The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

I've never been very fully employed either but just think of what it's like, you know, to go home with a mortgage payment you know and kids and everything else. My dad had that happen to him in the early '30s.

If you’re in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.

We try to exert a Ted Williams kind of discipline. In his book The Science of Hitting, Ted explains that he carved the strike zone into 77 cells, each the size of a baseball. Swinging only at balls in his "best" cell, he knew, would allow him to bat .400; reaching for balls in his "worst" spot, the low outside corner of the strike zone, would reduce him to .230. In other words, waiting for the fat pitch would mean a trip to the Hall of Fame; swinging indiscriminately would mean a ticket to the minors.

In fact, in my adult lifetime, I don't think I've ever seen people as fearful economically as they are right now.

Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.