Juggling Dynamite

In a world preoccupied with ‘getting money’, far too little is understood about the high incidence of losing it once obtained. A new book discusses the reality in the context of Football players, but there are lessons here for everyone:

“Is There Life After Football?” brings us inside the lives of NFL players to show why so many wind up in dire straits after their time on the field, from depression to debilitating lifelong injuries to catastrophic financial mismanagement…

The book seeks, among other things, to dispel the myth that everyone who plays in the NFL is financially set for life.

The average NFL career is only 3.5 years long, and while even rookies currently earn around $400,000, the types of money we hear about for superstars — $22 million a year for Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers, for example — is rare. Most players never come close.

But how ever much money players make, it’s often far more than they know how to handle…if using family and friends as financial advisors is a bad move, actual advisors can be worse.

Regulated or not, shady advisors have made quite a mark on the NFL financial scene,” the authors write. “Before closer scrutiny was instituted, at least 78 players lost more than $42 million between 1999 and 2002 because they trusted money to agents and financial advisors…”  See:  NYP:  How the NFL leaves players broken–and broke

Author Malcolm Gladwell offered some social and historical context on the NFL last month. Here is a direct video link.

Is the US Equity Market the Only Game in Town? Danielle Park, Partner & Portfolio Manager, Venable Park Investment Counsel, Grant Williams Senior Advisor, Vulpes Investment Mgmt / Things That Make You Go Hmmm … and John Kaiser, Kaiser Research at the Toronto Investment Conference on September 25, 2014. Here is a direct video link.

Over the next 15 years, as populations continue to age and retire, bargaining power will increase for the smaller pool of skilled workers coming after the boomers.

It sounds counterintuitive, but by 2030, many of the world’s largest economies will have more jobs than adult citizens to do those jobs. In this data-filled — and quite charming — talk, human resources expert Rainer Strack suggests that countries ought to look across borders for mobile and willing job seekers. But to do that, they need to start by changing the culture in their businesses. Here is a direct video link.