Financial Accuracy

This morning I was thinking about how I should address yesterday’s news and when I looked at a recent comment I received, I went and did a little digging.

Michael Jackson has a place in all of our hearts.  He was made fun of my so many for so long, but when it all came down to it, we all loved his music, his dance moves, and his shenanigans.  It was all so very entertaining.

His financial life was a disaster.  I don’t know the complete details, but he was in a lot of debt to a lot of people, for a lot of years.  Most likely, he was just really bad with money.

In the Wall Street Journal, an article shows how it was quite possible that financial stress may have been the catalyst of his death:

A profligate lifestyle and his massive legal fees had also left the singer with $500 million in debt, and he defaulted on a $24.5 million loan backed by Neverland. However, Mr. Jackson had made a few key business decisions early on that kept him afloat through the tabloid-fodder madness that eventually engulfed him. By acquiring and holding lucrative music-publishing he assets, including the rights to many Beatles songs, he was able to maintain a modicum of financial stability.

Nevertheless, by early 2009, Mr. Jackson was so overextended financially that he was in a panic about money, people close to him said.

It appears Michael was going to try to alleviate his debt by going back on tour.  Within five hours of tickets being on sale for his upcoming tour, 750,000 tickets had been sold.  Perhaps that would have helped him find his way back to financial freedom – or perhaps he would have just spent it on more silly things.  One thing we know for sure: There is a real purpose for learning how to deal with your money, whether you have a lot or whether you don’t have very much.  You need to learn how to manage your money.  It will make your life much less complicated.