They say technology and death are the great levelers? Add one more to that bunch – the recession. Yup. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, anyone can be a sucker.
Rich people, who many may think have better financial wisdom than most, displayed some of the worst financial decision-making during the Great Recession. And it’s not only Bernie Madoff’s investors who got scammed. Other people got the same sucker punch from a slew of other opportunists.
Gallery owner Lawrence Salander was caught by feds after running a $120 million fraud scam that victimized the likes of Robert De Niro and John McEnroe. Money manager Ken Starr duped $30 million from Barbara Walters, Al Pacino, and Uma Thurman.
The interesting question is why do even rich people get scammed liked the average Joe.
Well, there are many possibilities to this. It’s easy to think that everyone’s just as smart as the next guy. Movie stars and athletes just so happened to make a lot of money because of their industry but financially, they might not be as savvy.
For some, it’s about the amount of money that they have. A thousand dollars would simply be a drop in a huge bucket that they can really gamble on a few drops without having to lose sleep over it.
My take? It’s just the human nature of wanting more. The irritating thing about it, though, is that if Al Pacino loses a few hundred thousand dollars, he won’t be starving. If Joe loses his house, that’s it for him.
Source: CNN
