Recently, my family and I quietly celebrated my 75^th birthday. We didn’t make a big to-do over it. That’s not my style. (Except for the party we had on my 70th. Oh, what a night.)

Will I retire soon? I hope not.

Maybe I’m trying to catch up with St. Louisan  Oliver “Ollie” Langenberg, an A.G. Edwards (Wells Fargo) broker, local philanthropist and all-around good guy who passed away in 2012. He was just shy of his 100^th birthday and, as Wells Fargo’s oldest active advisor, he was happily plying his trade right up until quitting time.

That said, friends and clients of Hill Investment Group may wonder why I’m still here. The simple answer is, I love the people and the work. I have always enjoyed reading books and articles about investments – at least the kind that enhance my understanding of our evidence-based strategies. I find it rewarding when I can apply my interests and experience to advise clients on how to pursue their own personal and financial goals. I also find it invigorating to spend time with my younger co-workers, serving as an in-house mentor.

Besides all of this, I am grateful for what I no longer have to do. These days, I’m retired from much of the planning and operations that no longer demand my unique abilities; I’ve happily turned these over to others who relish these important, ongoing roles. Instead, as chairman of our Investment Policy Committee, I am free to focus more deeply on new evidence-based investment strategies and solutions we may want to employ, exploring whether they might improve on our clients’ investment experience.

Why am I still here? Because I am still in a great place!

Diversification isn’t just for investing. Discovering interesting perspectives from diverse sources strikes us a wise strategy as well.

John Jennings’ “Interesting Facts of the Day” or IFOD blog is one such source several of us at Hill Investment Group have been enjoying; we think you might too. We’re familiar with John’s firm, the St. Louis Trust Company, because it’s just a few floors up from our St. Louis offices.

John was originally inspired to launch IFOD based on the far-reaching facts he was hunting down to engage his young children (now teenagers). He discovered we grownups enjoyed IFODs as well, such as his recent post on the late Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis. Minsky (who also has St. Louis connections as a long-time professor of economics at Washington University) proposed that financial stability has a way of sowing the seeds of its own, destabilizing destruction. His theory may go a long way toward explaining why markets can so rapidly swing from boom to bust … which circles us back to our ongoing advice on maintaining a globally diversified portfolio in markets fair and foul.

Interesting stuff. We encourage you to subscribe to IFOD if you’d like to consider just about every subject under the sun (including this one on the sun itself).

If you’ve got about 50 minutes to listen to a half-dozen big-name perspectives covering nearly 50 years of efficient market theory, I recommend Freakonomics’ podcast, “The Stupidest Thing You Can Do With Your Money.” It’s a wide-ranging overview of the active-passive debate that won’t disappoint.

Here are some of my own takeaways from listening in.

John Bogle – Reminisces on when he founded Vanguard in 1975 and launched the world’s first publicly available index fund. The costs make all the difference. With active fund costs ranging upward to 200 basis points (after expense fees and trading costs), versus index funds’ typical 4–10 basis points, the expense hurdle is too tough to overcome. It took a long time for people to get the idea, but now there is a passive revolution.

Ken French – Points out that it took 50 years for passive investing to grow from zero to 20% market share. Then, it jumped from 20% to 30% in the last decade. “Only the top 2-3% of active funds have enough skill to cover their costs,” says Ken. “If you don’t think you are one of the best people out there doing this, you probably shouldn’t even start.”

Eugene Fama – Developed the Efficient Market Hypothesis in the late 1960s (i.e., prices reflect all available information), which led to his being a co-recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The gap between his early academic inquiries and wide, practical application of the findings is telling. (My take: Remember, one important quality in evidence-based investing is ensuring the theories have withstood the test of time!)

Barry Ritholtz – Reflecting on the title of the podcast, Ritholtz commented: “Sophisticated investors refuse to admit they can’t beat the market. … Costs are a tax on smart people that don’t realize their propensity for doing stupid things.”

I’ve barely skimmed the surface of the many insights, large and small, shared in this fast-paced podcast. Want to know where Mr. and Mrs. Bogle buy their favorite sweaters? Tune in to find out!