Forgive me if I thought this was a comment on how much money these guys make Maybe, I wasn't aware that he had all his money in one investment. If so, that's obviously a bad idea. Still doesn't make his loss his fault, though.
Funny my grandma doesn't have money with Madoff or Standford, I guess it's true that a fool and its money are soon parted. If you're a newly minted millionaire ball player walking around, be wary of people who want to make you easy money. He lost it by his own actions.
I haven't heard much other than the headlines, but Stanford was offering investors the equivalent of an "insured 15% CD"? In a time of 3% on treasuries and nearly 0% on everything else? What were these investors thinking? Who are their advisors?
Having *less* sympathy than for a poorer or more vulnerable victim would make sense, but having no sympathy or even empathy at all for an innocent person getting screwed over by a conman seems a bit strange. Is there any particular reason for your view? Did the guy fuck your girlfriend or beat you up in a bar or something? Or perhaps you think making money automatically turns someone into a subhuman? This is similar to the Madoff victims. Yes, they were *dumb*. But being dumb with your own money is not a crime and is definitely not immoral. The only way I can make sense of the total lack of empathy so many people felt is pure envy and schadenfreude. It was quite telling just how many people in both cases revealed themselves to be envious, sociopathic scum, hating people who had not done anything wrong.
That's like saying people in the developed world don't deserve to be able to afford a house, car, and 3 meals a day, or get a life expectancy over 20, or enjoy liberty and basic human rights. After all, we are no intrinsically more worthy than people in the middle ages who had none of those things. The owners of sports teams choose, of their own free will, to pay pro athletes these salaries. As do the fans choose to buy the tickets or pay per views. So, according to *the people who write the cheques*, the athletes DO deserve their salaries. Who are you to say what they do or don't deserve, when other people are more than happy to hand over their hard earned savings to get the pleasure of watching competitive sports at the highest level? Baseball is not my thing, but when I pay to watch a boxing match I can assure you that 99% of the time every single spectator in the place feels that the competitors deserve all that they earn for that fight. And watching sports doesn't mean you have to be fat - speak for yourself! It's quite amusing the amount of class envy, socialism, and sheer petty jealousy that has sprung up in the last few months. The looters are really coming out of the woodwork nowadays.
These kind of people want their own salaries to be higher than everyone else of similar ability, but at the same time they don't want to be paid less than anyone of superior ability. Just like most people in opinion polls say they want lower taxes but also higher levels of welfare and government services. Many people are just dumb as rocks, and a good percentage are spiteful and amoral too, that's the only explanation I can think of.
Hopefully one day when you are in trouble and need help, all the potential good Samaritans are nowhere to be seen, and the only people who noticed your plight are just like you, just say Big Whoop and walk on by, leaving you to your fate. Maybe then you'll understand the purpose of empathy for others.
People are stupid. Not saying this ball player is although obviously it sucks he got defrauded. But how is this any different from being diversified and having your money with CITI and BAMC or JPMorgan TD ameritrade, Etrade, Right now we are all fucked. You are only safe, because the government is stealing from everyone else to give you the illusion that your money is safe. If you don't have gold bars under your bed and some gold in a numbered singapore account. you are not safe. Is that diversification? Our society was great because we have high trust among each other. We trust the guy to be honest. If there is no trust there is no safety. you trust the driver next to you is not going to pull a gun and shoot you at a light, are you stupid for not wearing body armor. You trust the teacher is not going to do anything to your kids, are you stupid for sending them to school. You trust the cop that pulled you over, is not going to beat you senseless are you stupid for pulling over? Right now, it appears ( not necessarily fact but an image that is broadcast) that there are no real honest people left except the broke ones. I don't know if society is going to hell in a hand basket although Obama and media want you to think so. They want class, race, ethnic warfare, they want low trust among all people. They want responses, "like ball player loses money FU". Once we all start walking around seeing everyone as enemies we are done for. Also regarding the ball player. If a guy makes 2 million more power to him. Remember these athletes sign contracts for 3-5 years and the medial reports the lump some but they get paid like everyone else. The low end guys are high middle class lower upper making 150K or 250K a year on straight income with their wives at home. they have no fancy small business deductions. They may have a lucky job but at the end of they day many are a working class stiff who is one injury away from unemployment. If you work for your employer and plan to stick around for 10 years making a 100K you don't announce you have a 10 million dollar contract right? I say we better avoid the class warfare shit, or its just a matter time before shit starts burning.