We need a federal government commission to study the way our financial services system is working - I believe it is working badly - and we also need more educated investors. There are good long term low-priced mutual funds - my favorite is a total stock market index fund - and bad short term highly priced mutual funds. If investors would get themselves educated, and invest in the former - taking their money out of the latter - we would see some automatic improvements in the system, and see them fairly quickly.

If your fund doesn't last for the long term, how can you invest for the long term?

Hint: money flows into most funds after good performance, and goes out when bad performance follows.

Fund investors are confident that they can easily select superior fund managers. They are wrong.

If the data do not prove that indexing wins, well, the data are wrong.

Successful investing is about owning businesses and reaping the huge rewards provided by the dividends and earnings growth of our nation's - and, for that matter, the world's - corporations.

You know the rule of 72, divide the number into 72, any number you want, and that's how long it will take your money to double.