WW

Today’s title is generally attributed to Mort Sahl, America’s first widely televised stand-up comedian. He was well known for his commentaries on the times but before he became famous, he did, in fact, wash and sell cars for a living. The phrase came to mind recently when I saw actor Tom Selleck promoting reverse mortgages on TV.

My great aunt Irma was quite well off, living in a small grove in Orange, California next door to entertainer José Feliciano. We visited her every few years and she took us to nice restaurants, always picking up the tab. As I got older, I was more a part of the adult conversations going on during those visits.

As diligently as I try to polish my crystal ball, the future still looks a bit cloudy to me. Here in Indiana in mid-May, some businesses are re-opening. However, it seems unlikely that decisions being made locally and regionally will prove to be well coordinated nationally.

Does anyone remember a professional boxer named Cassius Clay? He later became famous as Muhamad Ali but back in February of 1964 he was scheduled to fight Sonny Liston, then heavyweight champion of the world. Because newspaper writers are paid to produce articles, the bout was well previewed with fifty-nine of sixty-two sports columnists picking Liston to win.

At least to a limited extent, Warren Buffet and I had the same teacher: Benjamin Graham. The other Warren studied under him in grad school at Columbia and I’ve read his most famous book multiple times.

Calculus, as you may remember, makes it possible to compute the area under a curve by imagining a series of narrow rectangles. The secret to the calculation is that if you make the rectangular slices infinitely narrow, each section of the curve can be thought of as a straight line forming the top of a rectangle.

Welcome back to my New Year’s thoughts about financial and life planning.

Last week I discussed insurance but didn’t have enough space to mention long term care.

You probably remember the old story. A child asks his mom why they always trim the end of a ham before putting it in the oven to bake. She replies that she’s not sure and suggests they call grandma from whom she got the recipe.

Our intrepid employees in Washington DC have once again passed a last-minute tax act, part of which is retroactive for the entire year of 2019. Apparently, none of them actually prepare their own tax returns. This law, known as the SECURE Act, is 715 pages long. I haven’t read all of it yet but I doubt if many members of Congress have either.

Music fans of a certain age were saddened to learn of the recent passing of Aretha Franklin, long known as the Queen of Soul. Financial planners of all ages were saddened to learn of yet another person dying without a complete estate plan, including a will. Unfortunately, she’s just the latest in a long line of famous people who should have known better.