re: If you received $500K, how would you invest it?

On banks--they are like lawyers to me. You got to find what they like to do. Every bank will take your application. Many will turn you down simply because they lack expertise in the investment you want to make. Few will admit that.

Before you ever even start a loan application understand if the bank you are applying at does any significant business in the kind of loan you are applying for. Don't even take a commercial real estate loan to a bank that focuses on consumer loans for example. (Even though Capital One is a credit card company mostly my experience is they are very good on commercial loans.)

Ask them are they looking for loans and what kind of deals are considered good in their eyes. No need to waste your time with a bank salesman if he can't give you good answers.

That was some if the better advice in this thread, as far as choosing a bank.

BRK-A

Because he loves to buy dividend paying stocks, but doesn't much like paying them. And he thinks derivatives are evil, except the couple of times he had to put footnotes in his letter/report, that people pee themselves about, explaining exactly how much shareholder's monies he lost shorting silver.

While I would maintain BRK-A is a growth stock, I can't imagine it is a stock that won't need to be sold before well people's retirement.

I own it. I just know exactly who and what these people in Omaha are. I also have a bank account at his bank in Lincoln/Omaha. They repeatedly give me 0% for 18 mos, and I repeatedly take it, pay their one time fee of $99.00, and invest it in some of the same "evil" things Warren rips on, except for when he has to disclose he gambled on it and lost. Which is the part of the report no one reads while they pee themselves about how smart he is. The interesting study to me is how he used to invest, versus how he does it now. It has evolved to say the least.

And no, I don't think Warren is dumber than I. There are few people that are actually dumber than I, I just like to understand completely what people do, rather than what they say.

Disclosure - I once had a free ice cream cone from him. I was unshaven, and likely had a mild cigar odor permeating around me. True story.