Ye Olde Bad With Money Tournamente

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Ye Olde Bad With Money Tournamente

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canyoneer: Sep 13, 2005; I only have canyoneyes for you

Hey speaking of presidents making bad spending choices, let's talk about General George Washington :patriot:

He refused his $500/month payment as commanding general during the American Revolution, and instead asked the Congress just reimburse his expense account. Over the course of 8 years, he racked up $449,000 in expenses. Whenever he fronted money from his own pocket, he charged 6% interest to the government
He'd also do things like itemize a ball of twine (20 pence) or a broom (8 pence), and then throw in a line item for "wine, miscellaneous etc. etc." for $6,000 or a saddle for $800. He also bought a rad, custom made carriage for $1,430.
He also spent a lot of money on Madeira, goose, mutton, and expensive meals for himself and the top brass of the army.

When he was elected President, he suggested that he forego a salary and instead be given an expense account, repeating his arrangement. Congress didn't fall for that one twice in a row, and gave him a regular salary.

Mary Todd Lincoln was also a compulsive shopper, and was grossly in debt. She came from a wealthy family, and had expensive tastes. Reminder, this is all during the Civil War!
http://talkingcents.consumercredit.com/2014/02/17/mary-todd-lincoln-compulsive-shopper-severe-debt-problems/

quote:

Mary Todd Lincoln, married to the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, had a taste for the finer things in life. Feeling the scrutiny from the media as a fashion symbol, she felt the need to spend exorbitant amounts of money on clothing and accessories. At one point, she purchased 400 pairs of gloves in a four month period. She also overindulged in the redecorating process of the White House, lobbying Congress for $20,000 (almost the same amount as the presidential salary) to refurbish the mansion, and ended up over budget by nearly $7,000. While she often received items as gifts, she still did not have a long-term plan to pay for those that were not gifted to her.

�I must dress in costly materials,� she said to a friend. �The President glances at my rich dresses and is happy to believe that the few hundred dollars that I obtain from him supply all my wants�if he is elected, I can keep him in ignorance of my affairs, but if he is defeated [in the reelection], then the bills will be sent.� After the death of her son Willie in 1862, her mourning sent her into more debt as she went on clothes shopping sprees to nullify her grief.

By 1864, her debts had run up to $27,000, nearly $400,000 in today�s money. President Lincoln was furious, causing arguments and problems in their marriage. Desperate, she would share political secrets with officials or promise political favors in exchange for loans. She even sold off excess manure purchased to fertilize White House grounds, and fired mansion staff to save money. She and her husband were fortunate that the White House expenses used to pay off her debt were kept secret during Lincoln�s 1864 reelection campaign.

After the death of her husband, creditors descended upon the fragile woman. They had previously granted unlimited credit, and now demanded payment. Congress granted her a one-time pension payment of $25,000, but it was not enough to cover her debts or spending habits. She ended up selling many of her personal belongings, and her supporters helped as much as they could. Though she eventually paid off her debts, swirling rumors and the actions she took to secure personal loans ruined her reputation and relationship with many friends.

400 daggum pairs of gloves in a 4 month period. The Imelda Marcos of gloves

# ? Sep 21, 2017 01:31

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 14:54

Tomfoolery: Oct 8, 2004

I'd like to nominate two BWM assholes from ancient Rome:

Marcus Licinius Crassus
(115�53 BC)

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/crassus*.html

He is the source of the word "crass" today. Crassus initially amassed his fortune by buying houses that were literally on fire:

Plutarch posted:

Observing how natural and familiar at Rome were such fatalities as the conflagration and collapse of buildings, owing to their being too massive and close together, he proceeded to buy slaves who were architects and builders. Then, when he had over five hundred of these, he would buy houses that were afire, and houses which adjoined those that were afire, and these their owners would let go at a trifling price owing to their fear and uncertainty. In this way the largest part of Rome came into his possession.

Later (after fleeing Rome to live in a cave for 8 months along with a couple young female slaves) Crassus fought with the consul Sulla against the exiled consults Cinna and Marius who attempted to take over Rome, where again he managed to make money by appropriating spoils of war, confiscating the possessions of rich men without justification or support of his higher ups, and also, asking for donations.

