“How can I make my estate easy for my son?” asked Diane, a youthful retired client with a penchant for planning ahead. I often get this question in some form or another and usually provide advice on the industry best practices based on my history and research. This time was different, however, as I had even more first-hand experience.

The current debate in U.S. and European politics centers around: how do we strengthen our borders and prevent too many people from entering our prosperous countries? But you might be interested to learn that a number of macroeconomists think that open borders and unlimited immigration might actually provide significant benefits—not just for the people looking for a better life, but also for the people already living in the prosperous nations.

The analysis starts with surveys of immigrants going back to ancient times, and including the people who migrated to the United States as the country was transitioning from a third world backwater to the most powerful nation in the world. The immigrants, almost unanimously, were looking for an opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families.

“And then I read about this East Asian microcap fund in Forbes,” said Kate, barely taking a breath between sentences. I had asked her to tell me about her investments and she was on her 139th holding! There were still at least twenty more to go. Hoarding comes in many different packages. Some people excessively collect piles of useless household items while others buy and hold a multitude of investments, which was the case with Kate. Diversification is important, but too much of a good thing comes full circle back to bad.

How long are you and I going to live? None of us knows, of course, but this number is important for a variety of planning issues—including, of course, how long your money will have to last in retirement. Actuarial tables tell us how long people will live on average, but that isn’t much help for planning a specific person’s life, and the averages conceal a lot of variation.

Living today is a huge advantage over living in the past, and living in a developed nation is a benefit as well. As you can see from the chart, most children born in the late 1700s had a life expectancy below age 35; today, the global average is 70, and people who make it to age 65 have a good chance of living to 85 or longer.

As Halloween approaches we are all reminded of the scary spooks and ghouls that haunt our lives. Few things are scarier than the sequence of returns risk I wrote about in my lastpost. Like the weather, we cannot control sequence of returns risk, but we can protect ourselves from experiencing its full wrath.

Some crucial maneuvers will help soon-to-retire people avoid trouble

I recently contributed to this important Wall Street Journal article by Jane Hodges.

The size of your nest egg isn’t the only thing you should be focused on as you close in on retirement.

So say financial planners and experts, who point to several financial moves investors can make in the years before they leave work that might help them preserve their savings, reduce their tax bills and provide for loved ones and heirs.

“Race you to the buoy,” my daughter, Judy, shouted. She had thrown down the gauntlet and was now engaged with my husband, Peter, in a swim contest. They decided on a timed race because Judy couldn’t trust her father not to pull her foot as he swam behind her. I timed them from the Cape May, NJ beach with a smile, wondering who would emerge victorious from the wavy ocean; it was a fairly matched challenge as Judy is an accomplished middle school swimmer while my husband wins in the size and experience areas.

“I’ll trade you LAX for Fenway Park,” my daughter Judy said while playing monopoly with her cousin, Liz. As a fee-only financial advisor, Monopoly is one of my favorite games. It focuses on many valuable personal finance lessons, including making change, handling money, budgeting, and mortgages. I really took notice, however, when I heard her say, “I passed Go! Give me $2,000,000.” $2,000,000? What happened to $200? It was all down hill from there.

Some of the most entertaining times to be a long-term investor are those periods when short-term investors are looking over their shoulders for an excuse to sell. They’re convinced that the market is going to go down before they can get out, and so they jump on any bad news that comes across their Bloomberg screen.

And, of course, Friday was a marvelous time to see this in action. With all the economic drama playing out in the world, there were plenty of opportunities to panic. The Greek Prime Minister has resigned! Sell! China devalued its currency a few days ago by 2%! Head for the hills! Chinese stocks are tanking yet again! Get out of American stocks while you can! The Fed might raise short-term interest rates from zero to very nearly zero! It’s the end of the world!

You’ve probably read that the island territory of Puerto Rico formally defaulted on its municipal debt obligations over the weekend—an unsurprising event that has been expected by insiders for more than three months. What did surprise everybody was the fact that the Puerto Rican Public Finance Corporation (PFC) found a way to make a partial payment on its $58 million in interest obligations—even if the amount was only $628,000.