Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Family (fights over) Fortunes

Is it simple coincidence?  Or is the editor of the SCMP trying to deliver a message to its readers?  Today on page 2, where one normally finds the most significant news of local interest, all 4 articles involve family conflicts of some sort.

There is the long-running court case of the “milkshake murder”.  Nancy Kissel is being tried again, for murdering her husband after drugging him with a strawberry milkshake.  Apparently an insurance payout of 18 million dollars might have been involved. 

There is also the legal battle between the 2 Kam brothers, over the Yung Kee family fortune of HK$ 1 billion.  

There is, of course, the continuing fight among the three Kwok brothers, over a family fortune of more than HK$ 300 billion.

There is, finally, the fight among the Ho family members, over a fortune of an estimated HK$ 24 billion.  S. Ho have been widely admired for his ability to maintain relative civility among his 4 wives and scores of children.  Now, it is said that some of his children have conspired to divide up his fortune against his will - while he is still alive.  It is quite common that when a rich person dies, family members (and even non-family members) would fight over the money.  But dividing the man's money over his objection while the man is still living is rare and hard to do.  It would certainly make an interesting story, perhaps even a movie. 

Many of us lament over not being married, not having children, or not having a lot of money.  Would such news, I wonder, change their minds?




5 comments:

tabbycat said...

"Many of us lament over not being married, not having children, or not having a lot of money. Would such news, I wonder, change their minds?"

Not any more than seeing other families struggle with autistic or otherwise disabled children deters people from wanting to have their own children!

StephenC said...

I believe there is some difference. One (illnesses and other unfortunate events) is not under our control. But the other is self-made.

tabbycat said...

But that's the point. If people won't even be deterred by stuff that they cannot control (and which might actually happen to them), how would stuff that they could actually control deter them?

StephenC said...

I guess you are right. I wasn't really expecting people to change their minds because of these. But perhaps simply be reminded that perhaps marriage - children - money is not always a great combination.

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