What did Warren Buffett predict about long-term stock market returns… and how can you consistently beat those returns, so consistently, in fact, that you can plan on it – while taking FAR LESS risk?  I’m Bryan Ellis.  I’ll tell you how to banish the bulls and bears and just collect the BUCKS… right now in Episode #101.-----------Hello, my friends!  First, a quick update – the upcoming Passive Property Flipping Summit on August 7 in Phoenix that I’ve mentioned to you before is 100% full.  No more spaces available!  Thank you for filling that event 3 full weeks ahead of time.  You people amaze me… I’m so grateful to you.  You can still go over to S3Flip.com to see the presentation and get on the waiting list if we have another one.So, how can we safely, consistently whip the returns offered by Wall Street?Well, let’s get our objective in clear focus.The lion’s share of most individual investor’s portfolios are dedicated to the stock market.  Sometimes in the form of individual stocks, and most frequently in the form of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.Can we beat results offered by those assets – and by “beat”, I mean get a consistently better rate of return – while experiencing more safety and more consistency along the way?  I mean, to my way of thinking, that’s the very definition of investment wisdom:  strong returns, predictability and low risk… all of those things TOGETHER, SIMULTANEOUSLY.Well, we’ve got to know what those rates of return REALLY are.  And there’s nobody better to comment on this than the venerable Warren Buffett.  Yes, it’s true that Buffett is frequently more concerned about political correctness than with being totally forthcoming, but still, his analysis of what one should REALLY expect from the stock market is rather revealing.In a conversation with Bloomberg, Buffett made a very interesting analysis.  He said:  “The economy can be expected to grow… at an annual rate of about 3% over the long term, and inflation of 2% would push nominal GDP growth to 5%.  Stocks will probably rise at about that rate and divided payments will boost total returns to 6-7%.”And do you know what?  History bears that out pretty well.So, 6-7% per year.  To make it simple, let’s split the difference at 6.5%.I can just hear it right now.  Some of you are thinking?  6.5% annually?  Ha!  I made that much last week on my Apple stock?And of course you did… congratulations!  Apple has been on a great run lately… except for that brutal firesale a couple of years ago when Apple plunged over 40% very quickly. Right now, Apple is doing great.  They remind me of Microsoft… the powerhouse software company that could do no wrong in the market… until the Justice Department cracked them open, and the company was never the same again.  Apple reminds me of Texas Instruments – a company whose trajectory in the late 90’s makes Apple’s rise look dull by comparison – until the market changed, and changed painfully, rather quickly.No, I’m not saying you can’t make money in individual stocks.  You certainly can.  But there’s clearly a HUGE amount of risk in doing so.  And the odds that you’ll beat the law of averages is, quite scientifically, improbable.  That’s why nearly all individual investors invest either in mutual funds or ETF’s.  By investing in many different stocks simultaneously, the overwhelming risk of individual stocks is rounded out.But can you and I, as self-directed investors, do better than that?And more importantly, can we do better than that while taking LESS RISK?  SUBSTANTIALLY LESS RISK?And more importantly still, can we do better than that while having essentially ZERO volatility along the way?Let’s pick a healthy rate of return.  Let’s say – 8%.  If you could make 8% per year… CONSISTENTLY… and be paid your returns each and every month… and have a RISK measurement of your investment be very near ZERO… would you want to do that?Yes… to be clear, I did just ask you if you’d like to substantially beat the stock market eve