The Ambrose Bierce of business journalism

Matt Phillips of Quartz interviewed Wall Street Journal personal finance columnist Jason Zweig about his new book, “The Devil’s Financial Dictionary,” and personal finance advice.

Here is an excerpt:

How much of [the proliferation of financial jargon] is our fault as financial journalists? We’ve got to have a quote that explains why the market is up. Even though you and I both know the guys that we’re calling, they might be smart guys and gals, but they don’t know, really, any more than we know.

Well, a lot of it is the fault of the financial media. [But] to some extent we have to tell people what they’re looking to be told.  “The belief…is if you just own stocks long enough, the risk of owning them goes away. And it isn’t true.” You know, I think it’s a fundamental part of human nature to hate recognizing how random the universe really is, how important luck is in the course of human affairs and [how] difficult it is to predict what will happen before it happens.

Read more here.