Another awesome NYT sympathy profile (family blew $14M)

I know, there's the standard caution not to take the Times seriously with its trend or lifestyle stories because they're written to a different audience. But this one is breathtaking in its attempt to paint the tragedy of a family that blew through $14 million in less than a decade, with nothing to show for it now. No more Aston Martin. No more show horses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/business/26fall.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

The dad accepts his share of the blame. He also rages against the bankers, apparently because they didn't tell him not to spend $5 million on that home remodel. And he's REALLY pissed at his family members who got $100 million from the sale of the business while he only got $14 million.

I just can't see being a professional writer and portraying these people with even a hint of sympathy.

 

More common than you'd think.

In my unlearned opinion, there are two types of people in the world. People who spend all the money they have, and people who don't. If you are in the habit of spending all your money, then you'll find a way to spend it all no matter how much you have. That's why so many athletes end up broke, too.

 

Not quite to this extreme, but has anyone watched "Downsized" yet about a Phoenix family that went bankrupt, lost a house and have to learn to live within their means? I grew up several miles away from where the family lives – a neighborhood that didn't exist in the '90s – and think it's a common situation in Phoenix.

 

I like to think the journalism industry has set me up to be some one who is frugal no matter how much money I have.

 

I love to pile on to the NY Times like the next guy, but I don't read this as a sympathy piece. It reads like a straightforward tale of mistakes made.

 

I love how the guy thinks he is broke.

He makes 21k per year, his wife makes 12k, that's $31,000.

He said they are currently renting a home, that's what? $1,000 per month? Now they are up to $43,000. Definitely not enough to live on for a family of four, but wait! He also manages a vineyard? Lets just say that nets him $10k a year. That means he's making around $53k a year for a bunch of bullshit work. Teaching one day, smashing grapes and coaching cross country. They have enough money for food, water, clothing and shelter. And really, that's all they need, because remember they have a $4 million home for sale. And even if it only sells for $2.5 million - that's still a shit ton of money to live off of.

Of course, this family is so fucking stupid, they will probably go spend all $2.5 million of it on POGS.

 

I think anything the family gets from the sale of the home goes to the bank.

I liked the part at the end where the wife blamed the husband for wanting to keep up with other family members, while he said he just a big family compound.

I see a divorce in their future.

She also speculates that the Adirondacks estate was alluring partly as a way of keeping up. “I think he wanted to show his brother and brother-in-law that he had a big home, too,” she said over dinner recently in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Mr. Martin disagreed. “We are Irish Catholics, and we thought it would be a compound for our family over generations,” he said. After the cramped rooms at their house in England, he liked the big rooms, he said. “Sometimes, things don’t work out.”

 

This made me laugh out loud.

 

The thing that strikes me is that at some point, neither the husband nor the wife thought, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't keep plowing millions of dollars into these properties."

Stupid, stupid people. And it's not like they were having a bunch of leeches/relatives hanging on to them. They had their own money.

 

Here's a question - what ever happened to the habit of saving money? or, better yet, are we teaching or being taught lessons regarding money, or are we just learning from other peoples' mistakes?

Biggie said it best - "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems."

 

ALF POGS?

 

I traded your soul for Alf pogs. Remember Alf? He’s back! In pog form!