Sudden Wealth Syndrome
There are many ways to confuse a human being: giving him too much to eat, cutting off the internet connection, making him/her watch Only God Forgives, or have him win the lottery or have a very sudden increase in wealth. I'm going to talk about the last one. Let me get started with the tale of MC Hammer, a convenient example to help me pave the road to explaining excessive personal spending. The rapper, who got over 33 million US dollars just with his third album, proceeded then to go on a spending spree that is more common among the newly rich than anyone could possibly suspect. To start it up nicely, he bought a house for 12 million US dollars (which later on he couldn't afford to keep). Did I say house? Well. This humble crib had a bowling alley, a recording studio, a 33 seat movie theater, tennis courts, pools, and a couple other much needed goodies. This house ended up being sold for less than half its original price. Hammer also hired around two hundred people,