Reply With Quote
He said that. But that's wrong. The last time I saw an estimation of Shaq's net worth it was something like 300 millions. With the financial crisis, divorce, lifestyle... it may be less now or someday. But 300 millions... I call that wealthy
Some pretty good comedy in that article regarding the stupid "sexy" investments.
He said that. But that's wrong. The last time I saw an estimation of Shaq's net worth it was something like 300 millions. With the financial crisis, divorce, lifestyle... it may be less now or someday. But 300 millions... I call that wealthy
I was not reading all what was posted here, but why should the leauge take any responsibility for a player having problems with spending his money?
All in all league gives them money, and now they must to menage (in a way) this money?
Let's make one thing clear:
Nobody, whether the league, or society, or us, or anybody else, has an obligation to keep immature and foolish multimillionares from squandering away their money.
Now, we might find it undesirable that people can be so foolish and self-destructive, and lament the state of cultural poverty being such that wide swaths of the population have no concept of basic adult decision-making, much less financial responsibility. We might find that so lamentable that we choose to step into the gap and attempt to educate people on how not to squander away millions in wealth that should leave them set for life. We might measure how effective those attempts at education, even mentoring, are, because we want them to succeed. But the players are not en led to it.
I'm getting kind of tired of continual excuses for the failure of people to exercise the basic responsibility of adulthood. We cannot continue to argue both ways, blaming the league for keeping 18-year-olds out of the league and making them wait for the big payday, but then also blaming the league when these same immature 18-year-olds don't have the life skills to deal suddenly with being wealthy.
And while I'm at it, as the article points out, it's not like the athletes grow out of it. The 18-year-old fools grow up to be 35-year-old fools. Is David Stern supposed to be the proxy parent for these players or something? Does the NBA need a program where a league official follows the players around and wipes their asses for them?
And I understand that this isn't limited to athletes. It used to be, that if somebody had access to wealth, and squandered it away, that it was their own problem. Now we have a society where people demand a handout and then blame the ones who handed it out to them when they fritter it away, and society wrings its hands and feels guilty. We are a society where fewer and fewer people ever grow up. A nation that refuses responsibility deserves tyranny.
All you have to do is read in the Club here to see many people who have made just as stupid choices, simply on a much smaller scale.
I've known and worked for Microsoft millionaires that have gone broke. I think the how's and why's are pretty much the same for everyone: not taking care of your money.
Millions of dollars seems to have a way of making people think they're smarter than they really are, and that their fortunes will always be stable and improve.
I think it would be more accurate to say that "80% of these atheletes are uneducated and have never been accustomed to seeing money . . ."
These athletes are not aware of their money spending, taxes and everything else you get billed for. Not to mention the women of thier lives, family and their dreams to own a successful business. Its not that they are black, or because they have alot of money, its like everything else, lack of education on the matter. You have to know how to budget your money, take responsibility for what you owe, and save!! If i made 15 million in four years, i would get a cool million dollar home, a few cars, hook up the wifey and kids, and close family members, and save the rest. Along the way, i would be paying my bills, and investing in MUTUAL FUNDS. they get paid, they can add money into an account that they wont touch until retired, and after so long inserting a couple thousands per month for 8 years, you gain interest, make a cool million or 2 or 3 or 4 for just saving!!! YA DIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!
Well i went to college, and paid attention!!!...that might be the overall factor!!!
IGNORANCE is for losers! ahem, broke atheltes.
Well at least they are stimulating the economy. Money leaves multimillionaire ball players hands and go directly back into the economy to buy other knick knacks.
I've always believed I had an obligation to the people who worked for me. If not as an employer, then as a friend. Maybe even just from one human being to another. I don't want to believe that I am in the minority for thinking that way.
Haven't any of you ever taken the car keys from a friend after a night out? I bet your friend "knew better" than to drive drunk. So why didn't you just let him go and make his own bad decisions?
