Impersonal Finance

I figured I would start this series with one of the more famous athlete/bankruptcy case. For those who don’t know, Jack Clark was a Major League Baseball player who had a nice, but relatively obscured careers.  Three times in his career, he was listed as one of the highest paid players in the game.

In August of 1992, he stunned the baseball world by filing for bankruptcy. Why was it so stunning? He was in the 2nd year of a three year contract guaranteed to pay him $2.9m each year. In the filing, he listed assets of approximately $4.8m and debts of about $11.5m. Some of his assets included 18 luxury cars. Yes, you heard that correctly. 18 cars!

That astounding number of cars was just part of Clark’s problem. He had major credit card debts, multiple houses and even a six figure federal tax bill. Supposedly he even blamed his wife for their financial issues. How many of those 18 cars were hers, do you think?

Even in the 80s and early 90s players were making good money and they can definitely use that money for whatever they want. That being said, they shouldn’t be able to abuse the system and file some papers and get out from all that debt. He made 10s of millions over his whole career and the entire fault for his financial issues rest with him.

Jack Clark is exhibit A why everyone needs a financial planner/advisor. Just like you would never operate on yourself or represent yourself in court, why do people think they can do financial planning themselves? If multi-millionaires need help, what makes you think you don’t? People are conditioned to answer calls with “I’m all set” or “I’m working with someone” even if they aren’t. I am sure Jack Clark said that to someone at some point. Look at him now. If you answer an advisor’s call like that, I hope you never end up in same situation as Clark. If he had a business manager or advisor, that person would make sure he could never spend in a lifetime, the money he made in just a few years.

I thought it might be fun to have a few recurring segments. Not ones that run every day or every week even, but just when I’m in the mood. These are the three I will start with, but I reserve the right to add or subtract from the list over time.

Celebrity Profiles - Some celebrities make millions of dollars in various vocations whether they be actors, musicians, athletes, etc. Some of these celebrities do very well for themselves. They save and invest well and can turn their income earned in to vast financial empires. Others leave trails of disaster and waste. Turning their huge incomes in to debt and bankruptcy. I plan on profile a cross-section of successes and failures in any and all fields of entertainment.

Book Reviews - Just do an Amazon.com search of financial or economic books and literally 100s of titles show up. I will try to help sift through and make recommendations on which ones are good and which ones should never leave the warehouse. I don’t read much for fun, but if I come across an off-topic novel worth your time, I may review that book as well.

Movie Reviews - I am a HUGE movie buff. Numerous movies with finance or money as a general theme like “Other People’s Money”, “Wall Street” and “Trading Places” exist. My reviews will focus solely on the economic aspects of the movie and explain whether those scenes are practical or accurate.

I have a list of celebrities, books and movies I plan on featuring, but I will gladly take suggestions should people have them.