Homeless banker hits rock bottom

Apparently, the bank crash of 2008 can put even investment bankers on the streets.

Life was good to Kevin Browne. The 54-year-old investment banker once lived in an expensive flat in London's Kensington before going to the US and running a firm on Wall Street. Then came the crash of 2008, and he lost his business, marriage, and eventually his home.

Mr Browne had to rely on a charity to fly back to Britain earlier this year. It took several weeks before he could register as a resident in Croydon, and in that time he survived by going to soup kitchens and sleeping rough in the park.

After a stint at a hostel that was "a mad house", where someone angered by his snoring threatened to slit his throat, he was eventually found a place in a shared flat in Streatham, London. He never saw homelessness coming: "It's a bit like being the Thanksgiving turkey, who has no reason to think tomorrow won't be OK because the kind farmer has fed him every day of his life. So he assumes he will continue to be fed, but, one day, Thanksgiving comes."

The Independent

Would it be unkind to suggest the more homeless Wall Street bankers the better?

I wonder if he's new to being poor if not he's seeing things from our view if not from further below , I can only wish him the best and I hope he lets some of the others know how bad it hurts to be in those situations, maybe then they can prepare for the worst

reply to post by ollncasino


I kind of feel bad for this guy, he seems like a normal guy who lucked out on the market for awhile, not a generational wealthy. I don't want these everyday guys to suffer, which they're the ones that do, how many generational wealthy lost out and just went to mommy and daddy to help them when they should have been homeless. This you will never hear about. Plenty wealthy heirs I am sure that they were tanked but they got bailed out by mommy and daddy, they're the ones who I'd like to see get homeless like their family fortune completely annihalated.

Originally posted by ldyserenity

I kind of feel bad for this guy, he seems like a normal guy who lucked out on the market for awhile, not a generational wealthy.

He certainly appears to be a man who ran a Wall Street Investment firm and who spent all of his salary and bonuses while never anticipating a rainy day.

Perhaps that is what he means when he likens himself to a turkey who has always been fed by the farmer and doesn't see thanksgiving coming.

When life went well, he spend all of his money.

reply to post by ollncasino


Yes but he didn't have someone to pay for his education (obviously) or to pull his arse out of the sling, most wall streeters do, they're old money that always been at the top and can't fail, because they have so much family money that their arse will be ok even after bad investments...I feel bad for the one guy that broke into glass cieling only to be taken down by the old money's greed and retarded choices, that buried this normal guy in a s****load of debt.

Originally posted by ldyserenity

Yes but he didn't have someone to pay for his education (obviously) or to pull his arse out of the sling, most wall streeters do, they're old money that always been at the top and can't fail, because they have so much family money that their arse will be ok even after bad investments...I feel bad for the one guy that broke into glass cieling only to be taken down by the old money's greed and retarded choices, that buried this normal guy in a s****load of debt.

I see where you are coming from.

Most investment bankers are not 'old money'. They are people with finance and maths degrees who have pursued a career in investment banking.

I get the impression that investment bankers do appear to be self made men rather than being off of old money.

What I find worrying was his assumption that the good days would and could never end (like the overfed turkey he likens himself to). As the head of a wall street investment firm, he will have done very well in the good times.

He ran a firm - this site suggest that his all in compensation may have been in the region of $1+ million a year.

Link

Where did all of his money go?

Perhaps up his nose? It went somewhere.

By the way, he ran the firm. It was his choices that brought him down.

No sympathy for these kind of people. AT ALL!

They have no sympathy on putting people out on the streets, so GOOD RIDDANCE!!!

They tried to bankrupt me and my family which would have resulted in us losing our house and business ... They didn't care ... So now, neither do I!

As you said OP ... The More The Better!

AMEN!!!

So the dirty, heartless, greedy and cutthroat financial system allows occasionally screws over a financial guy?

who'd have thunk it?

~Tenth

while it may feel good to some to relish in this mans misery, his quote about the turkey is a bullseye and something every living person can learn from, regardless of your economic status

what do you call that?
Karma, or poetic justice?

