is in stocks, real estate, et cetera. And looking through that,
it's very clear that you know, level four, which is
like the most the largest wealth level after you know,
in the upper end they primarily have a lot of
(16:43):
their money in stocks, retirement accounts, other types of income
producing assets of that sort.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
When it comes to ETFs, I've always thought, you know,
and I wrote when I wrote the Bogel book, especially
low cost Vanguardian type ETFs, that they are kind of
a gift for advisors in any people because you don't
have to worry about them, Like, once you lock into those,
they're so low cost, you can literally just get.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Married to them.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
You don't have to fuss with your investments that much
because you know you're in the good stuff.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Do you find that is true with.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Those people, that their ability to keep buying, as you
would put it, is easier because the products they're in
are lovable and reliable versus thirty years ago when you're
chasing active managers and active mutual funds, and it's harder
to be well behaved if you feel like you're not
(17:35):
in the right fund in a downturn, Whereas if you
have Voo or something and it's a market down ton
you're like, well, what the hell's am I going to do?
I'll just hold it and we all know that's the
better move.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
We win in the end with that attitude, have.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
You because I always thought, you know, I interviewed Michael
Lewis for the book, The Bogle Book, and he said
ETFs have like helped me become a better writer. I
can just focus on that. I don't have to check
this stuff at all. So that's something I just as curious.
From your role as an advisor, they seem like a
godsend because you just buy these like really easy going ETFs,
maybe customize the portfolio a little bit, and then we'll
(18:10):
focus on other stuff.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
I mean, I completely agree with that. I think it's
allowed passive investors to just free ride off all the
work that all the active investors are doing to set prices.
And now, of course, how good is price discovery that's
obviously debatable, especially as the passive share gets bigger and bigger.
I think just in general, yeah, it's one of those
things where like I don't have to worry about it.
You know, you put and this is only going to
(18:32):
work for people who get it. Not everyone's gonna get this.
They're not going to believe that. And if they don't
believe that, when there's a downturn, maybe they will abandon
their VTI or their VOO. Most people don't because they
get it. They're like, I just got to keep buying
over time and just do this and the market generally
goes up. And that has been shown to be true
over a very long period. We can go back to
nineteen twenty six. You see that in the US market.
Of course, there are exceptions. There's Japan, there's Greece, there's Russia. Right,
(18:55):
we can talk. I know all the exceptions very well.
There's very dark periods for equities where this can happen.
But if you're diversified across a broad range of assets,
it's very unlikely that you're going to lose money on
an inflation adjusted basis over a long period.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Of time, especially if you're buying over time.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I agree, if you put all your money in at once,
there's a little bit more risk, right, because you're not
diversifying across time with your payments or I'm sorry, with
your contributions. But that's just something else to consider when
you're thinking about this stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Right, I'm going to assume that most of our listeners
are in level four, maybe level three, let's say the
wash of.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
The majority as you as you call it.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
What are the actionable takeaways that you want them to
hear from this book?
Speaker 6 (19:45):
So level three is a little different than level four.
Level three obviously it's keep investing and usually a lot
of these people wrote that book already, Yeah, I know,
just keep buying. Yeah, well that is the lesson of
level three, So there's not much. I mean, if you've
already read just keep buying, you and you're in level three,
that's kind of the main takeaway that if you're in.
I mean, the other thing you consider is like people
starting side hustles, thinking about your career, how do you
raise your income? That's something I focus on a lot
(20:07):
in level three. In level four, it's actually a different lesson,
and the lesson in level four is like what got
you here won't get you there. So the thing to
get into level three and level four they're very similar,
just usually takes more time, and that's you know, get
a good job, save money, invest in ETFs, et cetera.
You know, diversification in coome producing assets, you'll get there.
To get to level five, which is ten million plus,
(20:28):
that's a completely different ball game, and I think that
requires in general, outside of celebrities, athletes, entertainers, some sort
of entrepreneurship, right, unless you're making you know, tens of
millions of dollars a year. You're not going to get
into level five unless you have a business that brings
in a lot of income and you either you know,
save that income for a long time or you sell
the business for a lot one day. So I think
(20:48):
the big decision point for those in level four is
like do I need to keep doing this?
