There are a handful or business commentators who are worth dropping everything and listening to, and I would put Vanguard Group founder John Bogle at the top of my list.

So that means everyone should drop everything and go read this interview he did with Fortune.

Always logical, some of Bogle's best wisdom comes on the topic of the bad mortgages that banks and hedge funds found themselves loading up on. Talking about his own experience making fixed income investments at Vanguard, he said this.:

The fixed income area is a stupid place to take risk. So, when someone came in and said, we can earn an extra half percent on this bond, I would say, do you think it has any higher risk? If not, why are they offering us an extra half percent?

It's absolutely fascinating that all these ostensibly intelligent people loaded up on subprime debt thinking that they could earn a higher yield without adding risk.

Forget complex reforms and more training -- maybe the executives who got their firms into this mess should have the graph above tattooed to their foreheads.

Check out the Bogle interview for his insight on other topics -- including his guess at the odds of a recession.

Even though I would argue that the Vanguard Group is still the greatest financial services company in the world, it's amazing how far the firm has strayed from its founder Jack Bogle's original vision.

According to (subscription required) The Wall Street Journal, Vanguard is starting a new mutual fund that invests exclusively in mega-cap companies -- those with market caps from $3 billion to around $500 billion. According to The Journal, "Vanguard has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch the Mega Cap 300 Index, Mega Cap 300 Value Index and Mega Cap 300 Growth Index funds. The funds, which will be introduced in December, will track the market-capitalization-weighted MSCI US Large Cap 300 Index and its value and growth subsets."

Exchange-traded, institutional, and investor share classes will be available and, like most Vanguard funds, the expense ratios will be terrific.

I just don't get the point of these funds, and I certainly don't see why any investor would want to rush out and buy them. There aren't that many mega-cap stocks so diversification could be an issue and, all of the companies are already covered by traditional broad-based market index funds.

It seems that the more that traditional index funds are "improved," the more they shift away from the principles that guided Bogle when he invented the first index fund for individual investors in 1975.

Warren Buffett has acknowledged investing in Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and the Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE:PG) in the past few years. Among all the endorsements a company could possibly get, this is better than a 5-Star rating from Morning Star and a a boooyaah! from James Cramer combined. Of course, Mr. Buffett's choices are far more limited than yours or mine, given the size of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A), the vessel he is navigating that could have been included in this review as well.

I was looking once again at large, well diversified companies that are broadly held by institutions and individuals alike that most investors would generally agree are safe havens. To round out the discussion, I have added General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) and PepsiCo Inc (NYSE:PEP). There are several others that could be added to this group but I have enough for this post's purpose.

The question is whether investors are better off buying into a few broadly held index funds or better off holding a few dividend paying large cap stocks? I am a firm believer in keeping at least half of the money you save, invested in the stock market, placed in indexed mutual funds, or exchange traded funds with low fees and low stock turnover, minimizing short term capital gains.