The Jackson kids on hard times.
I guess when you're a superstar, particularly from childhood, it never occurs to you that you could ever fall on hard times. But it just has to occur to me that if Marlon Jackson, for example, had just stashed away a tiny percentage of the riches that once flowed his way, he would not have to stock supermarket shelves for a living now.
When the money was coming in fast, if he'd just asked his accountant to put a steady five percent in a Swiss bank account, or something.
This article hints at a very complex and bizarre story, though. It seems to be one of those cases where so many people and conflicting egos are involved that we can be sure we will never know the real truth of it. Nothing makes sense, and everybody is claiming different things.
I know from experience that even when you were right in the middle of things, things did not look any clearer, in fact sometimes just the opposite.
5 comments:
How many lottery winners are now dirt poor? You sure have to be clever (and in many cases to have learned the hard way) to keep money in this world.
Sure seems like it.
John McGuinness is en extreme example. He won £10 million in a lottery. Eleven years later, he has blown it all, is £2 million in debt, looking for a job and applying for a council house.
There is something strange about money that almost no one understands.
More like there's something strange about our psychology most individuals are unaware of. Money's a bunch of paper and/or metal. It's a means to an end, and that's where folks get into trouble. They pursue ends without sufficient resources and they don't know when or how to cut their losses.
The reasons for this range from lack of self knowledge to financial ignorance to the mythical status given to cash. So many will say, "money is powerful" but it isn't. If men didn't honor it it'd be no more useful than the colored paper in a Monopoly game.
The individual is powerful. The individual makes choices. The individual has a much greater range of choices available when he's come into possession of money. The cash itself is only a bargaining chip. The problem is many people are unaware of how they want to use that bargaining chip. They think money is the key to happiness, that the myriad things they buy will never leave them discontented. Often, when this turns out not to be the case, it doesn't serve to stop consumption but rather increase it. If a little didn't work, perhaps more will?
Let's not forget how many cannot handle a small amount of money without digging themselves deeper and deeper into debt. In some cases it can't be helped; the cards are really stacked against them. More often than not, however, debt is the result of a series of unwise choices. Introducing more money doesn't fix those problems, it amplifies them. People think money will fix everything. Perhaps they get a little arrogant when their initial debts are paid off- they think they've struck oil and the flow will continue no matter how many bad decisions they make or how carelessly they throw their riches to the wind. Why chop firewood when you can lob a pile of cash into the fireplace? It keeps you just as warm and there's plenty more where that came from.
And then there's all those people who want to tell the recent star or lottery winner just how to use all that scratch. Bad advice is probably accepted for reasons such as guilt or a fear of appearing ignorant. A financially unsavvy person might be inclined to accept bad advice on the part of someone who appears to know what he/she is talking about, if only because he doesn't want to look like a fool. In fact that type of person would be the easiest to con. You can piss in a glass and get him to drink it if you convince him it's what all the stylish people are doing.
No doubt there's more to it than all of that, but it seems there's a basic pattern in all foolish behavior. It makes sense, considering the vast majority of actions are either taken in the pursuit of happiness or the lessening of discomfort. If someone is lacking self-knowledge and he's ignorant of how the world works (as it seems like most people are) then any riches gained are temporary at best.
Those lottery winners who do just fine don't make the papers.
As for these entertainers especially children, a lot end up like Gary Coleman where their parents steal their money.
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