(Laderman and Smith, 1993, 62-63).
The financial picture in the United States today is much more complex than it was in the past, and analysts have traced the change to the late 1970s when interest rates were skyrocketing, 30-year fixed mortgages all but disappeared, and people became more desperate to find a way to keep pace with the cost of living. Even after inflation faded in the early 1980s, the new behaviors remained and may even have become more pronounced, especially after the bull market started in August 1982 when more people started to feel they had to become investors rather than savers. The mutual fund is the financial product that most signifies this shift in thinking. What was once an obscure investment instrument has become the financial vehicle of choice for middle-class Americans, and over 40 million people placed $2.1 trillion in mutual funds by the end of 1993, with half that coming in just the previous three years (No
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