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Still, periodically I hear something so absurd that I can't keep still. Yesterday, on "Squawk Box," I heard something I can't keep still about. Putnam's Dr. Bob Goodman, an otherwise sensible, smart and nice man, blamed the media for a short-term focus that's causing gloom and making people do dumb things with their investments. Mark Haines politely disagreed, mentioning that there are many orientations out there and they must all be catered to, and the long-termers don't have to listen to it. Goodman didn't drop it -- again, saying that short-term orientation is blinding people to great performance.

That's simply not true. Let's perform a somewhat low-road exercise. Let's take Putnam's growth funds, ostensibly the salient funds that Goodman's firm markets. Specifically, let's take the Global Growth Vista New Opportunities, Growth Opportunities, New Century Growth, OTC Emerging Growth, Voyager II and Putnam Technology funds. That's enough of a list that no one can argue that I cherry-picked bad growth funds. That's about $47 billion in assets. Not chump change.

All of these funds, with the exception of New Century Growth (the smallest, at $800 million) are down more than 30% this year. That's right, 30%. OTC and Technology are down more than 40%. All of these funds had losing records last year. The best was Vista at minus 4%. But Global Growth was down 29%, New Opportunities down 25%, Growth Opportunities down 26%, New Century down 41%, OTC Emerging down 51%, and Voyager and Tech down 32% and 39%, respectively.

That, by the way, is abysmal, but that's not the point of this story. Now let's put the two years, 2000 and 2001 up to Wednesday, together: Global Growth's total loss: minus 51%; Vista's total loss: minus 38%; New Opportunities' total loss, minus 49%; Growth Opportunities' total loss: minus 51%; New Century Growth's total loss: minus 48%; OTC Emerging's total loss: minus 74%; Voyager's total loss: minus 54%; Technology's total loss: minus 66%. Yikes!

(Tech and New Century growth are new funds, with partial 2000 years that were both down badly.)

We all assume that the outsized rates we saw for funds in the mid-'90s probably aren't coming back. But let's say the average annual return for the S&P is 11%. It would take you 13 years just to break even with OTC Emerging Growth, the worst fund. The best, Vista, would take you 4.6 years. The rest would take you between 7 and 10 years. Just to break even! You better have a long-term view, or else!

If you were to break even in five years, you would need a 31% annual return for the OTC Emerging Growth. You would need a 24% return in five years for Tech. The rest would need between 10% and 17% annual returns. I don't know anybody looking for returns that high.

You see, poor performance is a mean taskmaster. If you fall behind, even for two years, it's almost impossible to make it up. That's why the short-term focus is not so wrong. I think "long-term thinking" has blinded investors in these funds.

Dr. Bob Goodman may want to blame the media for focusing on short-term results. After looking at these results I would argue that we haven't pushed hard enough.

Ironic and almost humorous, if it weren't real money -- $47 billion in real money.

Random musings: Own one of these funds? Call me at 1-800-862-8686 and we will figure out a plan for you. After 3 p.m. on RealMoney, the radio show.