"C'mon, Roy, I don't know anything about owning stocks or gold or real estate," Tom protested. "Heck even I remember what the market did in October '87. I want no part of that."
"Tom, you missed four key words—'over the long run.' Ownership, at least ownership governed by common sense, will always outperform loaning in the long run. It has to. If it's consistently more profitable for businesses and individuals to leave their money in the bank than to invest it in North American enterprises, we're all in big trouble. Eventually, our whole economic system would collapse. That isn't going to happen. And in the unlikely event that it did, it wouldn't do you any good to have your money sitting down at the bank . . . because the banks would all be locked." Roy laughed.
"You see, despite all the bitching and complaining and all the predictions of doom and gloom, times are good and, again I emphasize 'over the long run,' they'll continue to get better. VCRs, microwaves, gas barbecues . . . your parents didn't enjoy perks like that when they were young. Technological advances, medical discoveries, social programs ... do I have to go on? The fact is, we're living in great times. If you're healthy and living in the U.S., guys like you have very little to complain about, apart from the Tigers' pitching staff.
"I know we've got deficits, major environmental prob-lems, several social ills, and so on. And these are serious problems. Unfortunately, we'll always have serious prob-lems. However, equating 'serious' with 'fatal' would be to greatly underestimate this country. 'It is a gloomy moment in history . . . never has the future seemed so dark and incalculable. The United States is beset with racial,