innumeracy so the other day i read a claim that was too amazing to be true. if your investment fund earns 7% with a 2% load that goes to your broker, in 50 years your broker will have taken 60% of your profits. cue the outrage! okay first. the "proof" is to put $100k into an interest calculator for 50 years at 5% and 7%. the 7% number is some 2.5x higher than the 5% number. which is yours. your broker gets the rest. qed. well, that is technically true enough. but... how many 20 years old drop $100k into a fund and don't touch it again until they're 70? want to think about it for a bit? or do you want to just accept my assertion the answer is zero? okay. the next hitch is, can you get 7% returns without your broker? can you get 5% on your own? probably not. if you can get 4% on your own and i offer you 5% after my load. it really doesn't matter that my load is 25%. you're better off paying me. issue the next, you're making 5% on your money. your broker is making 7% on his money plus 2% off your money. at some point, he's going to pass you. not sure why this would be surprising to anyone. much less a call to rage out. okay, so a much more realistic approach would be to put $15k into the above fund every year. not too hard to do in a spreadsheet. after 40 years you have 60% of the dough and your broker has 40%. which is still a whole lot. but it's not more than you. market forces will make the load match the difference between what the average investor can make on their own and what the professionals make. i will agree with the author's implied conclusion: there's a whole lot of people who shouldn't be investing in loaded funds. cause well (like dice), they're loaded.  ¶ 8:00 AM