Unhappy millionaires
Craig Newmark uses the word of the week (schadenfreude) to point us to coverage of failed lottery winners:
Juan Rodriguez wanted nothing more than to be one of the guys in rural South Texas where he was raised, and he was until six years ago, when he had the misfortune to acquire almost $9 million from the state lottery.Today, he's lost his anonymity, his buddies, whatever girlfriends he once had, and most of his family, whom he no longer trusts. He rarely ventures outside the trailer here where he lives alone.
. . .
"The rule of thumb we use is sudden wealth will ruin people in three to five years," said Thompson, president of Sage Financial Design, a Connecticut-based company whose clients include instant millionaires."At the end of five years, the money's going to be gone or the human being is going to be gone. They either lose their money or themselves or both."
Two observations. First one is for Sage Financial: if your business is to handle instant millionaires, maybe you could help them not be ruined, rather than just observing them, no?
Second: it has always struck me, especially when looking at so-called "happiness" research, that extreme poverty and extreme wealth amplify a person's nature. It might be a part of their nature that they had not indulged before, but there it is. Instant millionaires are people whose daily struggle to make a living restrained their inner demons, and those demons are unleashed in a moment.