Plutarch posted:

For he was lacking in experience, and his achievements were robbed of their favour by the innate curses of avarice and meanness which beset him. For instance, when he captured the Umbrian city of Tuder, it was believed that he appropriated to himself most of the spoil, and charges to this effect were laid before Sulla. But in the struggle near Rome, which was the last and greatest of all, while Sulla was defeated and his army repulsed and shattered, Crassus was victorious with the right wing, pursued the enemy till nightfall, and then sent to Sulla informing him of his success and asking supper for his soldiers. However, during the proscriptions and public confiscations which ensued, he got a bad name again, by purchasing great estates at a low price, and asking donations. It is said that in Bruttium he actually proscribed a man without Sulla's orders, merely to get his property, and that for this reason Sulla, who disapproved of his conduct, never employed him again on public business. And yet Crassus was most expert in winning over all men by his flatteries; on the other hand, he himself was an easy prey to flattery from anybody. And this too is said to have been a peculiarity of his, that, most avaricious as he was himself, he particularly hated and abused those who were like him.

Supposedly he even plundered one of the Roman cities he liberated from Cinna, but he denied the claim. At one point he was accused of sleeping with a sacred Vestal Virgin, and as defense argued he was just trying to buy her property at a low price:

Plutarch posted:

And yet when he was further on in years, he was accused of criminal intimacy with Licinia, one of the vestal virgins, and Licinia was formally prosecuted by a certain Plotius. Now Licinia was the owner of a pleasant villa in the suburbs which Crassus wished to get at a low price, and it was for this reason that he was forever hovering about the woman and paying his court to her, until he fell under the abominable suspicion. And in a way it was his avarice that absolved him from the charge of corrupting the vestal, and he was acquitted by the judges. But he did not let Licinia go until he had acquired her property.

He gained political influence due to his success against Cinna and Marius, and gained additional fame after defeating Spartacus (and crucifying 6000 of his army). He eventually formed a partnership with Julius Caesar and Pompei in what was called the First Triumvirate. This partnership was dissipating due to 3 huge loving egos, partially because Crassus was never happy that Pompey had greater military fame:

Plutarch posted:

Now it vexed him that Pompey was successful in his campaigns, and was called Magnus (that is, Great) by his fellow-citizens. And once when some one said: "Pompeius Magnus is coming," Crassus fell to laughing and asked: "How great is he?"

In order to reinvigorate their partnership, the three of them agreed to a deal where Pompei would take a post in Spain, Crassus a cushy post in Syria, and Caesar would remain in Gaul for 5 years.

This should've been an incredibly lucrative post for Crassus, but he decided to cross the Euphrates with an army funded from his own massive coffers in order to start a war with Parthia (with which Rome at the time had a peace treaty). Historians disagree whether 60-something Crassus did this in order to compete with Pompei's and Caesar's glorious military careers, or to gather even more wealth. Crassus' forces outnumbered the Parthians 4 to 1, but the Parthians harried his forces with horse archers a la Total War, drew off his son (who committed suicide to avoid capture), and eventually captured Crassus during peace talks. They allegedly poured molten gold down his throat as a mockery of his avarice, then found a roman soldier who looked most like Crassus, dressed him as a woman, and drove him through the streets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carrhae

Caesar planned a retaliatory invasion but with Crassus dead, the alliance between Pompei and Caesar dissolved leading to Caesar's assassination and eventually the first Roman emperors.

Tomfoolery fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Sep 26, 2017

# ? Sep 26, 2017 05:25

Tomfoolery: Oct 8, 2004

The other one is Trimalchio, a wealthy, opulent, and tasteless former slave who is unfortunately not a real person but is the inspiration for the Great Gatsby, and is quite similar to Trump. It's an interesting look into how ancient Romans mocked their uber-rich - at a time when the poor had to deal with hunger, disease, crime, and fires while the rich would compete in ostentation.

"Trimalchio's Dinner" features in the Satyricon, a comedy probably written by Petronius in about 50AD (during the time of emperor Nero). The story follows several students who in this are invited to his extravagant dinner party. You can read the whole exerpt here with the link below -
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/petronius/satyricon/complete.html#volume2

Or read a summary here -
https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/picador/a-curious-invitation-trimalchio-s-dinner-party

I've put a couple choice quotes below.

Petronius posted:

Boys from Alexandria poured iced water over our hands. Others followed them and attended to our feet, removing any hangnails with great skill. But they were not quiet even during this troublesome operation: they sang away at their work. I wanted to find out if the whole staff were singers, so I asked for a drink. In a flash a boy was there, singing in a shrill voice while he attended to me - and anyone else who was asked for something did the same. It was more like a musical comedy than a respectable dinner party.

...

Suddenly there was a crash from the orchestra and a troop of waiters -still singing - snatched away the hors d'oeuvres. However in the confusion one of the side-dishes happened to fall and a slave picked it up from the floor. Trimalchio noticed this, had the boy's ears boxed and told him to throw it down again. A cleaner came in with a broom and began to sweep up the silver plate along with the rest of the rubbish.

...

Carefully sealed wine bottles were immediately brought, their necks labelled:

FALERNIAN
CONSUL OPIMIUS
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 0LD

While we were examining the labels, Trimalchio clapped his hands and said with a sigh:

'Wine has a longer life than us poor folks. So let's wet our whistles. Wine is life. I'm giving you real Opimian. I didn't put out such good stuff yesterday, though the company was much better class.'

Naturally we drank and missed no Opportunity of admiring his elegant hospitality. In the middle of this a Slave brought in a silver skeleton, put together in such a way that its joints and backbone could be pulled out and twisted in all directions. After he had flung it about on the table once or twice, its flexible joints falling into various postures, Trimalchio recited:

'0 woe, Woe, man is only a dot
Hell drags us off and that is the lot;
So let us live a little space,
At least while we can feed our face.'

Tomfoolery fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Sep 26, 2017

# ? Sep 26, 2017 05:50

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

I'll post a more detaile writeup later but since I haven't seen it posted yet and I want to lay claim: That time an already war-devastated Scottish public spent a quarter of the entire kingdom's money supply trying to build a colony in the shittiest, most malarial section of Panama, so awful it is still uninhabited today, and also which already belonged to Spain, and also when it failed spectacularly because everyone died, they doubled down.

# ? Oct 8, 2017 02:54

crazypeltast52: May 5, 2010

Something that should belong in this thread, but doesn't!

Trusted Assistant Lending, where chinese banks in the 1800s would lend to future bureaucrats in the hopes of their obtaining civil service posts. The loans were illegal, unenforceable, there was no repeat lending, the bureaucrats were often far away from their lenders and there were no social consequences to default. But somehow they were lucrative to the banks because of the trusted assistants.

The chinese civil service exams focused on academic Confucian thought, which would not prepare them to actually serve in the civil service. Trusted assistants were agents of the lender assigned to guide the bureaucrat through the social and political maze of wherever they were assigned. Trusted assistants had soft power to aid the bureaucrat in establishing their tenure, as well as representing the lender's interests to determine how much could be repaid. But wait, this is far away from the lender, why wouldn't the assistant merely take bribes from the borrower to capture those returns? Because the trusted assistant was from the region of the bank's operation and had social consequences, as well as future advancement based on the performance of the loans they oversaw. Additionally, trusted assistants were most valuable at the start of a term and would decline in value to the borrower as they became established in their post.

The BWM is probably the people who failed their civil service exams, because they were typically poor to start with and lost most possibilites for advancement by failing their exams. But if they passed and got a post, they had to hire their own staff before they could travel to their post and start collecting taxes.

https://helda.helsinki.fi/bof/bitstream/handle/123456789/14908/dp1317.pdf?sequence=1

# ? Oct 13, 2017 18:35

Moneyball: Jul 11, 2005; It's a problem you think we need to explain ourselves.

Alright, I guess this is gone on long enough and we've got a BWM of the year thread to make, so let's pick a winner for this thing.

# ? Dec 15, 2017 21:43

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

# ? Dec 16, 2017 01:04

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Arglebargle III posted:

Me

# ? Dec 16, 2017 01:23

Hargrimm: Sep 22, 2011; W A R R E N

I vote for

Enfys posted:

�Mad� King Ludwig II of Bavaria and his fairy-tale castles:

# ? Dec 16, 2017 03:56

CannonFodder: Jan 26, 2001; Passion’s Wrench

This is my vote:

SpaceViking posted:

I feel like Mansa Musa is a little obvious, but nobody has talked about him yet, so Musa I of Mali, AKA Mansa Musa.

Crashing the economy of precious metals in the mediterranean, trading gold bars for souvenirs from places he went through on the way, taking out high interest loans on more gold to try to fix the economy...all in all, pretty BWM.

# ? Dec 17, 2017 08:08

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

I vote for Mansa Musa, the man who ruined a global economy because he acted like a charitable 5-year-old.

# ? Dec 17, 2017 15:28

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

Mali's economy was fine though? Tanking the global economy outside your own borders by dumping valuable commodities and causing hyperinflation isn't BWM, :capitalism:

# ? Dec 17, 2017 16:39

baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

shame on an IGA posted:

Mali's economy was fine though? Tanking the global economy outside your own borders by dumping valuable commodities and causing hyperinflation isn't BWM,

Money is power. Mansa squandered that power like few or none have before or since, which is intensely BWM. Mali didn't exactly become a superpower, you know? Vote for Mansa the Short-sighted.

# ? Dec 19, 2017 04:40

EAT FASTER!!!!!!: Sep 21, 2002; Legendary.

I wanna vote for Mansa Musa!

# ? Dec 19, 2017 14:36

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Mansa Musa was bad with money, sure. He caused huge inflation everywhere he went, sure. But he was also rich enough that being bad with money didn't really affect him personally, and the effects of his spending were temporary. He wasn't so bad with money that he got himself executed for it, caused a continent-spanning revolution and cycle of wars that lasted a generation, and triggered the birth of the modern world as we know it, so I'm sticking with King Louis XVI of France.

# ? Dec 19, 2017 15:30

FrozenVent: May 1, 2009; The Boeing 737-200QC is the undisputed workhorse of the skies.

Neither Mansa Munsa or Louis XIV managed to build a civilisation that could stand the test of time.

# ? Dec 19, 2017 17:21

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Whereas gay King Ludwig II managed to bankrupt one of the wealthiest royal families by pretending he wasn't king and obsessively building fairy tale castles, which *have* stood the test of time :colbert:

# ? Dec 19, 2017 18:44

Dwight Eisenhower: Jan 24, 2006; Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

Enfys posted:

Whereas gay King Ludwig II managed to bankrupt one of the wealthiest royal families by pretending he wasn't king and obsessively building fairy tale castles, which *have* stood the test of time

So, he made enduring things that make him memorable and is GWM but BWInheritance

# ? Dec 20, 2017 21:30

Moneyball: Jul 11, 2005; It's a problem you think we need to explain ourselves.

FrozenVent posted:

Neither Mansa Munsa or Louis XIV managed to build a civilisation that could stand the test of time.

They weren't within two tiles of a mountain, thus they couldn't build Neuschwanstein like Ludwig.

# ? Dec 29, 2017 22:13

Moneyball: Jul 11, 2005; It's a problem you think we need to explain ourselves.

SpaceViking posted:

I feel like Mansa Musa is a little obvious, but nobody has talked about him yet, so Musa I of Mali, AKA Mansa Musa.

Musa I was a devout Muslim who ruled Mali from 1312 to 1337. During this time period, as faithful Muslims are required, he went on pilgrimage to Mecca, and he brought his gold with him.

Of course, carrying that much gold across the southern Mediterranean had consequences...
.

Of course, there's no indication that doing this actually hurt his wealth long-term, but still. Crashing the economy of precious metals in the mediterranean, trading gold bars for souvenirs from places he went through on the way, taking out high interest loans on more gold to try to fix the economy...all in all, pretty BWM.

Looks like this one is the winner. I'll PM you.

# ? Dec 29, 2017 22:14

Moneyball: Jul 11, 2005; It's a problem you think we need to explain ourselves.

pig slut lisa posted:

* I'd love to do a custom gangtag for the winner, but I have no design skills. If you'd like to take a crack at designing one, please post in in this thread. I also have a backup prize set up in case this doesn't work.

I'm just as bad, so I'm open to suggestions.

# ? Dec 29, 2017 22:18

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Moneyball posted:

I'm just as bad, so I'm open to suggestions.

Enough gold to noticeably damage the winner's local economy.

# ? Dec 29, 2017 22:34

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 14:54

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

I'm going to grad school next year so it's me. I'm bad with money.

# ? Dec 30, 2017 02:54

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Ye Olde Bad With Money Tournamente

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