That's my take also
rae's experience has been through the big growth years of deregulation and globalisation, and the bubbles associated with them. And recently he seems to have been actively-managing his investments rather than relying on fund managers - which is the way I'd do it. Bu that requires more effort and a bit more risk than suits me.
I guess the wheels came off long-term stability and the ability to rely on trends in 2000-2001; The world is a different place than it was in the 80s.
I can remember exactly the same arguments being used when everyone was being encouraged to buy endowment mortgages: the predictions then were based on decades of trends and it was promised that we'd all make massive profits as well as paying off the mortgage. Somehow, it wasn't quite like that. Though the 12k mis-selling compensation certainly helped make our endowment actually a reasonable long-term investment
