The HS Dent Financial Blog

RSS      

Angry Retirees Kidnap and Torture Their Financial Advisor!

We’re not sure if this is a sign of things to come or if perhaps the extremes of the bear market might have caused temporary insanity, but a “group of wealthy pensioners has been accused of kidnapping and torturing a financial adviser who lost about $4 million of their savings,” according to the Sydney Morning Herald (”Zimmer frame gang ‘tortures adviser’ who lost $4 million“).

As the Herald continues, “The pensioners, nicknamed the “Geritol Gang” by German police after an arthritis drug, face up to 15 years in jail if found guilty of subjecting German-American James Amburn to the alleged four-day ordeal,” which included being chained to a chair, burned with cigarettes, beaten, hit with a chair leg, and having multiple ribs broken over the course of four days.   While not quite as disturbing as the torture scenes in Casino Royale or Reservoir Dogs, this is not a movie — this is real life!

This is where the story gets absurd:

“Mr Amburn, the head of an investment firm called Digitalglobalnet, was allegedly attacked by two men aged 74 and 60 as he entered his apartment building.”

According to Mr Amburn, “Then they bound me with masking tape until I looked like a mummy. It took them quite a while because they ran out of breath.”

The Herald continues,

As he was bundled into the cellar, another couple, retired doctors aged 63 and 66, arrived to join in the alleged torture and humiliation.”I was led into the cellar,” recalled Mr Amburn, who also has a home in Florida.

“I saw a folding bed and a WC reserved for me. They immediately went on about their money. I told them what I had told them before, that due to market conditions, unfortunately it was gone.

“I was struck. Again and again they threatened to kill me. The fear of death was indescribable.”

And in a truly ridiculous climax, German commandos stormed the retirees’ home accompanied by a doctor — not for the victim, but for the elderly torturers themselves, whom the commandos feared they might send into cardiac arrest!

People do desperate things when it comes to their money.  While  we do not necessarily forecast a rise in retiree violence against financial advisors, we do expect investors in or near retirement to panic in other (less violent!) ways.  We expect them to cut spending to the bare minimum and to save more.  We would also expect them to turn to the government for help, much as their fathers and grandfathers did during the Great Depression.  

At any rate, don’t be surprised to see the Baby Boomers in their old age start to resemble their much younger selves, taking to the streets.  Except that this time, they won’t be prostesting wars or campaigning for social justice.  No, at this stage in their lives, they will be looking out for their economic livelihoods.

(By the way, thanks to Endre Dobozy, one of our Australian associates, for passing along this article.)

Charles Sizemore, CFA

Co-author of the recently-published Boom or Bust: Understanding and Profiting from a Changing Consumer Economy