What kind of bank gives back 65 percent-often less-of what you deposit? Indeed, when you compare the services of a bank and an insurance company, common sense suggests something is out of whack.

Not surprisingly, the insurance lobby recoils in horror at the prospect of automatic coverage (including, when it was first proposed, Social Security), no matter how efficient it may be. Automatic coverage eliminates sales commissions and profit.

The life insurance policies advertised on the radio with the line "You cannot be turned down for this coverage!" are actually saying, "For policies this small, it would cost us more to decide whom to turn down than simply to accept everybody - and make them pay through the nose."

The best thing I have are 5 percent bonds from 1780, denominated from $1 to $20. As far as I can tell, they are obligations from the United States of America, so I should be able to walk down to the Federal Reserve and redeem the uncanceled ones. With 217 years of accrued interest, for a $20 bond, that's about $800,000.

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.

There were no jobs created in America from 1945, when the war ended, through 2003. How could there be? Taxes were too high. Preposterously so under Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan (who left office with a 28 percent rate on long-term capital gains) and Bush the Elder.

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.