Carry that idea a little further. What if the friend has been at your house all evening, and you're the one who's been pouring him drinks? You didn't twist his arm, but you kept his glass full. Technically you're not responsible for him deciding to get drunk... right? Would that knowledge be enough to make you feel good, if he crashed after leaving your house? Seriously, folks, if you see somebody about to step off a cliff, how hard is it to raise your voice?
I think a lot of people are just pissed that "these young punks get millions of dollars thrown at them for playing a damned game". Worse, I think a lot of those same people take pleasure in watching them crash and burn. I think Stern really does care what happens to the players. But I think he is also smart enough to know that the league benefits from trying to give some guidance to the ones who are willing to accept it. I guarantee you that a lot of them don't know anybody who isn't trying to get into their pockets. Bernie Madoff scammed some very well-educated people, who had a lot of experience dealing with money. Why should these 20-something kids be expected to know better?
I don't like the thugs in the league, and I wouldn't begin to excuse them. But I could say the same thing about drunk drivers. Not everyone who drives home after a night out is a menace to society. Some of them just need a friend to ask for the keys and call them a cab.
Being drunk and being a friend it's a diferent thing from being employed and getting payed.
You can offer advice, but you cannot make people do it. It has been stated many times that there is a program the NBA has in place and all rookies are forced to attend. So they know where to look for help.
You are right, people do want to help, but just like a parent who has a troubled child, you lay down the rules and draw the line at a certain point. The point most of us are making is that in your drunk driving scenario, I would take the keys away or call a cab, but I am not always going to be there when that person is drinking.
When no one is around, what will that person do?
I remember an interview Shaq did awhile back - not sure exactly when - but he spoke of this very issue. When he signed his rookie contract he thought that he had all the money in the world and startded spending it left and right. He hadn't considered taxes at the time. Shocked him how much that was! Pretty soon he found out that he didn't have as much as he thought so he either got an adivisor or started listening to him and set up a financial plan to invest his money. I give him credit for seeing what was happening to his money and doing something about it. Most though probably think that the next contract will take care of the debt that is piling up now. Many seem to think that they can make nore later to help alleviate the current deficit spending. Sounds pretty American to me.
Point is and has been made is that most people aren't very good at handling these sums of money and don't really plan ahead. It's seems to be a "let the good times roll" type of situation until Peter is standing in the doorway and it's time to pay the piper. Always thought that there should be a course in high school about finaces - balancing checkbooks and setting up budgets - that sort of subject matter. Our "buy now and pay later" society is finally catching up with us.
Well if they were exactly the same thing, it wouldn't be an analogy, now would it?
You know, politically I'm a pretty hard-assed conservative, and I strongly believe in personal accountability. If somebody screws up, I say they are responsible for their actions. But damn, some of you are hard markers.
I bet not one of you would react the same way to a corporation sending an executive to leadership training, or a life coach. , I can think of four execs I've konwn whose companies paid to send them to fat farms, because they were very overweight. A few people laughed, but nobody got pissed off about it. A large bank I worked with had a young-ish Senior VP (Harvard MBA) who started thinking he was Donald Trump - and his wife shopped like Ivana Trump. He got himself into a serious financial hole, and started drinking too much. The bank paid for a financial consultant and a life coach to help him get his together.
Maybe some people are just more deserving of help than others.
Nobody here suggested these guys aren't responsible for their actions. Nobody said that the government should force the league to babysit them. But at least the the league had enough sense to start a program to help these guys deal with their sudden wealth, instead of just saying, " em... let em drown." I don't see why some people think that's a bad thing.
If I was good enough to play ball and make tons of money, I would still by my clothes from Wal-Mart.
No one is thinking the league mandated system is a bad idea in principle. Everyone is saying it is a two-way street. You can only help those who want to be helped. It is great that the league has these mechanisms in place, but the players must buy into it.
I think it is fantastic when a company pays for programs to help their employees.
