FOXNews.com – Banker Buys $37 Million Apartment After Getting $25 Million Buyout — for Doing Virtually Nothing

So the latest punching bag in the mess that is American economics is 55 year-old Peter Kraus.  He got an executive job at Merrill Lynch right before they got bought out and, after working the position for a matter of days, he got a 25 million dollar buyout.

Of course, everyone’s upset because he got such a big buyout when the company had just gotten a bigger bailout and that he used it to buy something so lavish when so many were losing their jobs and life savings.  I don’t necessarily disagree with that, but I think more people are just upset because they didn’t get paid 25 mil for a week of work, too.

What caught my attention is the fact that he had 25 million dollars cash and still chose to finance 12 million for the apartment.  Stupid.  Typical, stupid American excess.

A lot of people think it’s normal to have a couple of car payments, a mortgage payment and credit card payments. They just assume that’s part of the price for the “American Dream.” When you start talking to those people about the possibility of life without debt – even house debt – they’ll often look at you like you’ve got 3 heads or something.

But this clip from the Dave Ramsey show underscores why it is so important to not be a slave to the lenders. You never know what might happen in your life that could make things difficult, and being debt free when that happens is quite a blessing. Listen and learn from this caller in Dallas, Texas.

Found this story on Page 2 over at the ESPN website. Pretty eye-opening and sad about what can happen when you’re given money without the skill and knowledge of how to handle it. The worst part is the all the people he gave money to that now mock him. Burns me up to see people with big hearts get used like that. Anyway, here’s the full story.