Ignoramus11807 writes:

Richard, I believe that S&P can be replicated and they replace
companies with an advance warning.

Define "replicated". The index does not count the transaction costs of
its occasional changes, making it impossible to replicate. Index funds
impose compounded burdens like management fees that are not counted in
the index. Even if you could replicate, you cannot correct the
retrospective-winner-picking fallacy embodied by the index, that the
index bears no information for the future. It is a trick that any long-
run return has any predictive significance.

Yep, in the long run we are all dead. Period from 1966 to 2009 can
cover someone's entire career period.

Yes, and it almost covers mine (counting the legacy of my thrifty
investing parents), but again, to choose any period is to make a
retrospective selection that does not predict the future.

Compounding this fallacy of winner-picking in index components, is the
winner-picking of *which index* to pick, which is why there are so many
indexes.

Here is the essence of the current crisis: the financial industry must
segregate its affairs into enterprises that concentrate on
boring/safe/trustworthy/modestly-profitable work (banks) versus
risky/speculative/highly-profitable (stocks and bonds). Banks are
supposed to be the reservoir of non-risk. When they breach that
barrier, the course to systematic collapse is inevitable. With that
principle in mind, it is easy to see the events which have led to this
crisis.