Politicians, dimly aware of the awesome power of compound growth, have in many jurisdictions passed laws against perpetuities to prevent the enormous concentrations of wealth that might arise from investments compounding without limit. On the other hand, some states and counties welcome perpetual trusts, being more interested in deriving revenue fr

In 2014, Forbes ranked him as the 134th richest American, at $3.8 billion. One of his hires was Jeff Bezos, who, while researching business opportunities in 1994 for Shaw, got the idea for an online bookstore and left to start a company called Amazon.com. At $30 billion in 2014, Bezos was the fifteenth richest American.

Institutions that are “too big to fail,” and have a significant risk of doing so, should be broken into pieces that are small enough to fail without jeopardizing the financial system. As Alan Greenspan finally admitted, “Too big to fail is too big.” This is a catchy sound bite but it misstates the real problem. It’s not the mere size of an institut

I also learned from my losing silver investment that when the interests of the salesmen and promoters differ from those of the client, the client had better look out for himself.

My thoughts then were much like I expected his to have been: that acknowledgment, applause, and honor are welcome and add zest to life but they are not ends to be pursued. I felt then, as I do now, that what matters is what you do and how you do it, the quality of the time you spend, and the people you share it with.

Education builds software for your brain. When you’re born, think of yourself as a computer with a basic operating system and not much else. Learning is like adding programs, big and small, to this computer, from drawing a face to riding a bicycle to reading to mastering calculus. You will use these programs to make your way in the world.

In the abstract, life is a mixture of chance and choice. Chance can be thought of as the cards you are dealt in life. Choice is how you play them.

Back in Newport Beach, the die was being cast. I passed Warren’s test when I told him if the dice are numbered as A = (3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3), B = (6, 5, 2, 2, 2, 2) and C = (4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 1) then calculations show that, on average, A beats B two-thirds of the time, B beats C five-ninths of the time, and C beats A two-thirds of the time. Other sets of

also believed then, as I do now after more than fifty years as a money manager, that the surest way to get rich is to play only those gambling games or make those investments where I have an edge.