"Average" isn't so hot at the race track given those steep track takes. "Average" is pretty decent for stocks, something like 6 percent above the inflation rate. For a buy-and -hold investor, commissions and taxes are small.

For the 20-year period from December 31, 1993, to December 31, 2013, the S&P 500 returned 9.2% annually, but the average mutual fund investor averaged just over 2.5%, barely beating inflation.

One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt. Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough.

the average American is nearly $7,000 in debt.

Years later, people would ask me, “How did you know when and what to buy?” But all I basically did was create a massive arbitrage — a fixed-rate instrument in an inflationary environment. I essentially took on $4 billion of nonrecourse debt at an average interest rate of 6 percent in an environment with inflation of 9 percent or higher. That means I was already making 3 percent returns the second the deal closed — without doing a thing to the assets. Sure, we picked some terrific properties, but every one didn’t have to be Class A.

That said, there can be little doubt that exceptionally low interest rates on ten-year Treasury notes, and hence on home mortgages, have been a major factor in the recent surge of homebuilding and home turnover, and especially in the steep climb in home prices. Although a 'bubble' in home prices for the nation as a whole does not appear likely, there do appear to be, at a minimum, signs of froth in some local markets where home prices seem to have risen to unsustainable levels.

Right now, the average worker in America is making, in inflation-accounted-for dollars, and despite a huge increase in technology and worker productivity, exactly the same amount of money that he or she made 43 years ago. That’s incomprehensible.

Fifteen percent in intermediate term [seven- to ten-year Treasuries] and forty percent in long-term bonds [20- to 25-year Treasuries].

During the 1980's, the top statutory marginal income tax rate in the United States fell from 70 percent to 28 percent.

That’s obvious, right? And there have been recent studies, including one by Vanguard in 2012, showing that in rolling ten-year periods over the past 80 years in the US, UK, and Australian stock markets, lump-sum investing has outperformed dollar-cost averaging more than two-thirds of the time.

Just” 1% here, 1% there. Doesn’t sound like much, but compounded over time, it could be the difference between your money lasting your entire life or surviving on government or family assistance.

If I was running $1 million today, or $10 million for that matter, I'd be fully invested. Anyone who says that size does not hurt investment performance is selling. The highest rates of return I've ever achieved were in the 1950s. I killed the Dow. You ought to see the numbers. But I was investing peanuts then. It's a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.

The good news is that in business, you only need to hit one Grand Slam Offer to retire forever. I have done this four or five times in my life. As for my track record, I have a 36:1 lifetime return on my advertising dollars over my business career. Consider this my lifetime “batting average,” if you will. That means for every $1 I spend on advertising I get $36 back, a 3600% return. That is my average over eight years. And I continue to improve.

A study of over seven hundred American millionaires showed their average college GPA was 2.9.