As of 1992, in fact-though the picture would have improved since then-the money that had been made since the dawn of aviation by all of this country's airline companies was zero. Absolutely zero.

Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won't change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO's pay. The upshot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO - aided by his handpicked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo - all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement.

Anyone who believes a growth rate in excess of 15% per annum over the long term is attainable should pursue a career in sales, but avoid one in mathematics.

I know that Congress will do the right thing.

If you knew what was going to happen in the economy, you still wouldn't necessarily know what was going to happen in the stock market.

... but the important thing is that when you do find one where you really do know what you are doing, you must buy in quantity.... Charlie and I have made a dozen or so very big decisions relative to net worth, although not as big as they should have been. And in each of those, we've known that we were almost certain to be right going in.

Basically, the single-most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power.