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Do I take my foot off the gas?
Speaker 6 (20:54):
There's ideas of coast fire or fire financial independence. There's
a lot of these things come up in level four
because you start to think, like how much am I
even impacting my finances anymore?
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Right?
Speaker 6 (21:04):
So let me just a simple example. If you're saving
one hundred K a year and you have a million dollars,
that's ten percent you're impacting your wealth every year. By
the time you have five million dollars, it's only moving
your wealth by two percent. So over time, like your
labor is going to get less impactful on an annual
basis in terms of impacting your wealth. So the question
is like, do I need to keep working? Should I
take a step back and I do something I enjoy
(21:25):
more that pays less A treadmill? Yeah, I think it's
I think it's one of those things where you have
to think about, like what do I do at this point?
And that's like the big decision idea in level four
is like do I take a step back? Do I
need to change my my path completely? If I want
to get to level five. I'm not saying you need
to get to level five. I don't think that's necessary whatsoever.
But for some people that want that, okay, maybe you
(21:47):
need to take a different route.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
To get there.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
So, as Eric mentioned, he's he's level six, I'm level five.
What's he doing that I'm not doing?
Speaker 6 (21:58):
He probably just either he had a business that he
worked on for longer than you, or he sold his
first business and then learned all those bad lessons from
selling that one, and then, you know, start a second business.
That's typically what happens. It's not their first business, their
second business.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
They got to be something else. Because I don't I
don't think that's him or ETFs.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
Does he have a lot? Is he an ETF is shuer?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Maybe No, I think that would be a conflict of interest.
I'll have to talk to him offline about that. He's
become suspiciously quiet.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, I know, I don't have an answer for this.
I don't want to reveal my secrets for unlike private
equity companies, I'm not looking to democratize this great thing
I have. Okay, all right, but by the way, this
idea of like, okay, people try to get a good job,
(22:53):
they try to get a good salary. Then like then
they invest, and then they tend to the investing really
powers half their funds.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Later on, there's this I think the bill.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Passed, right, so there's a in twenty twenty six, they're
going to have a opportunity where kids will get one
thousand dollars put into an account. This is a Trump account,
and I think it's gonna the.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
What the Trump account?
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what they're calling.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Is that what is called the child?
Speaker 6 (23:23):
I mean, yeah, they're putting a thousand dollars per child born.
I think in twenty two. I don't know if it's
this year or in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, next year, it's just twenty twenty six, and then
parents can obviously do it's like a four to one
k for your kid in a way, and they can
put money into it. This was an idea put forth
by Tyrone Ross, who you know.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
He thought this was the solution.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
To killing the wealth gap in America. He had one
other stipulation which I liked, which is that you can't
get the money out as the kid until you're eighteen,
and you have to pass a financial literacy test. Because
so many people don't know what the hell's going on
with investing. The only thing they might have gotten is
like a stock picking competition in like middle school.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
This seems like a good idea. Is there any downside?
Do you think this will help with the ladder climbing?
Speaker 6 (24:15):
I guess the question. I mean, I think it's it's
better than not doing it, right. I think a lot
of a lot of the issues we see. As long
as the account can't be raided, you can't take money
out of it like you have to. It's almost like
a it's like a private equity lock in, right, that's
actually the it's a pheasic canvas.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Right.
Speaker 6 (24:30):
If you can't take the money out, that's eighteen years
of compounding. Right, even even if we go very conservative
and say four percent per year inflation adjusted, that's like
still very good, right, Like it will build wealth. Now,
the question is, as soon as these people turn eighteen,
what do they do with the money. And even if
you pass a test, you can study for a test.
That doesn't mean, like, just because I know the right
answer doesn't mean I'm gonna do the right thing right.
(24:50):
So there is the possibility of someone, you know, they
finally get there, they have you know, how much is
in this account. Let's say it's I don't know, fifty
grand maybe I don't know, and they could it all
right away. I mean, so it's a question of you know,
people at eighteen are not necessarily the best decision makers.
