Why is it possible to rescue S&L buccaneers in the early '90s and provide guidance to levered Wall Street investment bankers during the 1998 long-term capital management crisis, yet throw 2 million homeowners to the wolves in 2007?

Ex-Fidelity mutual fund manager Peter Lynch was certainly brilliant in one respect: he knew to get out when the gettin was good.

When you're underperforming the index, you go home at night and cry in your beer. It's not fun, but who said this business should be fun. We're too well paid to hang our heads and say boo hoo.

Both from the standpoint of stocks and bonds, an investor wants to go where the growth is.

If companies don't know that they can run out of money, they won't be thinking of ways not to run out of money.

Be cautious and content with low positive returns in 2015. The time for risk taking has passed.

When does money run out of time? The countdown begins when investable assets pose too much risk for too little return; when lenders desert credit markets for other alternatives such as cash or real assets.