By all accounts Michael Jackson was still leading a superstarish lifestyle up to his death and yet, supposedly, he was tens to hundreds of million of dollars in debt.
How did he manage this lifestyle while being effectively broke?
Credit. 
He still had an income. Royalties from his albums and beatles catalog. So he could have had 100 million in debt but as long as he was bringing in the 5 million or so per year to make the payment, he could continue living large. That being said, he was still in trouble. He lost neverland and was gonna have to do those london shows to bring in some cash.
I guess it’s really no different than a person owning a $300,000 home whose income is $50,000 per year. Just a difference in scale.
Many people mistakenly think that is someone is famous, they have tons of money and will never question whether the check is good, or if that person is good for the debt.
Here in Vegas, there are tons of stories of famous people getting lines of credit from casinos, or writing bad checks at nightclubs…yes, it usually ends up in a lawsuit, but by that time, the celebrity has moved on to new venues and new people who just assume all famous people are rich.
BTW, remember that infamous shopping tour MJ took in Las Vegas on some television special? On camera, he spent 100’s of thousands of dollars on crap. What DIDN’T appear in the news, but was reported locally on the news, was that the minute the cameras were turned off, the very next day all but one or two of those purchases were canceled.
From all accounts, Michael Jackson always had money and just refused to believe he didn’t have it. I think there was a story that his accountant had to sit down with MJ and explain it in a way he would understand, “Pretend your finances are french fries. As long as we have lots of french fries in the kitchen, you’re fine - but we are beginning to run out of french fries.” Seriously - that was supposedly the way the accountant explained it and sometimes MJ would actually ask his people, “Do we have enough french fries?” when he wanted to buy something.
I am sure his accountants were constantly trying to get him to reign in his spending, but with little luck. For one of his albums, MJ spend millions and millions in production and marketing, and lost a whole bunch. Wasn’t that how he almost lost the entire Beatles collection to Sony? Little foggy on the details, but the point is - he spent most of his life never worrying about money, so when the crunch came, he just continued to pretend it wasn’t a problem and let his accountants and lawyers deal with it. Towards the end, it was no secret that he was not really a good credit risk - I think even the local dry cleaners were making sure his checks cleared. I believe the cold hard truth had finally dawned on him when he was beginning his London tour, and he was finally forced into facing the facts.
He has stopped living, thankfully.
One of my great-uncles was a tailor in Barcelona. His shop was in a middle-class neighborhood and he made a decent living. When he got married, his well-to-do father in law decreed that he’d help my uncle “better his lot in life” and convinced him to move the shop to the posh district, introducing him to a slew of new, rich clients. These new clients would order four suits and pay… maybe one… then not pay for months until they needed to order again, at which point they might pay the three they still owed.
My uncle figured it was better to reopen his old shop, where he would make four suits for four different clients and get them all paid on delivery. Rich people are waaaaaay too used to being able to say “put it on my account;” I know the posh stores in my hometown have the same problem nowadays that he had 50 years ago.
I recall seeing an interview with a billionaire who had been forced into bankruptcy in which the interviewer naively asked him how it felt to be poor. The man laughed delightedly at this, explaining that not having any money didn’t make him poor, and that he hadn’t noticed the slightest difference in his lifestyle.
I know from my own experience as a street organizer and activist with the homeless that what separates the desperately poor from the rest of the population is lack of support. That is, we found once we started polling that a wildly disproportionate number of people living on the street – the majority in fact – had come from State care. When most people find themselves in financial hot water, they can rely on parents, siblings, and extended family to support them. A person without family is screwed. A single missed rent payment means ending up in the street. I imagine with someone like the billionaire I mentioned or Michael Jackson, the exact opposite is the case; no matter how far down they dig themselves, there is always a line-up of people only too eager to lend them a yacht or a chauffeur or give them a few million dollars to tide them over until the temporary financial unpleasantness is past.
I’m reminded of a quote from Lazarus Long, courtesy of Robert Heinlein:
“People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy half a slug who must tighten his belt.”
AKA "If you owe somebody a thousand dollars, you have a problem.
If you owe somebody a million dollars, they have a problem."
Regards,
Shodan
Here’s some info on some latter financial deals MJ made. (Reading the previous sections will also provide useful info.)
In short, he was mortgaging his publishing catalog (of which The Beatles music was part of) which provided significant bursts of money. But that meant diluting his ownership share. He also continued to receive big piles of income from it.
He was far from “broke” but the amount of funds available wasn’t as large as in the past so he was being forced to cut back in some ways. He actually didn’t lose all of Neverland but his ownership share is not known.
Canadian laws allow landlords to throw people out in the street after missing one payment? Must be a line at the border for real estate investors from the US who want to buy houses to rent.
Don’t U.S. laws allow that?
As one poster said “credit,” but there were other things too.
When Jackson travelled, he was most often a “guest” where he went. This means he pays for nothing.
I know of kids, that get on the Internet and make friends with other teens and young adults in Europe and they simply exchange houses and such.
In otherwords when I’m in Europe you can crash with me and vice versa. It’s my understanding from talking to them Germans are the most hospitable. As one guy told, “they don’t let you pay for nothing.”
Finally a lot of the money is hidden. Jackson’s money went into trusts, or other areas that can’t be touched.
For instance, in Texas they can’t attach your salary, in other states they can garnish your wages. So if you can live anywhere, just move to Texas. (This doesn’t apply to certain things like Child Support and Student Loans which are subject to garnishment regardless)
There are other ways around it too. Before Dick Haymes married Rita Hayworth he had tons of money issues including back taxes. To get around this he simply had the places he worked pay Rita not him.
That arrangement ended when a California judge ruled that Haymes ex-wife could go after Rita Hayworth for back child support and back alimony.
It was amazing once the judge said that, how quickly Hayworth’s lawyers got involved and stopped allowing mixing of their assets.
What it amounts to is this, if you have nothing you can’t get blood out of a turnip.
It’s kind of like, if I am going down the tubes toward bankruptcy and I have $2,000 left on my credit limit on my VISA card, hey why not charge it all up.
He had the ranch for a start. Even if had been a completely broken-down old has-been any new recording he released would make sizeable sales on the name alone. Who is it said “If you have to ask the cost you can’t afford it?” Money is for the poor, always was. Once you get to a certain level you are your own fortune. I think though that the Sheikh of Dubai or somewhere was into him for several million non-appearance compo but I don’t know what court in what land could make it stick.
The renting laws are provincial not federal. In Ontario at least, not only can you be evicted for missing a single payment, but you can be evicted for simply paying a single day late, as long as the landlord can show a pattern of lateness.
As I suspected. You can’t be thrown out for missing a single payment. It requires a pattern of late payments.
I have no idea what you’re trying to prove, but you’re derailing this whole thread doing it. You can be evicted in Ontario for late payment of rent – EVEN IF YOU PAY YOUR RENT. Get it? If you’ve paid your rent on the 2nd of the month for three or four months in a row, you can be evicted EVEN THOUGH YOU’VE PAID YOUR RENT.
You can ALSO be evicted for failing to pay a single month’s rent. In fact, you can be evicted after just 14 days. Read the Residential Tenancies Act if you’re so convinced that I’m lying.
(My emphasis in both)
How on earth do you get from the bolded part of SmashTheState’s quote to the bolded part of yours without ignoring what he said?
In every state I’ve lived in (5 so far) it usually takes 90 days/three months from requesting eviction of a tenant to when it actually happens - assuming some legal challenge doesn’t delay it even further.
This is the best single post I have read on the Dope all month…