Still, most people don't have much money. So finding ways to come out a couple of thousand dollars ahead every year still matters.

But successful investors tend to be not too self-destructive. They tend to be patient, they tend not to follow the crowd, and they tend not to be too guilty about winning.

Hay fever suffers tend to be above average in intelligence.

The first American insurance company was the Friendly Society for the Mutual Insurance of Houses Against Fire, founded in Charles Town in South Carolina, in 1735.

You want 21 percent risk free? Pay off your credit cards.

One of the advantages of the book's having been out there for more than a quarter century is that there's been time for people to report back on what it's done for them.

The first life insurance societies where formed in England in the years between 1692 and 1720. In America, life insurance became available to the clergy through the Presbyterian Ministers Fund, founded in 1759 (still in existence), and the Episcopal Corporation, founded ten years later (subsequently merged).