|
Vendaval -> Social commentary, banker's wives (3/18/2009 8:32:35 AM)
|
Social commentary on shifting priorities in the family lives of bankers who were paid in stocks and acquired huge amounts of debt. Learning to live within your means vrs being kept in the manner to which you have become accustomed.
"Divorce Marked to Market"
Margaret Doyle
March 16, 2009
MARITAL UNDERSTANDINGS
"But these marital understandings are now being called into question. Because so many banking bonuses were paid in stock, there are few financiers whose wealth has not been hammered by the decline in financial stocks over the past year. Moreover, with governments taking stakes in banks across the world, bonuses are out of the question for the next few years.
Worse, many financiers took on a lot of debt, buying fancy houses on the never-never and using their stock and expected pay as collateral. But the value of property has been plummeting too. Now such families are not just worthless: they are worth less than nothing. And many are unable even to pay the interest on their home loans.
Working class women used to keep cash in a jar for a rainy day — what some called “running away money”. They understood the value of having some financial independence. But another group of women, who should have known better, do not.
This well-educated lot, often with MBAs, seem to have ignored what they learned in investment 101: don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Instead, they are finding that their family’s entire lifestyle: home(s), holidays and schools are all an unhedged bet on the future of the finance industry. Far wiser to have reined in their husbands’ borrowing, and perhaps to have kept the job. They are now learning the lesson the hard way."
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/03/16/divorce-marked-to-market/
|
|
|
|
