I mean, you can explain the fact that these are depressed prices, you know. We think these assets are going to be worth a lot more. And I think that case can be made in certain situations. But I think to just say, you know, we're going to say a dollar of cash is worth $2 all of a sudden, it isn't worth $2. It's worth a dollar today.

Read Ben Graham and Phil Fisher read annual reports, but don't do equations with Greek letters in them.

The range of derivatives contracts is limited only by the imagination of man (or sometimes, so it seems, madmen). Say you want to write a contract speculating on the number of twins to be born in Nebraska in 2020. No problem-at a price, you will easily find an obliging counterparty.

In earlier years, a lesser effort produced literally dozens of comparable opportunities. It is difficult to be objective about the causes for such diminution of one's own productivity. Three factors that seem apparent are: (1) a somewhat changed market environment; (2) our increased size; and (3) substantially more competition.

Banking is very good business if you don't do anything dumb.

The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it's going up.

You have hedge funds and people like that buying these assets to yield 15 or 20 percent, I mean, that's the buyer for these people that are trying to unload them.