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

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.

I'd be the first to agree that capitalism bestows its blessings unevenly. But that wouldn't persuade me to think it was a good idea to do away with those blessings in their entirety. That said, there is lots of work to be done to make capitalism work better, and to broaden its blessings far more widely not only in America, but all over the globe.

We live in a very risky world and investors should not get "carried away" with excessive allocations to equities, or for that matter, real estate. As always asset allocation and low cost and broad diversification will be essential in earning one's fair share of whatever returns our financial markets are generous enough to bestow upon us.

The courage to press on regardless - regardless of whether we face calm seas or rough seas, and especially when the market storms howl around us - is the quintessential attribute of the successful investor.

Capitalism is not a Ponzi scheme. Capitalism is a scheme of free markets.

Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy.