Never forget this simple truism: Forecasting is marketing, plain and simple.

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

Salesmen always need something to sell.

Rather than engage in the sort of selective retention that so many investors tend to do and pretend mistakes never happened, I prefer to own them. This allows me to learn from them and, with any luck, avoid making the same errors again.

I find it funny that people who didn't think there was any inflation in the pipeline are now talking about stagflation. This is nothing like the 1970's, which was a pretty dismal period and not just because of polyester and disco.

The market is going to love it. The market always seems to applaud major mergers, even though the vast majority of them don't work out and don't increase shareholder value.

The good news is that economists are intelligent, engaging and often charming folks. The bad news is their work is often of little use to investors.