The capital gains tax is 15 percent now. So I sit there in my office and I make a lot of money by capital gains, and I pay 15 percent, and I pay no payroll tax on it.
What could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest - whether it be chess, bridge, or stock selection - than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy?
An investor should ordinarily hold a small piece of an outstanding business with the same tenacity that an owner would exhibit if he owned all of that business.
Having a large amount of leverage is like driving a car with a dagger on the steering wheel pointed at your heart. If you do that, you will be a better driver. There will be fewer accidents but when they happen, they will be fatal.
Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can, however, determine who pays for lunch. And last week the Senate handed the bill to the wrong party... the poor and middle class.
Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.
Asset values and earning power are the dominant factors affecting the valuation of a controlling interest in a business. Market price, which governs valuation of minority interest positions, is of little or no importance in valuing a controlling interest.
Cash, though, is to a business as oxygen is to an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind when it is absent... When bills come due, only cash is legal tender. Don't leave home without it.