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I worked in an auto repair shop that was run by a pretty dysfunctional family. Mom, Dad, and late teen/early adulthood "Junior".
Junior was the most spoiled brat, entitled, smug little b^stard I think I've ever seen. He was mouthy to the employees who made it possible for him to live like a prince, and Mom and Dad spoiled him rotten.
When he officially took over the business, it took all of two years for him to end up in bankruptcy court. He went from spending his parents money like a rock star to being an unemployable 40 year old with an addiction problem. He was so incompetent and irresponsible I doubt he could keep a job at McDonalds. He even lost his dog in the bankruptcy.
The shop was at one time a very well respected rock in the community. We had all the great accounts, the best crew anywhere and the shop made millions of dollars every year for at least a decade.
If he hasn't already spent his enabling parents into bankruptcy as well, it won't be much longer.
I know one, acquaintance of the family, he had it going pretty well, business owner, lots of work, owned some rentals, etc, etc. The type that would have a new one-ton pickup each year and lift it with wheels and tires every single time. Boat, jet skis, ATVs, rural living type entertainment stuff.
Same familiar story...drugs. Dude lost it all, damn shame.
I know one, acquaintance of the family, he had it going pretty well, business owner, lots of work, owned some rentals, etc, etc. The type that would have a new one-ton pickup each year and lift it with wheels and tires every single time. Boat, jet skis, ATVs, rural living type entertainment stuff.
Same familiar story...drugs. Dude lost it all, damn shame.
Explain??
I think that tells you how hard life can be even for the elite. If someone who builds themselves up and has a six figure income can lose it all for heroin, alcohol, coke, meth then it must show you the power of drugs
I think that tells you how hard life can be even for the elite. If someone who builds themselves up and has a six figure income can lose it all for heroin, alcohol, coke, meth then it must show you the power of drugs
Well, shortly, general contractor for custom homes. He built his company from scratch, started as a laborer as a teen out of high school. He worked his rear off, then sort of became a foreman of a area builder, then some manager, then went off on his own and building custom homes, which I guess have a pretty good profit margin compared to other builder areas.
He bought some rentals, renovated, and was making money off of those also. I not know how rich he was, but he had money for sure, not leveraging credit or anything. He had about 15 or so employees, a nice network also for subcontractors.
Really not know much about the drug thing, other than he was just your typical social alcohol drinker, then in his 40's, just took a turn all of a sudden. He got busted for possession of cocaine, then he caused a wreck in a company truck while high on cocaine and they found more in the truck. He was sentenced to serve time on that one. After that, escalated quickly as his business suffered heavily, income dries up, this is about the time when my parents stopped associating with him. His kids were already out of the house at least, wife divorced him and she left we assume back to her hometown/parents to start over.
Last I heard, and this is over ten years ago I heard (this story is from the late 80's/early 90's) he was some foreman for a local builder in the area, back to being a wage rate employee.
(quick related story) - he decided to get some Harley, and started to hang with some misfits, lower class? types for some reason, rumor he was seeing some girl that was part of this crowd, he met somehow, and this how he started falling into this drug thing. Just sort of a strong rumor.
There was an excavating company that the owner started from scratch. He had brothers and relatives operating equipment and was the only company doing that kind of work in the area.
His son took it over about the same time the casino opened about 70 miles away.
When the casino first opened, they would even send a limo for you if you were a very " high roller"
The son enjoyed the "special attention" he got from the casino and many days was leaving at noon.
Soon he was asking his employees to hold their paychecks for a few days before cashing.
If any of the big machines needed repair, they had to stay parked as there was no money for parts.
In the end, a nephew of the original owner ( cousin to the current owner) bought a few pieces and started on his own with about 4 employees.
He did well but never got as big a business as his uncle had when the son took over.
I drove past the son's place a year ago.
A little run down and a couple machines rusting behind the shed in the weeds.
(surprised they never got sold for salvage )
Many people got " done in" by drugs/alcohol.
This guy's downfall was gambling.
He just couldn't stop until he was broke.
The majority of NFL players and I suspect many other sports players end up bankrupt within 10 years of retiring. Some can't control their spending, others entrust their finances to someone else and get robbed blind, or many others marry a gold digger and get wiped out in the divorce. Protecting and managing your money is just as important as making it.
I know one from my college days. He told me he left home, when he was 10 to live with an aunt, after his father stabbed him with a fork. The last time I asked him about his parents, he didn’t know if they were alive or dead.
He sort of drifted around and ended up in the army. That apparently didn’t go well and he never told me why. After that, he lived on the streets for a while, working his was across the country, from Virginia to the Pacific Northwest. He ended up living about 6 months in the wilderness in British Columbia.
That experience seemed to “reset” him. He started reading, took a high school equivalency test and passed that easily. He then came back to Virginia and managed to get into a biology program (he became fascinated by the living world during his stay in BC). He got a B.S. in Biology, then enrolled in a Ph.D. Program in soil science at U. IL Urbana-Champaign. He got as far as prepping for his oral exam and decided to switch into law. He ended up getting a D. Jur. in biotech patent law. He became a successful biotech patent attorney in DC. Just before he retired, he had his own consultancy business advising people of the writing of patents. He retired recently to a nice waterfront property in Virginia with a nice boat and 80 acres of “getaway” land in Lexington. He told me on a couple occasions that he could not believe his life happened to him
My uncle was very rich when he lived in Iran in the 70s. He worked for a state oil company as an executive of sorts. He lived in an area of Tehran which was like Beverly Hills. After the revolution he lost everything.
Another person was a Jewish diamond dealer my dad worked with. He was fairly well off, but eventually the FBI approached a few of his associates (including my dad) to tell them he was being investigated for some type of accounting fraud. He went to jail.
But by far the worst example was that of our local ice cream truck driver. When we were kids he would come by our pool with the jingle playing; everyone would come out to buy some, it was like a tradition. No one goes anymore; I was talking to him recently and it seems he's making it by, but its sad to see. Whenever I hear the music playing when I'm at my parents house I feel empty inside knowing it will stop pretty soon.
A former coworker of mine had Iranian parents, but raised mostly in Kuwait. His father was relatively old when he had him and was somehow connected to the Shah and was apparently quite wealthy. The coworker left Kuwait for the US and his parents (pretty old five years ago) also came.
The parents had a nice place in an affluent suburb, but I got the feeling from the stories he told they used to be a lot better off in Iran than they are now.
Jimmy Caynes was an outstanding Bridge player - among the best of the best. That's what he did. He didn't really want to do much of anything with his life but play Bridge.
His wife got pissed that they didn't have much in the way of household income (I think his wife's father owned a car dealership at which Jimmy Caynes sold cars). She pushed him and pushed him and pushed him to make more money -- and eventually he ended up interviewing for a job at now-defunct Bear Sterns.
Fast forward many years, and Jimmy Caynes was CEO of Bear Sterns. He spent most all of his time at Bridge tournaments, because that's all he really cared about. He was personally worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.1 Billion or so, almost all of it in Bear Sterns stock.
Then the Financial Crisis hit. Bear Sterns went belly-up. He lost essentially everything.
And he still plays Bridge. That's all he ever wanted to do.
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