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Better known in English as Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace is widely considered to have been one of the world’s greatest writers but his potential aptitude for financial planning may be somewhat less well known.

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.

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.