[skippyboxedhero]

Neither of those events were anything either.

Stock markets go to zero. Capitalism is disruptive and politically unpopular (the US pumps technology into the rest of the world and the US is still the exception, other countries know it works...they just don't care). Even in the US, which is the best case, you have had decades of underperformance. A 50% dip that fixes itself quickly is nothing, the US is the best case of the best case.

Btw, the original article also misses everything relevant about humans operate. During Covid, one of the FT economics columnists, a person who still makes a very healthy living from giving advice about human behaviour said that he sold his stocks, the volatility was too much, there were problems in his personal life, etc. Wiped out decades of gains in an afternoon (and was happy about it). Herding is going to, eventually, result in an almighty fallout. Risk-adjusted return from equities was already low...and this was before all barriers to entry were removed.

[DebtDeflation]

It's a fair point. And even short of "going to zero" the Nikkei didn't recover its 1989 high until last year. 35 years is a long time to get back to breakeven.

[skippyboxedhero]

And most world indexes that sell funds based on historical returns do not factor in those going to zero events (for example, Austro-Hungary had one of the biggest stock markets in the world...until it didn't).

And capital freedom is itself extremely contingent historically. The reason why, for example, returns in the 40/50s were high in the US was because you couldn't take your money out of the country and the government told everyone to buy govt securities to pay for the war.

And what if you need to retire during those 35 years...these studies always look at infinite time periods, the human life is not infinite.

Issues on issues. Your financial knowledge has to only limited to the US after 1981 to not understand any of these points...but lots of people are making a ton of money selling this stuff.