There is the sheer amount of Franklin's wisdom. And the talent. Franklin played four instruments. He was the nation's leading scientist and inventor, plus a leading author, statesman, and philanthropist. There has never been anyone like him.

Of course the self-serving bias is something you want to get out of yourself. Thinking that what's good for you is good for the wider civilization and rationalizing all these ridiculous conclusions based on this subconscious tendency to serve one's self is a terribly inaccurate way to think.

Creative accounting is an absolute curse to a civilization. One could argue that double-entry bookkeeping was one of history's great advances. Using accounting for fraud and folly is a disgrace. In a democracy, it often takes a scandal to trigger reform. Enron was the most obvious example of a business culture gone wrong in a long, long time.

Well, the questioner came from Singapore, which has perhaps the best economic record in the history of developing an economy. And therefore he referred to 15 percent per annum as modest. It's not modest, it's arrogant.

The basic concept of value to a private owner and being motivated when you're buying and selling securities by reference to intrinsic value instead of price momentum - I don't think that will ever be outdated.

I think there's an awful lot of twaddle and bullshit on EVA. The whole game is to turn retained earnings into more earnings. EVA has ideas about cost of capital that make no sense. Of course, if a company generates high returns on capital and can maintain this over time, it will do well. But the mental system as a whole does not work.

Avoid working directly under somebody you don't admire and don't want to be like.