Life insurance in America has traditionally been dominated by mutual insurers. Twelve of the fifteen largest life insurers are mutuals.

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.

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.

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.

Nobody wants campaign finance reform more than me. It would save me a fortune.

Rule of thumb: The more trimmings an insurance plan has and the harder someone is pitching it, the faster you should run.