Whether a tops-down or bottoms-up investor in bonds, stocks, or private equity, the standard analysis tends to judge an investor or his firm on the basis of how the bullish or bearish aspects of the cycle were managed.

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

Slow growth and inflation have a tendency to accompany large deficits and increasing debt as a percentage of GDP.

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.

In questioning initially whether I am a great investor, I open the door to question whether other similarly esteemed public icons like Bill Miller are as well. It seems, perhaps, that the longer and longer you keep at it in this business the more and more time you have to expose your Achilles heel - wherever and whatever that might be.

Companies typically borrow money at less than their return on equity and therefore compound their return at the expense of lenders.

Bond investors want growth much like equity investors, and to the extent that too much austerity leads to recession or stagnation then credit spreads widen out - even if a country can print its own currency and write its own cheques.