ABC News brings us this gem on a former hedge manager who squandered his wealth so badly that he was forced to deliver pizza after years of making six figures. Somehow, I don’t have any sympathy for this guy. Not only did he only save $500k while having an annual salary of up to $750k but he managed to blow it and lose all the equity in his house because being incredibly wealthy wasn’t good enough and he wanted to be filthy rich.
So having made a bad bet with starting his own hedge fund and seemingly doubling down by throwing all of his house equity to the cause, the guy and his wife seem to have no idea on how to regroup. First, he did the right thing in trying to get a job, any job. And there’s nothing wrong with being a pizza delivery man as an intermediary step (Disclosure: My dad did that for several years while learning and reeducating himself English when we first got to America). But second, as soon as he knew he was in financial trouble his wife should have gotten a job, his kids pulled out of boarding school and sent to public school, his mansion short sold, his car downsized, his luxury crap like jet skis liquidated (read: sold on ebay) and a multiple other money saving steps needed to be taken.
The fact that the guy kept his kids in boarding schools, still has luxury car or two (how can he deliver pizza on a car without a transmission), jet skis and his wife isn’t making money tells me the gravity of the situation hasn’t sunk in. Instead of actively selling their crap on ebay so when they house is seized, they’ve maximized their profit from the stuff they’d otherwise leave behind they seem to be lost.
I have no sympathy.
Seems like somewhere in his education this guy needed to pay attention to some of the books he was forced to read in English class. Whether it’s Dreiser’s American Dream or Sinclair’s The Jungle one of the lessons they teach is that no matter how good things are at any point in your life, they can get drastically worse at any other point. As such, it’s a must to have a safety net. His safety net was his $500k in the bank and the equity in his house. “Investing” all of it into the hedge fund was stupid. It’s a shitty way to learn a lesson, but honestly many of the people like him who made a ton and saved a little had it coming.
