The fund scandals shined the spotlight on the fact that mutual fund managers were putting their interests ahead of the fund shareholders who trusted them, which had much more substantial consequences in the form of excessive fees and the promotion - as the market moved into the stratosphere - of technology funds and new economy funds which were soon to collapse.

Corporate leaders surely have their problems, I believe that most CEOs are doing their best to hew to the ethical line. The problem is that that line has gotten blurred and that our moral standard seems to be "if everybody else is doing it, it's okay". That's not good enough for me.

I was born in an earlier generation and, as a group, my classmates at Blair Academy and Princeton University were as ethical, straightforward, and integrity laden as you could possibly imagine - perhaps not a 100% - but the overwhelming majority. I've been in business a long, long time and I simply cannot imagine seeking out cheating, greedy people.

Our capitalistic scheme in the latter years of the 20th century seems to have lost its way. We've had a "pathalogical change" from traditional owners capitalism where most of the rewards have gone to those who make the investments and assume the risks to a new and deeply flawed system of managers capitalism where the managers of our corporations our investment system, and our mutual funds are simply take too large a share of the returns generated by our corporations and mutual funds leaving the last line investors - pension beneficiaries and mutual fund owners at the bottom of the food chain.

The miracle of compounding returns has been overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs.

Investing is not nearly as difficult as it looks. Successful investing involves doing a few things right and avoiding serious mistakes.

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.