If you want good behavior, don't pay on a commission basis. Our judges aren't paid so much a case. We keep them pretty well isolated with a fixed salary. Judges in this whole thing have come out pretty well - there have been relatively few scandals.

The hedge fund known as "Long Term Capital Management" collapsed last fall through overconfidence in its highly leveraged methods, despite I.Q.'s of its principals that must have averaged 160. Smart people aren't exempt from professional disasters from overconfidence. Often, they just run aground in the more difficult voyages they choose, relying on their self-appraisals that they have superior talents and methods.

Bull markets go to people's heads. If you're a duck on a pond, and it's rising due to a downpour, you start going up in the world. But you think it's you, not the pond.

To say accounting for derivatives is Americais a sewer is an insult to sewage.

It's stupid the way people extrapolate the past -- and not slightly stupid, but massively stupid.

The quality of the medical care delivered, including the pharmaceutical industry, has improved a lot. I don't think it's crazy for a rich country like the USto spend 15% of GDP on healthcare, and if it rose to 16-17%, it's not a big worry.

I think gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but civilized people don't buy gold, they invest in productive businesses.