While many advisors implement conservative, guaranteed solutions in trust owned policy arrangements, this is not a universal practice. In a low interest rate environment, many policies that are held in trust may be under-performing and do not have the underlying guarantees to ensure that the policy...

The business world abounds with stories of the entrepreneurs who managed success building an undercapitalized venture largely because they made little or nothing in the early years, choosing rather to channel revenues back into the growth of the business. But there are often unsung heroes in these...

Climatologists can argue all day about which hurricane was the worst.  The fact of the matter is the “baddest” is the one that destroyed your home, the number of millibars notwithstanding.  And back in the old days they all were the baddest because you didn’t have any warning. Nowadays, sophisticated...

Director Francis Ford Coppola leaves us with a cold and calculating Michael Corleone looking out the windows of his lake house over the water that would prove to be the River Styx for his brother.  What is to be a day of relaxation and fishing for Fredo will end in the fulfillment of Michael’s directive...

When the fat lady sings... As they say, “It’s not over until then.” There is a comedian who likes to inform his audience that it is his goal to live forever.  Looking out into the crowd he adds, “So far, so good!”  But the fact is that death is the one contingency everyone can be pretty...

Two of the top ten reasons that younger women say that they marry older men are, first, they have a better read on those with a more promising future, even if it is shorter; and second, if they sprain their ankle they can use their husband’s cane. Pretty funny, but not unlike a couple of the underlying...

In the most important episode of his life Paul Revere did not fire a shot.  But his willingness to spread the alarm averted what could have been an early military disaster for the revolutionists of Massachusetts Bay. Planners, too, in addition to fulfillment of their usual responsibilities must fill...

Any fan of the novelist Tom Clancy is probably familiar with these words uttered by the wife of his chief protagonist, Jack Ryan.  Ryan is constantly needling Dr. Caroline “Cathy” Ryan about her compulsive habit of making notes about everything as a method for reminder and also a simple record of events. She...

Way back in time I had the good fortune to work in a firm whose in-house CPA happened to be the author of the joke column for a well-known accountant publication. He well understood the contradiction between the nature of his editorial role and the droll reputation his profession has concerning things...

My Mother didn’t tolerate gambling in any form. I couldn’t even play marbles for keeps. If someone solicited her for a lottery ticket, she simply donated the money to the cause.  Her conviction still resonates in my life choices. Her influence was strongly tested when I found myself in the Florida...