Think how weird profit margins are: We've got high unemployment and financial crises - and world record profit margins. People think the American market is very cheap. We don't. The market quite incorrectly gives full credit to today's earnings.

We live on a finite planet. We have finite resources, and we're running out of good, arable land.

It is better to be lucky than good, but of course appropriate to aspire to both.

You don't get rewarded for taking risk; you get rewarded for buying cheap assets. And if the assets you bought got pushed up in price simply because they were risky, then you are not going to be rewarded for taking a risk; you are going to be punished for it.

...how little our side of the industry did to move its business to the more ethical firms and to make a fuss about conflicted or unethical behavior. Had a number of us moved our business, we might have slowed or even stopped the 30-year slide in conflicted, unethical behavior that we have experienced. I, for one, regret the modest nature of our moves. We all could have done more. We have tolerated a pretty nasty decline in standards. Shame on us.

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.

I hate gold. It does not pay a dividend, it has no value, and you can't work out what it should or shouldn't be worth," he said. "It is the last refuge of the desperate.