The industry cannot long offer unneeded or overpriced insurance if people will not buy it.

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.

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

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.

The industry cannot long offer unneeded or overpriced insurance if people will not buy it.

Having no national system of catastrophic health insurance, we have, through the courts, managed to patch together pieces of a not very satisfactory one.

There's no question young drivers have far more accidents than older ones - but is it our aim to keep them off the roads? Or to allow only rich young people (who can afford the premiums) to drive?