00:00I really thought that maybe you were giving a little bit the wrong lesson
00:05because all the questions would naturally tend toward current events.
00:10And so this time I went back, actually, to 1942 when I bought my first stock
00:18as an illustration of all the things that have happened since 1942.
00:23We've had 14 presidents, 7 Republicans, 7 Democrats.
00:28We've had World Wars, we had 9-11, we had the Cuban Missile Crisis, we had all kinds of things.
00:35The best single thing you could have done on March 11, 1942 when I bought my first stock
00:41was just buy an index fund and never look at a headline, never think about stocks anymore,
00:47just like you would do if you bought a farm.
00:49You just buy the farm and let the tenant farmer run it for you.
00:53And I pointed out that if you'd put $10,000 in an index fund that reinvested dividends,
00:59and I paused for a moment to let the audience try and guess how much it amount to,
01:03and it would come to $51 million now.
01:06And the only thing you had to really believe in then is that America would win the war
01:12and that America would progress as it has ever since 1776.
01:17And that American business, if America moved forward, American business would move forward.
01:22You didn't have to worry about what stock to buy.
01:24You didn't have to worry what day to get in and out.
01:26You didn't know the Federal Reserve would exist.
01:29Whatever it might be.
01:32And America works.
01:34You didn't have to worry about it.
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