Being Unemployed During the forty-eight years since I graduated from business school, I have rarely been without work. In fact, I was always a man in a hurry for some reason, so rather than take off some time between school and work, I finished my 3-credit summer school class needed to finish off my MBA degree on a Friday in June, 1976 and started at Bankers Trust on the following Monday. It’s interesting to note…
The Passage of Time Outside on our deck on the wall of the house where there are no windows, we have placed a large 30” metal wall clock. These days, large wall clocks with a certain artistic statement are not so unusual. You can buy one on Wayfair or any manner of online shopping site and have your choice of countless styles. We actually bought this particular clock to hang over the inside front door,…
Jack of All Trades One of the oldest English expressions is “Jack of all trades” which dates back to Old English in 1390 when, during Medieval Times, it was considered a strength for a man to be knowledgeable and capable in several different skills. One might even suggest that since that was really the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, that the Jack of all trades may well have morphed…
I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up There use to be a very funny commercial with some elderly woman on the kitchen floor pressing a small transmitting device that she wore around her neck which would announce to some emergency service or other that she had fallen in her home and that she was unable to get up. Naturally, there was nothing really funny about the situation since that happens all too often to the…
The Silence of the Lamb March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, right? Is that all about the balancing act of life or is it about the weather patterns of the Northern Hemisphere, or perhaps its all biblical in suggesting that lions and lambs can coexist? I really don’t know and Google isn’t being that helpful about it all. What I do know is that as we approach the end of…
Staying Creative I have long said that if there is one characteristic that I prize the most, it is creativity. When people ask me why I stayed in the banking business so long and specifically so long with Bankers Trust, I always come back to the same answer. The era from 1976 to2001 was a quarter-century of tremendous creativity in finance and banking. Innovation was my stock and trade and I was the guy who…
A Nice Week Ahead I read that Spring has come early all across the country, but that is deemed a mixed blessing at best. This was supposed to be a particularly harsh El Niño winter, but at least here in Southern California, that feels like it barely materialized. It’s always nice when the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow and we get an early Spring, but I should note that Groundhog Day was just over six…
Writing on Retirement Among the several categories into which I place my blog stories, I include retirement. I’ve had a fascination with retirement for 30 years, ostensibly, because I ran one of the largest retirement businesses in the world. That stint caused me to spend many hours, contemplating the idea of retirement as exemplified in the vast of Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution pension plans that were part of my business domain. You simply cannot…
Limping to the Finish Line This morning, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held his longest press conference of his three year tenure in the job. The position of Secretary of Defense is always an important cabinet position, usually the second or third most important among the cabinet. In fact, the official presidential line of succession flows from the Veep to the Speaker of the House, to the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (strangely enough,…
Flood on the Hilltop By definition, it would be pretty hard to flood me out on this hilltop. We are literally on higher ground than either our neighbor to the north or the neighbor to the south by at least 30 feet each. To the east and down the front slope it is perhaps 50 feet down to the road. And my back hillside is probably the steepest grade and it goes down perhaps 75…