My goal was to be at the point - no older than 40 - where I would have enough resources to make a difference in the lives of disadvantaged people.

My views tend to be centrist. I'm not a big fan of George W., but my politics tend to be more Republican than not.

As a philanthropist, I give away a lot of money every year. Yet I thought there was a higher leverage to come in and create movies and TV shows that were actually able to do some good in the world.

As a teenager I read a lot of books. Books with lots of scary trends, things like nuclear weapons and overpopulation and global diseases, and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to write stories that showed people these problems and that we could do something about them.'

I learned Hollywood is a small community, and you really have to be a part of the community to get anything done. Unlike traditional industries, where you can do things from afar with phone calls and e-mail, this town is really about being social. Because that's how trust gets built.

I wanted to be a writer, to write these stories that would make people see the world in a different way. But I ended up going to business school because I thought I could ultimately get to where I wanted to go faster that way.

When I was 14, my dad came home one day and told us he had cancer. It was looking pretty bad. And I remember him saying how afraid he was that he hadn't gotten to do the things he wanted to do during his life. He had surgery and survived. And he's still alive today, thank God. But it made a big impact on me.

If you subscribe to any online service, whether it be AOL, Google, Yahoo, or the Huffington Post, have you noticed that you are forced to watch a seemingly endless ad before the video story appears about a news item that caught your eye? AOL and the Huffington Post are especially annoying.

In my book, 'The Big Three in Economics,' I found that the press has frequently and prematurely written the obituary of Adam Smith and his free-market philosophy, only to see a new and more vibrant global marketplace reemerge after being savagely attacked by Keynesians, Marxists, and assorted socialists.

In my lifetime, as a younger man, you were assumed to be an honest person. Your word was your bond, and a handshake was as good as a contract in business.

In the early 1980s, I wrote a book called 'The Complete Guide to Financial Privacy.' If I would write that book today, it would be a pamphlet. There is precious little privacy left.

Lawmakers who interfere with commerce and the normal creation of jobs in an economy run the risk of doing harm rather than good. Unintended consequences from regulating or legislating to achieve a goal can occur and cause havoc in the markets or an economy.

Life is full of joys and sorrows, much of it our own making. Sadly, the West has voted time and time again for bigger government, more inflation, higher taxes and excessive regulation - all policies that have kept us from Adam Smith's vision of an opulent society.

Market capitalism survived and prospered after the boom-bust industrial revolution of the 19th century, and the Great Depression and world wars of the 20th century. It will recover from the financial panic of 2008-09 and Obamanomics.

Millions of Americans were duped by the federal government and the Federal Reserve into buying homes they could not afford and failed to count the cost. When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, they could not keep up the monthly mortgage payments and defaulted.

One suggestion my wife and I have used in our personal finance courses we teach at college is simply writing down all expenditures and seeing where the money goes. That alone will cause heads of households to think twice about x, y or z expenditure, and to consider carefully whether they really need something or not.

Our society does not give nearly enough credit to business leaders who create jobs, behave ethically and provide products and services that enhance our lives.

Since the 1970s, I've been a big fan of attending conferences as a great way to learn, network, socialize and enjoy a new environment. It's always refreshing to get out and see a whole new world.

Society can take two roads - the road to genuine prosperity, or the road to artificial stimulus. The first results in a permanent higher standard of living for all; the latter creates an inflationary boom that cannot last.

The fundamental flaw in Social Security and Medicare is that they violate the 'welfare principle' in economics. The welfare principle forms the fundamental basis of all charitable work in churches and other private organizations: assist those who need help, and equally important, don't assist individuals who can take care of themselves.