Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Evidence That Investment Education Works

After Google's IPO seven years ago, hundreds of shareholding Google employees became millionaires. Brokers, advisory firms and trust bankers circled about. Google took protective action, launching what amounted to a university of investing,. Lecturers included Nobel Prize winner Bill Sharpe, Burton Malkiel and John Bogle.

Did Google's initiative help newly rich employees hold on to their wealth? Yes, in at least one case. At president Obama's Mountain View town hall meeting, it was Doug Edwards, Google's 59th employee, who asked, "Would you please raise my taxes?"

2 comments:

Jim Gust said...

So, I take it that what you are saying is Doug Edwards has invested most of his money in tax-free munis, the value of his portfolio is way down, and his Google-provided investment education tells him that an increase in tax rates will boost the value of his tax free bonds? While having zero effect on the taxability of the interest payments from those bonds?

Because other than that, I don't see how that question shows investment education works.

JLM said...

No, I was merely noticing that, unlike most of us, Doug remained rich enough to feel he could pay higher taxes without feeling the cost.

A less educated multimillionaire might have ceased to be one.