WW

The retail brokerage industry began in New York City in 1792 with the signing of the Buttonwood Agreement. It established the organization now known as the New York Stock Exchange and fixed commissions for customers at one quarter of one percent.

We’re all familiar with today’s title but when I tried to track down its actual roots, I became confused. According to multiple websites, it relates to a farmer in Maine trying to give a traveler directions to town.

Kenny Rogers made Don Schlitz’ song The Gambler famous back in the late 1970’s. If you recall the lyrics, the old gambler tells the young one that you have to know when to hold your cards and also when to fold them.

This morning I’m thinking of the delightful 1998 movie Shakespeare in Love. It involves a poor, unknown playwright named Will who falls in love with the far-out-of reach daughter of a wealthy merchant.

Imagine a brainstorming session in Detroit going something like this:

Cars have gotten so expensive, why don’t we add an alarm to provide increased protection against theft?

As Robert Heinlein famously shared: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. At the time he was writing, some bars sold lunch to patrons, others provided a ‘free’ lunch to theirs.

Care to guess the name of the newspaper I’ve read virtually every day for the past 45 years? Since I live in the world of business, you might not be surprised that it’s the Wall Street Journal.

Read Ann Carrn's New York Times Article Of A Certain Age? You May Need to Withdraw Money From a Retirement Account to learn about Required Minimum Distributions from qualified retirement accounts.