American CEO View of ‘Enough’
I recently heard an interesting story on NPR about John Bogle. The former CEO of the Vanguard Group shares his feelings on the economy and life in his new book, Enough: The True Measure of Money, Business and Life. In this interview, he plugs his new book while sharing his thoughts about our society and economy.
While Bogle never shirks from sharing financial advice, Enough is philosophical and full of reflections. It's basically a book about character. Bogel offers his critique of American society and ask the question of when is enough, enough. He relates that question towards business, money, and life.
Recently Bogle saw what was going on in the financial system and was furious. He says that we pay Wall Street investors millions of dollars to invest our money. This has created a system that in his estimation puts an unreasonable amount of our resources into a segment of the society that doesn't produce anything.
He says that this is caused by an obsession with counting in our society. The problem with basing all of your decisions, status, and prestige on numbers, is that many of these numbers are doctored and misleading. Yet the truly important aspects of life can never really be counted.
I can look to my own experience to confirm his viewpoint. I've seen business do well, but mostly because of luck, only to be bitten in the end from their bad business practices. They failed to base and measure themselves founded on strong business principles. Instead, they just counted their money and lost it in the end.
Beyond business, Bogus feels there's something to be said for building your life on honesty and ethics. America should strive for high quality of life, rather than trying to make more money than anyone can spend.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that has been consumed by greed, and that greed has come back to plague us. It will continue to do so unless the majority of America starts to do what Bogel suggests in Enough. 'The only way to work our way through today's deep-seated problems is to return to values that stem from principle, virtue and character.
