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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.

Sometimes in the past I’ve suggested that a current or historical figure might have made a good financial planner but today I’m looking at a different theme – people who get excited for no real reason.

Do any of these phrases sound familiar?

• Stock market rout

• Beaten-up stocks

Fred Rogers was probably the best-known actor/producer of children’s programming in the country until his death in 2003. For an interesting look at his life, I recommend the documentary film, Won’t You Be My Neighbor which was released earlier this year.

Individuals as different as H. L. Hunt (Money is just a way of keeping score) and Mae West (The score never interested me, only the game) have commented on how money affected their lives.