They Were There When We Needed Them

Yesterday morning I walked into the conference room to meet with Karen in our office.  On the table was a box of tissue left there from a meeting the day before.

It reminded me of something I read recently about the value of ongoing financial planning where a client was reported to have said --"They were there when we needed them."  The family meeting where the tissues were needed was such a case.

Uganda B. Kenya

My now deceased brother was fond of saying "Uganda B. Kenya" as a replacement for you gotta be kidding me.  Well some things have a way of sticking in one's brain and this has for me.  Jeff in the office next to me told me about a new Department of Labor (DOL) initiative where my brother's saying was invoked. 

Jeff mentioned that the DOL was hiring 1000 new employees to audit company sponsored retirement plans.  The reason for the new hires is because previous audits have produced $1,000,000,000 (that's one billion) in fines (that is revenue to the government).  The average fine was $450,000.  One conclusion was that there were only a couple of bad guys and that most errors were of an administrative nature. 

Never Say Never

Sometimes life has a way of making a liar out of us.  Last week, while meeting with a client (age 78) that I've worked with since 1982, I was told the mother-in-law (age 94) was living with them again.  Well, for some people that might sound normal, but for them it was INSANE (based upon their earlier life experiences that is).

I'm talking about people who had tried this before and wished bad things upon each other until the mother-in-law moved out several years back.  Now, however, it felt very different.