I cannot invest the way I want the world to be; I have to invest the way the world is.

You can no longer buy commodities at Merrill Lynch. My guess is many analysts and even executives are too young to know how profitable a hot commodities market can be. They will soon.

I think this is also a great time to invest in private equity, helping companies grow from the ground up.

Historically, there has been a bull market in commodities every 20 or 30 years.

Acknowledge the complexity of the world and resist the impression that you easily understand it. People are too quick to accept conventional wisdom, because it sounds basically true and it tends to be reinforced by both their peers and opinion leaders, many of whome have never looked at whether the facts support the received wisdom. It's a basic fact of life that many things "everybody knows" turn out to be wrong.

Not one country in existence today has had the same borders and government for as long as two hundred years. The world will continue changing.

Tough times helped many commodities traders become lean and mean through consolidation, mergers and cost cutting. All that excess supply has been sopped up.