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.

The larger the deductible you choose, the less insurance you are buying. Insurers want to sell insurance.

I was a writer for 'New York' magazine. I had been to business school, but what did I know? Still, everybody from the receptionists on up to the editor would ask me what they should do with their money.

Life insurance is a commodity.

Man's natural life span, 75 to 90 years or so, has not increased. It is the number of us who manage to attain it that has increased.

There are only two things as complicated as insurance accounting and I have no idea what they are.

The life insurance industry is filled with good people who believe in their work and their companies, but who may never have challenged the assumptions underlying their efforts.