A few of my friends have now received that well-publicized letter from the Bank of America telling them that their home equity line of credit has been, let's just say, "expunged from the records."

The farmer who was asked why his pig had a prosthetic leg said, "Because we're saving the rest of him to eat later." In a similar vein, here's a new slant on deciding when to belly up to that Social Security feeding trough.

Most people who are still working tend to postpone the start date until at least 66 and some will decide to wait until age 70. Waiting until 70 generates 135 percent of whatever the age 66 benefit schedule might have been which is tempting. But we could all die earlier than we expected --- and get nothing.

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times reporter and author of the book "Perfectly Legal" that chronicled the way in which the wealthiest U.S. citizens have avoided taxation. He's back with a new book, "Free Lunch -- How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill.)"

About that light at the end of the tunnel, it might not be the headlight of the locomotive after all.

Mark Hulbert, an investment newsletter analyst, is on record recently as pointing out that one of the more accurate forward indicators of future stock market performance is flashing a green light.

According to the Jan. 17 New York Times, Yale's endowment fund, run by David Swensen, posted fiscal year-end results ending June 30 that beat all other college endowments in the country. The return was 28 percent --not bad.

Swensen's book "Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment" establishes him in my mind as the Warren Buffet of investment managers.

Black Swan this, Black Swan that. It seems like the term "Black Swan" is on everyone's lips these days and is even in the title of a John Bogle speech.

So, where have you been?

Actually, I'm referring to the No. 1 best-selling business book of that title by former bond trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The reason for the book's popularity is that it helps explain the unpredictable. It helps prepare us for events that are "off the charts" -- such as the 25 percent, one-day drop in stock market values back in 1987, or the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

My friend Bill Southard was at West Point in 1974 and heard novelist Ayn Rand give a commencement speech titled, "Philosophy, Who Needs It?"

He sent me a copy of her speech, which basically said we all need a personal philosophy, and that without one, we will be slapped around by events. My late mother-in-law described the condition (and all of California, for that matter) as having "no roots." Most of us like to think we have what we would call an investment philosophy, so in the light of the current turmoil, let's see how we're holding up.

I woke with a start a few weeks ago to a radio interview with Paul Saffo, a Stanford futurist. He definitely caught my attention, because I coupled what he was saying with a recent speech by Vanguard's John Bogle. Combining both sages, I found my own view of the future coming into sharper focus -- at least as it applied to me.

With respect to considering this year's investment strategy, I feel like I'm in one of those submarine movies where the speakers are crackling, "Dive. ... Dive!"

A good part of the holiday was spent wringing my hands and thanking my lucky stars that I have the discipline to limit myself to this exercise just once a year.

There's nothing like a little "grist for the mill" to spark an intelligent conversation about money. This year, to make it more interesting, we'll be so bold as to talk about "money and relationships" -- the extent to which managing both money and relationships fruitfully share some common skill sets.