If you wanna feel better about yourself just do an Internet search on something like Celebrities Without Makeup, or Un-photo-shopped VIPs.  It will do your heart good to see how plain looking or, in some cases, how down-right ugly-wuggly many icons among the “beautiful people” really are in their...

Nobody gets help with college costs nowadays unless they first fill out a lengthy and bothersome form known as the FAFSA (the acronym stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, just in case it ever pops up when you choose the Governmental Financial Assistance category on Double Jeopardy). ...

Real old-timers remember the days of one of comedy’s iconic duos, the husband and wife team of George Burns and Gracie Allen.  Any younger connoisseurs of good humor would do well to spend some online-time calling up at least some of their radio, television, and cinema work-product on YouTube or some...

In 1826 the German author Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (Jo-Eich for short) published a novella titled (in English) Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing.  Both he and it are unimportant except for a Latin phrase from the book: Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi, translated, “What is permissible for Jove,...

The London Bach Choir has been around since 1876 when it debuted with a performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass.  For the next ninety or so years their gig didn’t get much attention except among those with a musical preference for things like, well... the B Minor Mass. But all that changed in 1969. ...

In addition to the simplicity, ease of implementation and administration, and plan design and funding flexibility, an executive bonus arrangement can meet an array planning needs if presented properly to the employer and comprehensively to the executive. Life for Life or Life for Less The need to protect...

Back in the old days kids would buy a comic book for 10 cents (5 cents if the cover had been removed for re-sale) and peruse the back pages for ads that peddled everything from x-ray glasses to work-out programs that promised to make you into a he-man in two weeks.  Purchases were made by mail and paid...

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...

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...

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...