Editor’s Note: For decades now, most things have been getting better for most people in most places in most ways…
But as Alexander Green notes in today’s article, many Americans don’t realize it.
The truth is, there has never been a better time to be an investor in the United States…
In fact, Alex recently uncovered that a particular type of stock outperforms large caps by 98%.
See what Alex has to say about the type of stock that most investors – and Wall Street – are overlooking.
Go here for all the time-sensitive details.
– Madeline St.Clair, Assistant Managing Editor
Millions of investors dream of earning fantastic investment returns like Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett or Peter Lynch, the legendary former manager of the Fidelity Magellan Fund.
Unfortunately, the majority of them lack a crucial ingredient: the right mindset.
Here’s what I mean…
Over the last several decades, pollsters have asked a basic question: “All things considered, do you think the world is getting better or worse, or neither getting better or worse?”
The majority of people – both here and abroad – answered that it is getting worse.
You might even agree. But you shouldn’t.
Two hundred years ago, 84% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. In 1981, according to the World Bank, it was still 42%. Today it is less than 10%.
Two hundred years ago, 90% of the world’s population was illiterate. Today that number is inverted: 90% can read.
In the last 30 years, an additional 2.6 billion people have secured access to clean water. Over 70% of the world’s citizens now have access to electricity.
Thirty years ago, zero percent of the world’s population had access to the internet. Today more than half do.
There has not been a war between the world’s great powers since 1945. War between states is rare.
(That’s partly why Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is so shocking.)
Over the last 30 years, civil wars have been far less frequent. Terrorist attacks – despite the headlines – are down as well.
There are many other signs of improvement…
- The number of people living under democracies is increasing.
- Life expectancy worldwide is rising.
- Standards of living have never been higher.
- Educational attainment has never been greater.
- Despite the sharp uptick during the pandemic, violent crime is in a long-term cycle of decline
- Air and water quality are improving.
- U.S. carbon emissions are declining. (There’s a reason they don’t call it national warming.)
- Studies show that religious intolerance, gender inequality, racism and homophobia are all down.
- Median U.S. household income and net worth are at all-time highs.
Yet most people don’t know these things.
In his book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, renowned public educator Hans Rosling explained how he posed hundreds of questions about poverty and wealth, energy and the environment, guns and violence, and global developments in health, education and gender equality to thousands of people in dozens of countries.
What he discovered was a story of massive ignorance, even – or especially – among well-informed, highly educated people, “including Nobel laureates.”
Rosling concludes…
Everyone seems to get the world devastatingly wrong. Not only devastatingly wrong, but systematically wrong… [The test results] are worse than the results I would get if the people answering my questions had no knowledge at all.
Yet the world’s most successful businesspeople and investors have a more accurate perspective.
They don’t get everything right. No one does.
But they have a more accurate view of the big picture. They recognize that human progress is occurring in virtually every area of society.
And they invest in it.
Buffett’s mentor Benjamin Graham famously said, “Without a saving faith in the future, no one would ever invest at all. To be an investor, you must be a believer in a better tomorrow.”
In a Barron’s cover story a few years ago, Lynch – the greatest equity fund manager of all time – said, “The thesis underlying everything… is that the U.S. will be OK. If you don’t believe that, you shouldn’t be in the stock market.”
And in a Berkshire annual report, Buffett wrote…
Many Americans now believe that their children will not live as well as they themselves do. That view is dead wrong: The babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history… America’s economic magic remains alive and well.
The best investors recognize that we have serious problems and setbacks.
That has always been the case – and it always will be.
But for decades now, most things have been getting better for most people in most places in most ways.
Yet the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t realize it. Why not?
The answer is “The Master Narrative.”
I’ll explain what that is, how it undermines most investors and how you can use it to your advantage in my next column.
Click here to watch Alex’s latest video update.