I think you'll have plenty of scrutiny as how the money's invested. I mean, just like the RFC. When the RFC operated, people knew which institutions they were buying preferred stock in. And it worked very well.
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'm sitting with six and a half billion dollars we're going to use to close the Mars-Wrigley deal on October 6. I've got to hand over that six and a half billion on October 6. Now, I have to be very careful about who I leave it in between now and then, because they're expecting that he show up.
The real fortunes in this country have been made by people who have been right about the business they invested in, and not right about the timing of the stock market.
We have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist.
If you've got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you've got a very good business. And if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by a tenth of a cent, then you've got a terrible business. I've been in both, and I know the difference.
The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.
Generally speaking, investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. Anything that improves your own talents; nobody can tax it or take it away from you. They can run up huge deficits and the dollar can become worth far less. You can have all kinds of things happen. But if you’ve got talent yourself, and you’ve maximized your talent, you’ve got a tremendous asset that can return ten-fold.
Confidence in markets and in institutions, it's a lot like oxygen. When you have it, you don't even think about it. It's indispensable. You can go years without thinking about it. When it's gone for five minutes, it's the only thing to think about.