This is Planet Money from NPR.

Can you just introduce yourself and say what you do?

Sure.

Josh Berrickman, I had the Bond Indexing Group for the Americas for Vanguard and we managed

roughly $900 billion at the moment.

Jacob, I called Josh because a few, a very few of those $900 billion that Josh Berrick

and manages are our dollars.

True, we both have dollars invested in those Vanguard Bond funds that Josh manages.

Quick refresher on what a bond is, companies and governments want to borrow money.

So they sell bonds.

And we buy those bonds.

We lend money to the companies and governments and then they promise to pay us back over time

with interest.

And then we retire, hopefully.

So Vanguard funds own literally thousands of bonds.

There's a bond from the government of Indonesia.

We're getting 7.7% interest on that one.

UK government bond, getting 1%.

Apple, the company, there's an Apple bond, we're getting 0.1% on that one.

Now look at 10-year German bonds.

The 10-year German bonds are paying negative 0.5%.

Which means we are giving the German government money now and they are promising.

...