One of the cooler experiences I’ve had so far since I’ve started writing for Benzinga was interviewing Oppenheimer Funds Chief Economist Jerry Webman this morning on the phone. He was very personable and very generous with his time. In about 20 minutes, Dr. Webman had just enough time to answer the first 12 of these 20 questions I had prepared for the interview:

1. Warren Buffett famously said, “Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.” If you had to commit to a 10-year investment right now, what investment would you choose?
2. The bull market turned six years old earlier this month and the S&P 500 is now 33 percent higher than its pre-crisis high in 2007. Do you believe the market is approaching a top, or do you see more upside from here?
3. There are thousands of metrics and formulas to use to understand market cycles. For the average retail investor, what are the two or three things that you think are the most important things to watch for to identify potential tops in the stock market?
4. Back in January, you wrote about falling crude oil prices that “the cure for low prices is low prices.” It has been about 2 months since then. What is your current outlook for oil prices, and how do you see the global oversupply conditions playing out?
5. Do you think the bottom is in for oil prices?
6. How much downside risk do you believe is left in oil?
7. What do you see as the biggest short-term threats to the continued U.S. economic recovery?
8. Do you see anything happening in Europe over the next year or two that the average long-term U.S. investor should lose sleep over?
9. Is the Apple Watch going to change the world, or is it simply going to be a trendy novelty accessory for a few years?
10. What is something you have learned about economics through experience in the real world that you wish they would have taught you at Yale?
11. What aspects of the U.S. recovery from the Financial Crisis have been pleasantly surprising to you, and what aspects have been disappointing?
12. About a year ago, you wrote about how only 14 percent of millennials are likely to seek advice from a financial advisor, compared to 40 percent for other age ranges. Do you believe this is a shift in investment philosophy that has resulted from the information age, or do you think this is mistrust of the finance industry that has resulted from the Financial Crisis?
13. Have you read my book, Beating Wall Street With Common Sense?
14. If so, what was your favorite part(s)? If not, why not?
15. Would you rather have the ability to talk to all animals or have the ability to control their actions with your mind?
16. Imagine that you’re about to set off walking down a street. To reach the other end, you’d first have to walk half way there. And to walk half way there, you’d first have to walk a quarter of the way there. And to walk a quarter of the way there, you’d first have to walk an eighth of the way there. And before that a sixteenth of the way there, and then a thirty-second of the way there, a sixty-fourth of the way there, and so on.

    Ultimately, in order to perform even the simplest of tasks like walking down a street, you’d have to perform an infinite number of smaller tasks—something that, by definition, is utterly impossible. Can you please explain this?

17. Who do you think would win in a footrace: Ben Bernanke or Jeff Bezos?
18. How much do you weigh? About 170?
19. Who is your least favorite co-worker at Oppenheimer and why?
20. A friend of mine drinks like 5 Mello Yello Zeros every day when he writes articles for his job. My friend doesn’t need to drink that much Mello Yello Zero, and he can quit any time he wants to. So my question is, shouldn’t my friend’s other friends get off his back about how much Mello Yello Zero he drinks? I mean, it’s not like they don’t drink like a million gallons of coffee every day. Damn.

Maybe if Dr. Webman is gracious enough to grant me another interview sometime, I’ll be able to get to the last eight questions. In the meantime, look for what Dr. Webman had to say in response to the first 12 questions in articles posted throughout this week here on Trading Common Sense.

Before I wrap this up, I have to report some appropriate results for the worst contest ever. For those of you that have been on the edge of your seats since I announced the worst contest ever last week, the results are in: Benzinga’s page view counter isn’t working. So I don’t know which version of the article got more views. Worst results ever. I could say something about how I’ll update the results if the page view counter starts working again, but I’ll be honest with you- I’m not going to do that.

Want to learn more about the stock market? Or maybe you just want to be able to look sophisticated in front of your coworkers when they ask you what you are reading on your Kindle, and you’d prefer to tell them “Oh, I’m just reading a book about stock market analysis,” rather than the usual “Oh, I’m just looking at pics of my ex-girlfriend on Facebook.” For these reasons and more, check out my book, Beating Wall Street with Common Sense. I don’t have a degree in finance; I have a degree in neuroscience. You don’t have to predict what stocks will do if you can predict what traders will do and be one step ahead of them. I made a 400% return in the stock market over five years using only basic principles of psychology and common sense. Beating Wall Street with Common Sense is now available on Amazon, and tradingcommonsense.com is always available on your local internet!