It wasn’t too long after I turned my face from home and toward the world that I bumped into the reality of having to fend for myself at mealtime.  With few culinary skills and less patience I quickly adopted the philosophy that if something took longer to make that it did to eat, then the dish wouldn’t...

If you have read all three parts of The Bounty Trilogy then you are familiar with the often overlooked, but perhaps more compelling part of the tale.  Most are familiar with the mutiny aboard the H.M.S. Bounty and of the mutineers attempting to escape the long arm of British naval law by establishing...

A man in Clearwater, FL, claimed to have grown a grapefruit that looked exactly like an orange - except that it was bigger and yellow.  The attempt at comparison is understandable given other features characteristic of both. What If Clients: 1) Don’t have access to a qualified retirement plan, or 2)...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I remember reading an IRS Private Letter Ruling that had about it the worst method an insured/grantor could use to pay premiums on a policy inside an irrevocable trust. He was the sole owner of a business that each year cut a check directly to the carrier...

It is the bane of high school mathematics students and a fixture in sidebars illustrating data discussed in a newspaper, magazine or website article: the basic X-Y coordinate graph. And two coordinates come into play when financially justifying an amount of life insurance coverage applied for.  (The...

Why is it that the most important item on an insurance application is allocated so little space?  Why is it that the second most important item gets equally parsimonious treatment? All that other stuff is necessary from either a practical or a legal standpoint, but when the dust of policy issue and underwriting...

A simple coin toss is the most popular form of settling disputes or making decisions.  Subterfuge is often used to improve a participant’s odds.  If the caller sees through the “heads-I-win/tails-you-lose” ploy then the flipper can introduce a GMO known as a two-headed coin, usually a Washington...

A bidder at an auction purchased a Stradivarius and a Rembrandt for what he felt was an unbelievably low price.  He took them to an appraiser to see if they were authentic.  The appraiser informed him, “Yes, they are authentic. It’s just a shame that Stradivarius couldn’t paint and that Rembrandt...

The 24-year old actor James Dean was the iconic Rebel Without a Cause, the image of teenage angst, who already had three blockbuster movies under his belt before a misplaced 1950 Ford Tudor blocked the intersection on US Route 466 that would serve as a premature end to the meteoric rise of the young...

Comedian Steven Wright tells of the time a burglar broke into his apartment while he was asleep, stole everything, and replaced it all with exact replicas.  Later his best friend walked in, looked at Steve and said, “Do I know you?” Americans have never been averse to imitations when the original...