My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.

You can't help some increase from this point. I don't want any viewer to go away think a magic wand exists in Congress. So they're going to see some more bad news. But if we do this, we're doing the right thing.

We rarely use much debt and, when we do, we attempt to structure it on a long-term fixed rate basis. We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet. This conservatism has penalized our results but it is the only behavior that leaves us comfortable, considering our fiduciary obligations to policyholders, depositors, lenders and the many equity holders who have committed unusually large portions of their net worth to our care.

Our policy is to concentrate holdings. We try to avoid buying a little of this or that when we are only lukewarm about the business or its price. When we are convinced as to attractiveness, we believe in buying worthwhile amounts.

The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs.

Over the years, a number of very smart people have learned the hard way that a long string of impressive numbers multiplied by a single zero always equals zero.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is.