I think we all know that I wasn't the best
decision maker when I was eighteen.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
But isn't isn't part of the idea that a lot
of parents would be able to use this money for
college versus having to borrow it, which can be brutal
later on.
Speaker 6 (25:18):
I mean, that's another option as well. But I guess
is it the question now? Is is it the child's
money or the parents money to use for college?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Like?
Speaker 6 (25:25):
How how is this? Who's the account under? And when
does the custody transfer or whatever? Like all these types
of questions matter in terms of how it actually plays out.
So I think it's a good idea. I actually liked
the idea of a sovereign wealth fund at the same time,
like it's better than nothing.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
I think just getting people.
Speaker 6 (25:40):
In levels one, two, and three to own more income
producing assets is a good thing period, Like full stop.
I think that will help with the wealth inequality. It's
not going to solve it completely, because there's just existing
inequality that's just being exacerbated over time. And if people
aren't you know, don't have enough income to buy and
come producing assets, then that's not going to help either. Right,
A lot of people can't afford or to even put
(26:00):
money into an ETF.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Unfortunately, Nick, I'm curious, what do you know now having
done the book that you didn't know before you did
the book?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
What'd you learn?
Speaker 5 (26:11):
There's a few things.
Speaker 6 (26:12):
I think The stuff I talk about on level four
with like the difference between getting out of that level
versus getting into that level was even more striking than
I thought it would be. And I use this. I
used some math to show this, Like once again, a
million dollar portfolio, you're saving one hundred k a year.
Let's say you're it's growing by five percent a year
after inflation, how long does it take to get to
(26:33):
ten million? The answer is twenty eight years. So like,
even like you're saving one hundred k year, that's a
lot of money. You're doing well, you're grinding, it still
takes you thirty years. And that's after you already hit
a million, right, which could take someone a few decades
to get there, right, So you think about that and
you're like, wow, like doing all these things, the nine
to five going through that, like it is a rough
grind to get to ten million from here, and so
(26:53):
a lot of people rationally so will say, you know what,
I'm not gonna do that. I don't care about doing
that and take their foot off the break our foot
off the game, so to speak. And that was one
of the big things I learned. And then also just
seeing how much business interest is at the higher end
of the wealth flatter. I knew that was true, but
when I saw it in the data, it's like overwhelmingly,
you know, the higher you go up the wealth flatter,
the more people just have their own businesses, right. And
(27:15):
it's just, of course there's some survivorship bias there. I
understand all that, but if you just look at people
in level six, all of them, it's like the vast
majority of their wealth is in their businesses one way
or another.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Last question for you, you're a little fine print at
the beginning to my father for teaching me the game
don't move until you see it?
Speaker 6 (27:34):
What's that about Bobby Fisher that it's an old movie.
He taught me chess when I was, like, you know,
very young thing. I was four or five when he
started teaching me, and I started playing as friends, and
it really made me realize that, you know, like chess
as an analogy for like life is actually probably more
true than almost any game out there, because you're looking
at the board. For any thee that's played chess, you
(27:55):
look at the board a certain point in time and oh,
I want to make this move. Oh I can't make
this move because they could do that a few moves later.
The board's changed. Now that move that didn't make sense
can now make sense. And I think the same thing
was true when I was writing The Well Ladder. Oh
I could do this now, but maybe that's not the
right move. Like starting a business when you're twenty two,
some people have succeeded it, most would fail. I think
most of the successful business owners are actually in their
(28:17):
forties because they've actually had industry experience, they have more connections,
and they have money to start the business. So the
move doesn't make sense at twenty two makes a lot
more sense at forty two, right, And so I think
thinking through that is when you realize, like wow, life
is more like a chess game than and first glance.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Nick Majulia, thanks for joining us on Trillions.
Speaker 5 (28:35):
Thanks Pridman, guys appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Thanks for listening to Trillions until next time. You can
find us on the Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever else you'd like to listen.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Hit us up on social I'm at Joe Weber Show,
He's at Eric Faultiness.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Trillions is produced by Magnus Hendrix's Brendan Newman is our
executive producer. Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast
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