Such plans, which typically allow an employee to invest automatically in a range of mutual funds, are the path to first-time equity investments for as many as a quarter of all investors, according to the Ariel-Schwab poll.

Mr. Mandel's notion that inhabitants of the high-risk society should automatically invest in stocks is to Mr. Grant's way of thinking too popular not to be dangerous.

Countries like Japan that save more than they invest automatically run surpluses.

Hint of Change The first hint of change came in 1983, when Merrill Lynch successfully defended a patent covering its Cash Management Account, a computerized trading account that automatically invests earnings from stocks and bonds in interest- bearing accounts and lets customers borrow against their portfolios.

The superior knowledge of the teacher does not automatically invest her with the right to place students in an intellectual straitjacket, nor does volunteering to be a nurse mean that one has automatically signed away one's rights as a human being.

The disservice arises when these investors take the criticisms of DCA to mean that timing the market is better than continuously and automatically investing a portion of their income as they earn it.

And almost always the questions were addressed to Pritcher as though, as the elder, they automatically invested him with the greater authority.