I think that they hoped the private sector would come in. And the private sector tried to come in until they saw the size of the problem. I mean, from were people on that weekend that thought they'd had a solution. And then the hole kept getting bigger and bigger. And all of a sudden became apparent that 20 billion wouldn't do it and 30 billion wouldn't do it and 40 billion wouldn't do it. So it got beyond anybody's ability to certainly to do it in a short period of time.
It's quite clear that stocks are cheaper than bonds. I can't imagine anybody having bonds in their portfolio when they can own equities, a diversified group of equities. But people do because they, the lack of confidence. But that's what makes for the attractive prices. If they had their confidence back, they wouldn't be selling at these prices. And believe me, it will come back over time.
The best way in my view is to just buy a low-cost index fund and keep buying it regularly over time, because you'll be buying into a wonderful industry, which in effect is all of American industry... People ought to sit back and relax and keep accumulating over time.
The (stock) market is there only as a reference point to see if anybody is offering to do anything foolish. When we invest in stocks, we invest in businesses.
An investor will succeed by coupling good business judgment with an ability to insulate his thoughts and behavior from the super-contagious emotions that swirl about the marketplace.
Confidence is key. You're not going to put your money - you're not going to leave your money with me unless you're confident I'm going to give it back to you.
I make plenty of mistakes and I'll make plenty more mistakes, too. That's part of the game. You've just got to make sure that the right things overcome the wrong ones.
Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked.