Learning Lessons the Hard Way

Reuter's COLUMN-Divorce marked to market comments on the rise and fall of senior executives and financiers in the UK, their wives and divorces. Brian Myerson, told the Court of Appeal in England last week that his wealth had been so badly hit by the recession that he could not afford £9.5m he owed his ex-wife from a divorce settlement.

The Myerson's led a lifestyle common among the rich where one party, usually the husband, makes all the money and are absent whilst the other, usually the wife, supports the high earning spouse husband and keep the family on the go. However, this ignores the basic investment rule of not putting all your eggs in one basket and has left families worth less than nothing.

The article suggests the wives should have known better and could learn a lesson from working class women who used to keep "running away money" in a jar for a rainy day. It would have been prudent to have taken an interest in the finances, reined in their husbands' borrowing, and perhaps for the wives to have kept the job.