I think you may be taking him a little too literally. He’s criticizing that position as much as he’s endorsing it. (The context is that he’s commenting on a sort of “financial services for The Youth Of Today” product, and he’s saying: “yeah, from one perspective this is silly because those people should just be investing in index funds; but that’s also the perspective that says they should never actually be spending anything, which is pretty unreasonable when you think about it; so why shouldn’t one thing they spend their money on instead of robotically trying to maximize it be financial services that they enjoy more?”
I don’t see what consumption habits have to do with picking investments.
He’s suggesting that investing with this company called Stash might best be viewed as a variety of consumption that happens to produce not-completely-crazy investment as a side effect, which makes it look less like a rather crappy sort of investment and more like a more than averagely productive sort of consumption.
(Is it reasonable to see it that way? I dunno; it sounds rather contrived to me. But that’s the argument he’s making.)
from one perspective this is silly because those people should just be investing in index funds; but that’s also the perspective that says they should never actually be spending anything
The guy just doesn’t look coherent. In particular, no, that is NOT “also the perspective”, these are two different unconnected things.
more like a more than averagely productive sort of consumption.
More word salad. What in the world is “averagely productive sort of consumption”?
I think classifying all this under “marketing nonsense” is much more productive.
My mental model of the author says: no, they are not unconnected things; the perspective you need to adopt to lead to the conclusion that it’s terribly wrong to invest in ways that don’t maximize (something like) your expected long-term wealth, even if you find doing so more satisfying and enjoyable than just dumping your money into index-funds, is a sort of straw-Vulcan one that cares only about long-term wealth maximization, and from that perspective all “consumption” just leaves you poorer in the long run and is therefore a bad thing.
What in the world is “averagely productive sort of consumption”?
I think the idea is something like this. If you buy a soft drink or go and see a movie, this provides you with some enjoyment but not much in the way of long-term benefits. Most consumption is like this: it gives you something you want, but in the long run you’d have been better off investing what it cost you. Stash’s services are intended to be enjoyable to use, so that using them feels more like consumption than it does like investment, while having some of the same long-term benefits that investing in an index fund would have.
(I repeat that I’m merely attempting to explicate his position and not endorsing it myself. In particular, I gravely doubt that Stash have made investing actually fun to anyone who wasn’t already investing as well as they could with Stash.)
I think you may be taking him a little too literally. He’s criticizing that position as much as he’s endorsing it. (The context is that he’s commenting on a sort of “financial services for The Youth Of Today” product, and he’s saying: “yeah, from one perspective this is silly because those people should just be investing in index funds; but that’s also the perspective that says they should never actually be spending anything, which is pretty unreasonable when you think about it; so why shouldn’t one thing they spend their money on instead of robotically trying to maximize it be financial services that they enjoy more?”
He’s suggesting that investing with this company called Stash might best be viewed as a variety of consumption that happens to produce not-completely-crazy investment as a side effect, which makes it look less like a rather crappy sort of investment and more like a more than averagely productive sort of consumption.
(Is it reasonable to see it that way? I dunno; it sounds rather contrived to me. But that’s the argument he’s making.)
The guy just doesn’t look coherent. In particular, no, that is NOT “also the perspective”, these are two different unconnected things.
More word salad. What in the world is “averagely productive sort of consumption”?
I think classifying all this under “marketing nonsense” is much more productive.
My mental model of the author says: no, they are not unconnected things; the perspective you need to adopt to lead to the conclusion that it’s terribly wrong to invest in ways that don’t maximize (something like) your expected long-term wealth, even if you find doing so more satisfying and enjoyable than just dumping your money into index-funds, is a sort of straw-Vulcan one that cares only about long-term wealth maximization, and from that perspective all “consumption” just leaves you poorer in the long run and is therefore a bad thing.
I think the idea is something like this. If you buy a soft drink or go and see a movie, this provides you with some enjoyment but not much in the way of long-term benefits. Most consumption is like this: it gives you something you want, but in the long run you’d have been better off investing what it cost you. Stash’s services are intended to be enjoyable to use, so that using them feels more like consumption than it does like investment, while having some of the same long-term benefits that investing in an index fund would have.
(I repeat that I’m merely attempting to explicate his position and not endorsing it myself. In particular, I gravely doubt that Stash have made investing actually fun to anyone who wasn’t already investing as well as they could with Stash.)
In spite of your heroic efforts :-) I continue to think that the author is incoherent and has fallen prey to marketing nonsense.