he most important adage regarding leverage reminds us to “never forget the six-foot-tall person who drowned crossing the stream that was five feet deep on average.
“The pendulum of investment psychology is constantly fluctuating between optimism and pessimism, between greed and fear, between credulousness and skepticism, between risk tolerance and risk aversion.” -Marks
Balance might be overrated. If your life is perfectly balanced—everything going smoothly—is it as dynamic as it could be? When life is out of balance, usually something is changing, and that’s not always a bad thing. It gives you a new perspective. New projects always send things out of balance. I embrace disruptions to circumstances I’ve grown... See more
14 more ideas from Buffett and Munger I don’t want to forget:
1. The one thing that has surprised me all my life is how many people with high IQs do massively stupid things.
2. Berkshire was a small business at one time. It just takes time. It is the nature of compound interest. You can't... See more
the amount of borrowed money – leverage – that it’s prudent to use is purely a function of the riskiness and volatility of the assets it’s used to purchase. The more stable the assets, the more leverage it’s safe to use. Riskier assets, less leverage. It’s that simple.
One of the main reasons for the problem today at financial institutions is that... See more