One key to successful group decisions is getting people to pay much less attention to what everyone else is saying.

The value of a currency is, ultimately, what someone will give you for it - whether in food, fuel, assets, or labor. And that's always and everywhere a subjective decision.

In terms of productivity - that is, how much a worker produces in an hour - there's little difference between the U.S., France, and Germany. But since more people work in America, and since they work so many more hours, Americans create more wealth.

Sometimes you have to destroy your business in order to save it.

Now, modern economies have a very effective mechanism for deciding if salaries are really too high: it's called the free market. That's how most people's salaries are set, after all, including those of major-league baseball players and European soccer players.

Most corporate name changes are the result of mergers and acquisitions. But these tend to be unimaginative.

The smartest groups, then, are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other.