THIS IS AN OPINION
We'd also like to hear yours.
Tweet us @ArkBusiness or email us
New York newspapers, including the Times and the Post, have reported on the tragic death of Brandon Miller, 42, who carried on his late father’s real estate development business and supported the glamorous Manhattan/Hamptons lifestyle that his wife, Candice, promoted on social media. He killed himself in July, after a last-ditch effort to salvage his business and personal finances failed.
The Times said he left behind life insurance worth about $15 million; the Post said his debts were thought to total about $17 million.
I was reading the Times’ article to my husband — all about the classic sports car collection, the $8 million weekend home and the furniture that was rented for $12,000 a month — when he told me he had heard enough. “This isn’t even a cautionary tale,” he said. “No one spends like that.”
Well, almost no one, that’s true. But there are lessons for everyone in the phony life and sad death of Brandon Miller, starting with the most important lesson I learned in nearly three decades of business reporting:
► Wealth and the appearance of wealth are two different things. Some people who are living large are genuinely rich. Others are drowning in debt. Others are trying desperately to pay back money they “borrowed” before they end up in federal prison. Unless the courts get involved — bankruptcy, foreclosure, collection lawsuits, indictment — it’s almost impossible to tell from the outside whether the math works. Even people with objectively high incomes can be in terrible financial shape, as any banker can confirm.
► Generational wealth creates opportunities and the kind of safety net that most people can’t count on, but generational wealth can also be a trap. If Brandon Miller had not grown up with wealth that led him and his family to expect what the Times called “an Instagram-perfect life,” perhaps he would still be alive today. Affluent parents might see a cautionary tale in that part of the Miller story.
► No spouse should be ignorant of the family finances. From all reports, Candice Miller had no idea that her family was insolvent. She may not have known about collection suits that had begun to pile up. Brandon had packed her and their two daughters off on a European vacation that was supposedly prepaid. It wasn’t, of course, and her credit card was declined while Brandon was back in New York asking a friend to lend him $1,000 — an amount, the Times noted, “that should have been pocket change for someone like him.”
► We can’t know whether other people can truly afford their fabulous lifestyles, but we can do our own math. How others spend is endlessly entertaining, but to make financial decisions based on someone else’s spending — well, that way madness lies.
Sign up for Daily E-news
