We have never had the will to enforce the immigration laws. What you see is what you'll continue to get.

We're guessing at our future opportunity cost. Warrenis guessing that he'll have the opportunity to put capital out at high rates of return, so he's not willing to put it out at less than 10% now. But if we knew interest rates would stay at 1%, we'd change. Our hurdles reflect our estimate of future opportunity costs.

I do not think you can trust bankers to control themselves. They are like heroin addicts.

Organized common (or uncommon) sense -- very basic knowledge -- is an enormously powerful tool. There are huge dangers with computers. People calculate too much and think too little.

In the 1930s, there was a stretch where you could borrow more against the real estate than you could sell it for. I think that's what's going on in today's private-equity world.

A few public hangings will really change behavior. One of our Presidents said if he could execute three people each year for no cause, it would make it a lot easier to govern. When someone said that's not enough, he said, "Oh yes it is, because I'd publish the list of people under consideration."

I would argue that a majority of the horrors we face would not have happened if the accounting profession developed and enforced better accounting.