My Mercedes 300D has antique plates (1984).
Posted on 11/29/2010 12:26:59 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Grateful to have found work in this tough economy, Nick Martin teaches grape growing and winemaking each Saturday to a class of seven students in a simple metal building here at a satellite campus of Highland Community College.
Then he drives 14 miles in an 11-year-old Ford Explorer to a sparsely furnished tract house that he rents for $900 a month on a dead-end street in McFarland, a smaller town. Just across the backyard is a shed that a neighbor uses to make cartridges for shooting the prairie dogs that infest the adjacent fields.
It is a far cry from the life that Mr. Martin and his family enjoyed until recently at their Adirondacks waterfront camp at Tupper Lake, N.Y. Their garage held three stylish cars, including a yellow Aston Martin; they owned three horses, one that cost $173,000; and Mr. Martin treated his wife, Kate, to a birthday weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria, with dinner at the "21" Club and a $7,000 mink coat.
That luxurious world was fueled by a check Mr. Martin received in 1998 for $14 million, his share of the $600 million sale of Martin Media, an outdoor advertising business begun by his father in California in the 1950s. After taxes, he kept about $10 million.
But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches, the money slipped through the Martins' fingers faster than they ever imagined....
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I’m with you. Serious case of dumba$$.
I am sorry, this story is not drubbing up sympathy for someone who had 10 million dollars and pissed it away because they never thought they could ever (or needed to prepare for) be hit with hard times - or even live responsibly and control themselves.
On a similar note, I heard ABC News radio today saying the freezes to Federal payrolls would be “painful”.
Oh, God.
This guy needs to get an editor’s job at the nyt.
The money "slipped through his fingers".....reminds me of the articles on teenage girls who "find themselves pregnant".
HE SPENT IT WILLINGLY AND VOLUNTARILY.
THAT is the story.
$900 rent can get you a nice place in many parts of the country
How in THE heck do you blow $10M? What a moron. No sympathy at all for that doofus.
But I think one of the key parts of the story is how they've taken in renters on their property they're not even paying the mortgage on. Seems like theft to me. I shan't be shedding any tears for Mr. Martin.
I pay $649 for a 2BR/1BA with water & maintenance included.
“He vacillates between blaming the builders and blaming himself for letting costs get out of hand. “We should have built something quite modest,” he conceded.”
Easy come, easy go. $10,000,000 does not make one ultra wealthy. Blowing it on $6,500,000 of real estate is like spending 1/10 that amount of a million... still too much for non revenue producing assets... dumb.
He had a way over inflated perception of 10,000,000 and not working.
Geez life is tough? I’ve never lived like he did and our Jeep is a 1994.
Again, there is a little glossing over the big tell. Daddy had a business. Other family members ran it, but he got a nice chunk. I wonder how the relatives that he had “tension with” are doing today?
How about former pro athletes are now broke after being paid millions per year? How about lottery winners who are broke after a few years?
Stupid is as stupid does......Forest Gump.
My Mercedes 300D has antique plates (1984).
I think the moral of the story is that his father made the money and he blew it. If he had sweat equity in the family business, he would have valued it.
Pretty funny
Exactly!
“But as so often happens to those lucky enough to realize the American dream of sudden riches, the money slipped through the Martins’ fingers faster than they ever imagined.”
That part ticked me off. The American dream is not “sudden riches” - it is having the ability to achieve the highest and reap the rewards of your hard work and determination. Mr. Martin, in the story, inherited his $14 million, and like so many lottery winners, he lost it all. My guess is those who actually built the company and created the wealth, didn’t so easily lose it because they understand what goes into creating it.
Didn't show much respect for the half-century of effort that went into his "windfall".
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