If some of my clients insist on responding to the current recession by getting completely out of the markets, buying gold, or stuffing their mattresses with cash, what is my responsibility as their financial planner?

I recently participated in an online discussion of that issue with some professional peers. One of them raised an important question. How far should planners go to try to keep people from making what the planner views as a serious mistake? It’s important to respect someone’s competence and ability to make their own life decisions. On the other hand, should a planner stand idly by and watch someone walk off what the planner perceives as the edge of a financial cliff? (more…)

People learn best from stories, both from living them and from the telling.

My first car was a bare bones Datsun, and when I married we had a Toyota Corona. Those two cars provided me as much enjoyment as any form of transportation I have experienced since, probably because my only criteria for an auto at that time was to get me where I wanted to go as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Over the years we progressed through Volvos to a succession of Mercedes. I chose the Mercedes because, late one evening on a trip to southern Indiana to visit my mother, I was pushing the speed limit, going over eighty mph, when the transmission seals on our Volvo wagon overheated. We lost our transmission fluid and came to a halt.
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