Ridiculous as our market volatility might seem to an intelligent Martian, it is our reality and everyone loves to trot out the 'quote' attributed to Keynes (but never documented): 'The market can stay irrational longer than the investor can stay solvent.' For us agents, he might better have said 'The market can stay irrational longer than the client can stay patient.'

The language "it's too late" is very unsuitable for most environmental issues. It's too late for the dodo and for people who've starved to death already, but it's not too late to prevent an even bigger crisis. The sooner we act on the environment, the better.

Profit margins are probably the most mean-reverting series in finance, and if profit margins do not mean-revert, then something has gone badly wrong with capitalism. If high profits do not attract competition, there is something wrong with the system and it is not functioning properly.

The individual is far better-positioned to wait patiently for the right pitch while paying no regard to what others are doing, which is almost impossible for professionals.

The stock market is overpriced. Everything is overpriced. Junk is king.

Americans are just about the worst at dealing with long-term problems, down there with Uzbekistan, but they respond to a market signal better than almost anyone. They roll the dice bigger and quicker than most.

You can't run the economy on BMWs alone. If the average person is in a pickle, how do you have a healthy economy?