I disagree somewhat with a part of what you posted: "literally nobody but people in finance, accounting, etc has the dirtiest clue how to most efficiently invest in anything."For you and me.... yes. We are smart enough to know what to do with big chunks of money ..... and it clouds our judgment.
I used to think like you did too.... went doesn't everyone understand how to do this.
Then I actually spent time with the general public.... and hopefully not even the "true" general public
... just people that had pro level jobs.
What I've come to find our that is literally nobody but people in finance, accounting, etc has the dirtiest clue how to most efficiently invest in anything.
We've basically thrown people to the wolves and say you should know how to do this. It's absurd.
It's not just that people have to figure out how to invest -- after you (think you have) figured it out, it takes a bizillion hours each week to manage investments properly at any level of value. People get fatigued and discouraged when they try to spend an hour each week reading spreadsheets etc. for each stock they own (as recommended by Jim Cramer) and a typical mutual fund probably buys into 20-30 major stocks, so do the math. Learning the "dirtiest clue", as you put it, is only part of the task -- implementation of the knowledge is the rest.
But I agree entirely with your observation, "We've basically thrown people to the wolves and say you should know how to do this." Average workers are intimidated by the very terms "stock market" and "mutual fund" and, instead of learning sound investment techniques, would rather spend time playing with their children/grandchildren (or bailing them out of jail). Although I think people with average reading ability (*** by reading standards of 1980 and earlier only; not by today's reading standards) can manage their investments well, many of them have zero interest in spending hours each week doing so. Whoever caused the abandonment of the oldfashioned pension system in favor of the current 401(k) system has indeed thrown them to the wolves.
The wolves you mentioned gave a good chance of feasting.