Imperceptibly, the developed world's manufacturing base was gradually eroding and being replaced by securitized finance that destroyed itself and nearly its economies in 2008.

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.

Imperceptibly, the developed world's manufacturing base was gradually eroding and being replaced by securitized finance that destroyed itself and nearly its economies in 2008.

Accountants, machinists, medical technicians, even software writers that write the software for "machines" are being displaced without upscaled replacement jobs. Retrain, rehire into higher paying and value-added jobs? That may be the political myth of the modern era. There aren't enough of those jobs.

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

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.

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.