Growth at an exceptional rate is a red flag in banking. It is hard enough to manage an ordinary bank; to control a sprouting weed is well-nigh impossible. If loans are expanding too quickly, the lending officers have probably been saying 'yes' too frequently.

The 1980s are to debt what the 1960s were to sex. The 1960s left a hangover. So will the 1980s.

In almost every walk of life, people buy more at lower prices; in the stock market they seem to buy more at higher prices.

To suppose that the value of a common stock is determined purely by a corporation's earnings discounted by the relevant interest rates and adjusted for the marginal tax rate is to forget that people have burned witches, gone to war on a whim, risen to the defense of Joseph Stalin and believed Orson Welles when he told them over the radio that the Martians had landed.

Successful investing is about having people agree with you ... later.

I believe that there is an important kernel of truth in the idea that financial errors recur every other generation.

Hope sustains life, but misplaced hope prolongs recessions.