Comments on: Lots of Money Will Not Make You Smart

By: Free Money Finance

Free Money Finance — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:21:19 +0000

Star Money Articles for the Week of July 3

Here are interesting posts and news this week from the MoneyBlogNetwork members and beyond: Consumerism Commentary discusses shopping at IKEA. AllFinancialMatters says that lots of money will make you smart. MightyBargainHunter suggests camping for a f…

By: Independent George

Independent George — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 14:20:29 +0000

Well, the players are claiming that the hedge fund was endorsed by the NFLPA; if that’s true, this bears a striking similarity to the story about the teachers union scams (just substitute ‘hedge fund’ for ‘mutual fund’). I think the sales pitch was probably more about their shorter work/retirement ratios and much larger expected medical expenses than about how much money they were making. The thing to remember about this story is that the reason they got scammed is because they were trying to be responsible with their money, and not because they blew it on needless junk.

On the other side of the equation, here’s a sad story on an earlier generation of NFL retirees. A lot of these guys retired barely able to walk.

By: sam

sam — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:15:13 +0000

This reminds me of the book “The Millionaire Next Door” where the authors discuss high income, high consumption individuals. They make lots of money, but spend it just as fast. They are the people that your average person thinks of when they think of rich persons – lavish consumption, ostentatious displays of material goods.

The authors contrast that type of person with the person who has greater wealth, accumulated by work or investment, and who has a modest lifestyle. Most of their neighbors don’t even know that these people are millionaires by their lifestyle.

I hope that these athletes can find some competent financial advice that lets them channel their short-term high incomes into long term financial security.

By: Dale G.

Dale G. — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 00:26:03 +0000

There’s another reason that pro athletes do have a special situation. Their working careers are shorter than most professions. They start earning young, but they can’t continue to compete until they qualify for Social Security.

By: Foobarista

Foobarista — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 20:32:26 +0000

They need professional wealth management even more than most richer people. Unlike most rich people, who built their fortunes over time and with close attention to their business and financial strategies, pro athletes are suddenly showered with wealth at a young age without any training or experience in how to deal with it. It is little wonder that lots of the wealth goes for parties, friends, and scams.

Good agents offer wealth management services that specialize in athletes and their issues, and most athletes do take advantage of it nowadays.

A friend of mine who worked in the SF Giants front office said that baseball players tend to do better than most; his theory was that baseball players spend their early years in the minors and are somewhat older than most football and basketball players when they get their taste of big bux.

By: Kira

Kira — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 13:13:49 +0000

NFL players want to feel special like everyone else. And most of them did not come from money so they don’t have a good idea of how wealthy people do manage their money.