Forbes.com web site has a very good interview with John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund company.

Bogle always has sensible advice.  I only wish I had the courage to follow it.  I make this post so that I can remember the link to the interview.  I may go back and read it a few times so that I can contemplate really following his advice for once.

Chris Barth, Forbes: One of the topics you cover in your latest book is “What’s Wrong With Mutual Funds.” That seems like a strange idea to push, given that you are the founder of one of the world’s largest mutual fund companies. So what is wrong with mutual funds?

John C. Bogle: Well, let me start off by saying that’s the reason that in the subtitle of the book, I have the word mutual in quotation marks, and a lot follows from that. Because mutual funds are not mutual. That is, just in general. Vanguard happens to be the only exception to that rule–we can talk about that a little later on, maybe. But in any event, they’re not mutual. Entrepreneurs or international conglomerateurs, or large financial institutions buy or create mutual fund management companies to create a return on their own capital. It’s capitalism at work, where the rewards tend to go to the managers rather than the investors.

And that’s why we have a big problem with fees, we have a big problem with mutual fund governance, we have a big problem with mutual funds participating in the governance of our industrial corporations and other kinds of corporations in the U.S. They don’t take the responsibility for ownership, because that doesn’t produce any returns for the owners of the management companies. Curiously enough, that idea of “mutual” funds was originally mentioned in a speech by Emmanuel Cohen, who was a wonderful chairman of the SEC, a long, long time ago. His speech on mutual funds that’s referenced in the book was maybe in 1960 or something like that. So he saw it then, and I see it now. And the reason I created Vanguard was to create a truly mutual mutual fund.

There are also valuable comments on the state of the economy, politics, and this country.

Here is one quote that is not related to his usual advice of investing in low cost index funds.

Only in America can we name a loose monetary program after a mothballed luxury liner, the Queen Elizabeth II. And only in America can we name a panel to investigate the causes of the stock market collapse and pass a law six months before they make their report. Some of the stuff that goes on out there is a little bit nutty, let’s face it. And my guess is that quantitative easing is the wrong move. My own personal conviction is that we should be doing more fiscal stimulus than monetary stimulus. And we see in the performance of the market after the announcement that QE2 was coming along, that interest rates did not go down, they went up very perversely. And that story is still to be fully written, but the initial impulses are not good.