would you give a friend 200K if it would save his life?

Did I ever tell you just how much I cherish and treasure my deep, sincere friendship with you, globetrotter?

Originally Posted by iammatt

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Absolutely not. Not family, not friends, nobody. I am not a bank.
I call Bluff on this Matt. Every circumstance is different and I am sure that if it were the right person you would do it. I am sure everyone would do it. The issue is who is the right person.

Originally Posted by Dakota rube

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Did I ever tell you just how much I cherish and treasure my deep, sincere friendship with you, globetrotter?

you have no idea how little my net worth is. but you are welcome to it.

Originally Posted by GQgeek

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How do you go from being very successful in finance, which would imply that you have savings and investments, to owing 200k in debt just because you lost your job? Did he get fired and then make a bunch of stupid buys on margin in an attempt to buy himself a long vacation? What happened to the equity in his house? I would not bail someone out on the information provided.

obviously I dont know all the details of the case in point. I am guessing that he lost his job, but had a nice chunk of debt at the time he lost his job, and didn't make any changes in his life style thinking that he would find another job quickly.



but it is clear ********* up. and, obviously, we aren't talking about needing a kidney, we are talking about helping him save his life, as he knows it - keeping his lifestyle.

Originally Posted by globetrotter

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...save his life, as he knows it - keeping his lifestyle.
That changes things a bit, as the question would be to what point do you assist him in keeping his lifestyle.

Originally Posted by FIHTies

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That changes things a bit, as the question would be to what point do you assist him in keeping his lifestyle.

well, yeah, but look at it this way - you have a guy who is (I don't know, lets say 40) he has a few kids. he works in finance, probrably a pretty good job. you don't help him, he goes personal bankrupt route, maybe has to get a job that pays 1/3 or 1/4 of what he made before, because he can't work in finance any more. has to move out of the city, has to take his kids out of private school. probrably will never get back on the track he was.

now, sure, none of this is your fault. but you have the ability to prevent it without really taking anything out of your kids pocket. would you?


here's the thing - I can't really tell you what I would do. my net worth is pretty damn low, espectially compared to my monthly income. if I could help a friend to this extent, and it meant spending 4 weeks salary, I would (if we were talking one of my good friends) even though all the problems were his fault. but, I am guessing if I were worth 100 mil, I'd get requests for this all the time, and I would have concerns about how to protect the capital for future generations. these aren't things I have to worry about.

Given his supposed brains, I would have a hard time just giving him the money. It seems like he must have gotten into trouble on his own--not just because of the lost job.

I would be happy to buy his home at a price that assures he won't lose on the investment (then rent it I suppose) so he could get another smaller and cheaper one, and help him get a new job. I'd do all that sort of stuff I could. But handing out money like that seems like a good way to make him forever feel like he owes me.

b

I would if I had $100 mil.

Originally Posted by globetrotter

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here's the thing - I can't really tell you what I would do. my net worth is pretty damn low, espectially compared to my monthly income. if I could help a friend to this extent, and it meant spending 4 weeks salary, I would (if we were talking one of my good friends) even though all the problems were his fault. but, I am guessing if I were worth 100 mil, I'd get requests for this all the time, and I would have concerns about how to protect the capital for future generations. these aren't things I have to worry about.

It is a slippery slope. My uncle is worth a shitload of money. A lot of people in my family are perpetually broke. Sure, he could help them, but he would become a charity because word would get around. People need to learn to fend for themselves and they need to learn from their mistakes. This guy sounds like he was living way beyond his means and that on top of that he made some very poor decisions. There are usually people far more deserving of charities than finance execs that fucked up.

I might do the sort of thing rdawson suggests. My uncle renovated my aunts kitchen so that she could increase the value of her house and sell it after her divorce. She paid him back with the proceeds of the sale. I could do that sort of thing, but I would never just hand out money to someone that had made a series of bad decisions.

What if he (no she) was in your Guild?

I would let him use my penthouse in Monoco, but he'd have to find his own way out there.

Maybe a guy with two kids who can't/won't exercise financial discipline when the going gets tough shouldn't be in finance. An argument could be made that it's unethical to help him hide this problem from prospective employers in the finance industry. I don't think I'd go quite that far, but I could see the argument.

Originally Posted by RJman

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What if he (no she) was in your Guild?

Now THIS is an interesting question. Early on, most guilds had a system of Need Before Greed, or NBG. On raids, whenever you killed something big like a dragon, it would usually drop phat l3wt. However, it would drop only a few items MAX, and there were generally 24+ people in the raid (the event where you organize to go down and kill the dragon). So, everyone would say which item they wanted and would /random for it. Highest number would win. Arguments quickly arose about who should be allowed to roll for what items. For instance, some items were more geared to warriors and others to priests. They both wore plate for instance. This caused conflicts within guilds

The other thing that added to frustrations was that if you went on a raid, it was very rare that something would drop that you needed. Items were also limited to a race/class. So you could literally go months, raiding every day 5-6 days a week for several hours, hoping to get an upgrade you really want, and never get it.

Enter DKP, or dragon kill points. DKP was a system designed to eliminate these inequities. If you were present at a kill, you would get points. You would accumulate these over time and people kept track of them in databases with web front-ends. When something dropped that you wanted, you would bid on it in an auction using your DKP as the currency. This was a much better system as you were always rewarded for time put in, and the more active you were in the guild, the more dkp you would amass for upgrades.

The moral of all this is that no, I would not give a guildie anything. I was an item whore.

It's a difficult question. In my experience, it's not something that happens very often - especially among people that have a lot of money. I remember when I was just out of college and having a hard time finding work, a good friend of mine gave me $500 cash, told me that he wanted to help me out because he knew I was broke and told me that I could pay him back whenever I was able and he'd never mention it again. I declined but he insisted, and he was good to his word, never mentioning it again, and I repaid him about a year later.

About ten years later, I gave another friend $1000 in similar circumstances (though she asked for the loan), and I told her that I'd never ask for repayment and she could pay me back whenver she was able. She gave me a few hundred bucks back over the next year and then disappeared. I never asked for the money and figure that I got rid of a bad friend pretty cheaply.

On the larger scale, even though it seems like an easier task relaltive to net worth, I find it to be very rare for people to offer that kind of assistance. If I was in that position I'm sure there would be people with their hands out and I think it would be hard to know how to handle most situations. If I was on the other side of the equation, I doubt I could approach anyone asking for money unless I had an opportunity for them that I could work that would attempt to make them money for their efforts, i.e., a business idea.

As others said, it would really depend. You say he'll make 1/4 as much as he used to, but is that going to be 100k a year or 40k a year? Or more? Just because he has to downsize his house and no more prep school for the kiddies is not really a crisis in my mind.

I think ultimately for a few good friends and maybe family I would help out if I was worth in the neighborhood of 100 mil-- I mean what else is having money about if not to help people and take care of your family. However, I do see what people are saying about the slippery slope. Every family has its Roger Clinton and you wouldn't want to be in the business of perpetually bailing out a **** up.