Alexandra Penney
Just read this CNN story about Alexandra Penney, a best selling sex author who was one of Bernie Madoff’s victims. It’s pretty amazing that she invested everything with him. I’m amazed that people still don’t diversify their holdings, even after Enron and Wordcomm. Anyway, she was a bestselling author and former editor of Self, and she made tons of money during the 80′s. She’s not penniless, but most of it is now gone.
The interesting part of this story is related to writing and blogging. Apparently, soon after learning that she had been fleeced by Madoff, Penney blogged about her experiences on the Daily Beast, writing a series of articles called The Bag Lady Papers. She wrote:
I began to think about my options: I’d have to sell the cottage in West Palm Beach immediately. I’d need to lay off Yolanda. I could cancel the newspaper subscriptions and read everything online. I only needed a cell phone. I’d have to stop taking taxis. And who could highlight my hair for almost no money? And how hard was it to give yourself a really good pedicure?
She wrote about how her life was destroyed and how she was worried about the future and not being able to afford nice things. Later in the article, she wrote about how she had to take her first subway ride in 30 years. For those who have been on the web for the past few years, you can guess what happened: her blog readers flamed her.
I feel for her. She says that she’ll have to go back into writing in order to make money, but the fact that she wrote what she did shows that she’s totally out of touch with the common person, and a half-lifetime of money may have destroyed her ability to relate. I don’t doubt her sincerity–I’m sure her change in lifestyle is absolutely devastating to her, but with all that real estate and a decent safety net, she’ll simply be taking on a lifestyle that represents a more common experience. She doesn’t see this, so the obvious next question is this: who will she write for?
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It sucks that she lost a good chunk of her money, that…to give her credit where credit is due…she did earn herself rather than being some rich brat that just iherited it from mommy and daddy, but I still find it hard to have much sympathy for someone who is forced to sell the cottage and the cond so she can survive in her high end apartment. If she were smart, she would have just kept her mouth shut. With millions of people losing thier only homes nd millions losing thier jobs, her attitude and comments are quite appaling. What she should be doing is organizing the people that got screwed by this guy to pressure the Justice department to make his potential penalties harsher and make sure he stays in jail until he is convicted instead of whining about selling thier luxury items and having to lay off the servants.
I have absolute sympathy for her. We are supposed to be a modern economy. She made honest money as a writer- an-artist. She is the American dream in a non business field. She is a role model for young women and aspiring artists so she should speak out, not keep her “mouth shut.” The next generation has a lot to learn from successful people- from both their wise choices and their mistakes. She does a service to young people aspiring in the creative fields who may learn from her how to avoid getting cheating of their earnings while they pursue their dreams.
I agree with both hm and Eric’s main points.
I have sympathy for her mostly because she doesn’t get it. As Eric said, she earned it herself, but she earned so much that she seems to have lost perspective of her roots. How does one work their way back when they’ve spent so much time living with wealth?