Perhaps most familiar to readers here by the example in the movie “Trading Places”: formerly fabulously rich and successful people not merely fall but fall so far that they become homeless derelicts. It’s a popular trope given the attractiveness of the idea that the Wheel of Fortune could turn so radically, especially against an unsympathetic character.
But really, isn’t this an outdated cliche from the Stock Market Crash/ Great Depression? Yes, i.r.l. plenty of rich people have lost it all, but unless they became an alcoholic or a drug addict as a result I don’t see a ruined millionaire becoming a beggar in this day and age. It’s like depicting someone hungry enough to eat their leather shoes.
Trading Places was about rich people creating a folly for their amusement, at the expense of manipulating their own young, as well as regular people…Meanwhile the the tables turn…
It’s very unlikely, as there are usually some assets that are sheltered, like a residence. The worst ruined millionaires usually face is prison, because criminality is often a key reason for being ruined. Even minimum security is no joke, but you aren’t likely to get out and immediately have to look for a job as a short-order cook.
For example Elizabeth Holmes was screaming poverty last year when ordered to pay $250/month to victims of the Theranos scam once she was released from prison (she was jointly on the hook for $452 million along with Sunny Bulwani, no idea how much has been paid already). She said everything she had was in the company and her once $4.5 billion fortune was just dust now, leaving her with nothing. But while her poverty might be true, she left out that her husband (who cannot be billed directly because he married her after the scam) is a multi-millionaire heir in his own right.
Folks like Holmes, where the company was actually liquidated and all her assets seized, is as close as you come to full impoverishment and is a pretty extreme example. But such folks almost always have connections - in her case a moderately wealthy husband.
Which seems to show that in today’s America you can be flat broke– even technically hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that you cannot repay– and yet still somehow live in a nice home, wear nice clothes and be driven in a nice car; let alone not actually going hungry. At least for the 1% “ruin” is a relative term.
Truly rich people - those like Trump who were born on third base and grew up thinking they hit a triple - never go to “rags”. I have not read any of Trump’s ghost-written books, yet in at least one of them he says “Going bankrupt X times” (I believe it was four) proves how savvy or whatever you are.
President Biden was for a long time known as “Senator Credit Card” as he was pushing laws to make it hard, if not impossible, to declare bankruptcy on things like student loans, credit cards - what credit card company is not in Delaware?
Trump was able to run-up massive debt and either write it off for tax purposes or declare bankruptcy. Rich people can do that, and keep their multiple homes and fancy cars.
The plot of “Trading Places” is of course two-fold: Destroy the Dan Ackroyd character and elevate Eddie Murphy to his position. Some fakery with Frozen Concentrate Orange Juice futures ends up bankrupting the Duke brothers as they were highly leveraged the wrong way. I reckon they would have had enough socked away and untouchable yet The Stock Market will find it perhaps. I know they show up in another John Landis movie and they are still quite broke - but Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche broke so it’s funnny.
It’s certainly not my own coined phrase, yet rich people have a way of “falling upwards”. They’ll never hit rock-bottom. How could Mr. Potter from “It’s a wonderful life” ever be broke? At the end of the film he still stole money but the people pay for it. Like what always happens when Goldman Sachs or any number of firms that cannot go under go under
In a way, they’re a variation on a much older theme, that of the prince or nobleman whose inheritance was stolen and who is forced to live as an outlaw, vagabond or adventurer - guys like Perseus, or Robin Hood (in the stories where he’s a nobleman) or King Lear.
Maybe not really a thing among the “never touch your principal” old money class. But plenty examples of rags-to-riches-and-back from sports and entertainment. Joe Louis given a small room at a Las Vegas hotel in exchange for being the lobby greeter, Stan Laurel living in a tiny apartment in Santa Monica, Buster Keaton going from his mansion where they later filmed the Jack Woltz scenes in The Godfather to a clapboard ranch house in the Valley. I don’t doubt it’s still the same today.
Theres different kinds of rich people. People who were born into families that were rich and well connected, they don’t seem to ever go truly broke. Even Donald Trump who is an imbecile and bad at business always rebounded every time he fucked up.
But people who come from terrible backgrounds are different. People who come from trailer parks and ghettos, who never did well in school, who come from abusive homes, etc sometimes get rich through the entertainment industry like music, movies, sports, etc. A lot of them do go broke.
Mitt Romney made 250 million and is doing fine. Mike Tyson made 400 million and lost it all. Meat Loaf and Willie Nelson (among endless other artists) went broke.
Yeah there are a ton of celebrities, athletes, and literal lottery winners who had more than 100 million dollars in the bank and then sudden find themselves destitute 10 years later, almost always after a series of horrible investments and buying things that were a money sink like private jets and giant mansions.
Meat Loaf indeed declared bankruptcy in 1983, six years after Bat Out of Hell, and lost a great deal. But I wouldn’t consider him to have been broke. He had to tour more extensively for a few years…never reached the point of having to be a greeter at a casino or anything like that. He continued to be in fairly high demand for performances. When he reconciled with Steinman and Bat Out of Hell II came out, things turned back around and he started earning again at a respectable rate (and keeping more of it). As he aged, he was pretty charitable as well.
TL;DR: Yes, bad management and legal actions bankrupted him after his huge first album, but he bounced back pretty quickly and died with an estate estimated at over $40M.
I get the impression that up-and-coming pop and rock performers get offered terrible contracts by the record companies and concert promoters so that they end up with little money despite successful tours or album sales. That may explain someone like Meat Loaf going broke.