Who was that former Chicago Bulls player who had to work tons of hours as a bus driver after retiring from basketball, because he was an undergrad?
I remember a lottery winner story a few years back in NJ I think, who was a ex-truck driver who with his instant wealth bought a multimillion dollar McMansion, his wife divorces him, his friends abandoned him when the money dried up, high taxes are due, he bought every whim, car and toy and now sits a in a multi room home with indoor/outdoor pool (he can't maintain to use), 2 lane bowling alley, etc. He can't maintain its value, his roof has problems, (minimum 25K roof repairs, not even a replacement), gardening amok, regular house maintenance/upkeep in the thousands and he's was now flat broke. There are legions of such stories from people unaccustomed to sudden wealth who essentially blew it all away. It was the saddest story I ever saw in a strange kind of way.
Look at the people who got FREE houses from that Extreme Makeover show that are now in foreclosure because they borrowed against the value of the house.
Man, my college must have been different than some others, or perhaps it was my liberal arts degree - but there was certainly no financial preparation course or anyone explaining to me how my money was best managed.
I think we've done pretty well for ourselves; we pay our bills on time, we don't live too extravagantly, we are attempting to reduce our debt and increase our savings, we bought a house and car we could afford, waited to have children, have good credit scores, etc etc. And yet, our financial manager was appalled by our savings and life insurance when we met with him. No one had ever told me we should have more or what we should have. I'm educated, I like to think I've made generally good decisions, but here we are knowing that if one of us is killed in a car wreck tomorrow, we're in trouble financially.
I can't blame a 19 or 20 year old kid for not being a good money manager, or for not knowing how to manage the money. A lot of the kids think they will get the big payouts, even if they don't. A lot of kids assume they'll get some supplemental income from endorsements and what not. A lot of kids don't understand that the lavish lifestyle they are setting up now - even a moderate one they can afford, like a 4-bedroom house when they live alone and just one Rolex and one nice car - may not be affordable when they are no longer playing.
It's no one's responsibility to make good decisions for them. You can't stop someone from giving money to their cousins and giving their friends a job or investing in something stupid. But there is a lot of natural ignorance that is often compounded by not seeing their own bills.
How many of these guys sit down and pay the bills every month? How many review their bank statements or the charges from their financial advisers and see what they are actually paying for? Goodness, most Americans don't review their bank statements regularly or closely, and most of these guys aren't paying their own bills.
What is one of the first things they tell you in eliminating debt? Track your money. See where it's really being spent. Since these guys usually aren't paying their own bills, they have no idea how much they are really wasting on things. Let alone whether or not they are being taken advantage of.
Recently, my boss, coworkers and I - all college educated women - were talking about how much money we'd need to win in the lottery to quit our jobs and retire. Of course, me, being the youngest and the only one with/planning to have kids, was in a different situation, because I'd need to cover more years, private insurance for a family (since I get free through work), college educations, etc. My boss was surprised when I said I'd need at least 10 million. She, an accountant, no less, couldn't understand why, when her own number was so much lower. She listed out everything she'd buy, what it would cost and how much she'd need in addition to what she'd receive in retirement, then returned to work.
I looked at my coworker and said, "But what about taxes? True, if I bought a new house, I wouldn't have a mortgage payment each month, but I'd still have to set aside the escrow equivalency to pay for taxes and insurance on it. And what about health insurance? We'd have to pay privately."
Millions of dollars - it sounds really nice, and seemingly for so little (playing a sports season, winning the lottery), but when you really have to stretch it through the remainder of your life if you want to maintain a moderate lifestyle and not work . . . it's a lot less than you would think. And if nobody explains that - how are you to know?
Just look at the guy that invented the pet rock. Now THAT was a good investment.
These numbers are simply staggering. No one is saying rich athletes need a bailout, but the players unions should definitely try to educate these players on how to avoid these problems.
Now, if these guys just let ME handle their money, it'd be a lot better.... for me!
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
