Returnless risk is not how you prepare for a decent retirement.

For those of you who may be unaware, [Michael] Boskin is the economist/weasel/fraud who helped to officially distort the CPI, making it more or less worthless as a measure of inflation. The Boskin Commission... was an act of cowardice. Rather than man up and say fix this, its broken, we can't afford it.

You can blow on the dice all you want, but whether they come up seven is still a function of random luck.

Unlike cheap stocks, inexpensive asset classes have a lower chance of big drawdowns (broad asset classes don't go to zero) and a higher probability of average or better returns.

This ugly duckling investment will likely need time - quarters, or even years - to blossom into a beautiful swan.

It is important for investors to understand what they do and don't know. Learn to recognize that you cannot possibly know what is going to happen in the future, and any investment plan that is dependent on accurately forecasting where markets will be next year is doomed to failure.

One thing I detest most about the financial press is the lack of accountability. All sorts of nonsense is said without penalty.