Family's Fall from Affluence Is Swift and Hard

[Ginto]

Source: New York Times

Grateful to have found work in this tough economy, Nick Martin teaches grape growing and winemaking each Saturday to a class of seven students in a simple metal building here at a satellite campus of Highland Community College.

Then he drives 14 miles in an 11-year-old Ford Explorer to a sparsely furnished tract house that he rents for $900 a month on a dead-end street in McFarland, a smaller town. Just across the backyard is a shed that a neighbor uses to make cartridges for shooting the prairie dogs that infest the adjacent fields.

It is a far cry from the life that Mr. Martin and his family enjoyed until recently at their Adirondacks waterfront camp at Tupper Lake, N.Y. Their garage held three stylish cars, including a yellow Aston Martin; they owned three horses, one that cost $173,000; and Mr. Martin treated his wife, Kate, to a birthday weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria, with dinner at the "21" Club and a $7,000 mink coat.

That luxurious world was fueled by a check Mr. Martin received in 1998 for $14 million, his share of the $600 million sale of Martin Media, an outdoor advertising business begun by his father in California in the 1950s. After taxes, he kept about $10 million.

But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches, the money slipped through the Martins' fingers faster than they ever imagined.

They faced temptations to indulge, with the complexities and pressures of new wealth. And a pounding recession pummeled the value of their real estate and new financial investments, rendering their properties unaffordable.

The fortune evaporated in little more than a decade. (more)

Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/111434/familys-fall-from-affluence-is-swift-and-hard

[Beetwasher]

1. What A Profligate Dumbass

n/t

[Ginto]

2. I especially like the part where he states that they were Irish Catholics and wanted a "compound"

What?!

[fascisthunter]

3. Catholic Compound???

looks as if there are way too many religious nutters with too much money.

[Ginto]

4. Well, he was talking about needing a compound for his family.

One they could enjoy for generations. Trying to emulated the Kennedy's a bit too much.

[fascisthunter]

10. ahhhh... ok, gotcha

still think religious compounds are creepy. To each's own.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Like the Kennedys, I think (nt)

[htuttle]

22. Wastrel

I like the word 'wastrel'. Has a nice, archaic ring to it.

[MissMarple]

5. this is why we have social security, welfare, food stamps, and unemployment insurance.

The people who oppose them have no insight, no humility, no sense of "there but for some lucky breaks or illegal, unethical shenanigans, go I". Sometimes the luck runs out, the shenanigans fall apart and you find yourself a denizen of a dim Grey Gardens, or some no lawn rented tract house.

[Ginto]

16. Personally, I think SS should be means tested to weed out people like this.

If you blow 14M in a few years then then we shouldn't be subsidizing you. Sounds harsh I know, but I don't think Steve Jobs or Bill Gates need it either.

[Ikonoklast]

6. Hard to find any real sympathy for someone that could have been set for life.

If all you have left is a lump sum that you expect to make last the rest of your days, you have to set your investments up in a very conservative manner, and NEVER SPEND THE PRINCIPAL.

You live off the interest or capital gains of the investment, never, ever touch the principal.

He blew the bulk of it on crappy real estate deals that were more like sinkholes than investments.

[watajob]

9. AMEN!!!

Just like the dolts that end up bankrupt/incarcerated/etc. after wining a lottery.

[Vincardog]

7. He gets $10M after taxes and bitches because someone else got $100M, Then he blows his. DUMB ASS

[Ginto]

17. That struck me too. Sounds like he is jealous of his family who actually ran the company. nt

[JI7]

20. judging by what he did with the 10 million i don't think he had anything to do with the success

of that business and them being able to sell it for that much.

[Downwinder]

11. Same story with lottery winners.

[bluedigger]

12. Old 'news".

Covered several days ago...

[maxsolomon]

13. my Explorer is 15 years old

my Saab is 19 years old

i've never recieved a $10 million check.

and leave the prarie dogs alone.

[Joanne98]

14. sniff

[Still Blue in PDX]

15. In other words, he now lives like most of us.

:nopity:

[CLANG]

18. I can only muster one reaction

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Nay]

23. Really. What a fucking idiot. Morons like this deserve to live in a

crummy house next to a field of prairie dogs.

[Raine]

30. Same here

I was like :spray: sorry but I just can't help but be :rofl: from the idea that I guess we're supposed to :cry: oh gosh :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[JI7]

19. hahha,i thought this would be about a couple of upper middle class types

maybe a teacher, small business owner, etc who got laid off or business went down because of the economy. and have started working minimum wage jobs as a result.

[Doctor_J]

21. I can see Fox "News" jumping on this, from this angle:

"If he'd got to keep the whole $14mil, instead of paying 4 mil of it in taxes, he wouldn't have gone broke"

[Ferretherder]

24. Bingo!

We have a winner!

[madmom]

25. He's making $51,000 a year and she's making $12,000 and they think they are poor? I wish

I was so poor! Man I hate people who have so much self pity:grr:

[The Hitman]

26. I think I hear a violin playing.

I have no sympathy.

[bitchkitty]

27. Huh - I wish I could afford $900 for rent.

So he lost his Aston Martin, and the bitch wore fur? No sympathy here.

[mistertrickster]

28. It takes a lot more to live "rich" than most people realize. This guy

was spending like he had 100 million dollars, not 10 million.

You can't buy one (of three) houses for 5 and a half million dollars if your entire fund is 10 million and you have no major income to build the principle.

I'm sorry, that's just dumb.

[Blue_Tires]

31. +1

[Skittles]

29. this guy sounds like a greedy fucking idiot

hard to feel any sympathy for him

[BobTheSubgenius]

32. Apart from the incredible shortsightedness and greed...

...and, to be frank, stupidity....why would you even WANT to manage investments with a capital pool of $10,000,000? Even at ONE PERCENT interest, that's $100,000 a year, and you can do a lot better than that with extremely limited risk, even with the rates as low as they are. No stress in that.

Of course, combined income totalling $73,000 is bare subsistence for this family of nincompoops, so what can you say?

Reminds me of a guy in WV (I think) who won a HUGE Powerball jackpot and found that the best use of his time and wealth was driving around to strip clubs and casinos to get drunk and gamble. One night, he got so gooned that he had the attache case with his gambling bankroll stolen. $500,000. Cash.

I felt SO bad for this guy.

Oh, wait. No I didn't. I must have confused "feeling bad" with "laughing at."

Who here among us could POSSIBLY do worse with wealth-to-great-wealth than these people? Give something back. Maybe? Without a word of a lie, my daydreams about how I'd spend sudden wealth are about what I could DO with the money, not what I could BUY with it.