Originally posted by acacko
what do you call that?
Karma, or poetic justice?

It'd really be karma or poetic justice when more bankers are put through this.

Especially the big boys!!!

Nowadays, they just leave the company and that's it. Nothing gets done about them. i.e. Bob Diamond.

A man cons a bank and he goes to jail ...

A bank cons a country and the people in charge just lose a bit of their bonus!!! Justice???

Stories like this don't change anything. Come Monday, the news will be full of stories, op eds, reader comments and letters about how people on benefits, people who are homeless, people without jobs and so on, are only there because they choose to be.

This banker obviously wasn't trying hard enough [/sarcasm]

reply to post by ollncasino

Would it be unkind to suggest the more homeless Wall Street bankers the better?

I think it would be unkind this man is a victim as much as anyone else.. If you want to find people to blame you neeed to look a little further up the pryamid to the families that own the central banks...

Avowed fiscal conservative and Libertarian here. Quite possibly the best thing about this from an ATS standpoint is seeing some liberals rejoicing in someone else's poverty. I mean, liberals are the only ones who care about 'the poor', right? Yet here's a poor man unworthy of their infinite compassion. Shine the light one and all! That liberal compassion can certainly be selective it would appear.

For all we know, this guy may have been self-made and got done in by banksters way over his head. Maybe he contributed to charities they didn't like, attended the wrong church, had the wrong social circle, not enough evidence for us to truly know where this guy comes from in other words. Heck maybe he was a bankster and was about to squeal, then decided to live despite the IRL consequences.

My personal opinion is he for certain had access to considerable resources at some point and blew it, all of it. And it's not up to the taxpayers to bear that burden. He isn't 'too big to fail'. No one is. I hope that he gets enough hot meals to stay healthy and eventually rights his own ship. It isn't that hard to get a job as a teller, unless his fall included security/legal issues. I wish him no ill (unlike some rejoincing previous to my post). I don't wish poverty on anyone. But personal responsibility comes into play at some point and this guy didn't have enough discipline to plan. and that is not the fault of any taxpayer.

Rule of Laws, not of Men.

Originally posted by Snoil
It isn't that hard to get a job as a teller,

Yes it is.

This man lives in Britain, despite having once worked in the USA. There's no private sector jobs tree like the government likes to suggest. The general trend for banks in Britain is to be losing high street branches. He'll be competing with hundreds for any counter job in a bank and his age and experience will probably go against him as a branch manager will be threatened, like many are, by someone with a lot of experience/qualifications as the only way such a person can climb the ladder (and they will want to) is through that branch/office manager.

reply to post by ollncasino

No,it wouldn't be unkind to wish for more homeless bankers of any stripe,they are all evil lying thieves who hide behind their fake god for forgiveness,while forcing the masses to worship their real god,which is MONEY.....

....When there is neither money nor god,in the way the majority of us have been LiED to believe

I'm not here to argue religion,so you zealots out there need not criticize my view on reality,you are in no position....

The real mistakes people in this world make way too often,are believing all this horse#,and getting run over by the wagon they would have seen coming if they weren't blinded by wishful thinking.

Your wishful thinking,is what causes you to sign that mortgage in hopes you will live 30 years to pay it off.

Wait.....nobody really thinks that far ahead except bankers.

Originally posted by Merriman Weir

Originally posted by Snoil
It isn't that hard to get a job as a teller,

Yes it is.

This man lives in Britain, despite having once worked in the USA. There's no private sector jobs tree like the government likes to suggest. The general trend for banks in Britain is to be losing high street branches. He'll be competing with hundreds for any counter job in a bank and his age and experience will probably go against him as a branch manager will be threatened, like many are, by someone with a lot of experience/qualifications as the only way such a person can climb the ladder (and they will want to) is through that branch/office manager.

I stand corrected *respectful nod*, I was originally going to use small loan officer, but not having been in the Uk for over a decade, maybeI'm wrong there too. I'm sure retail sales are still doable though.

Originally posted by Snoil

I stand corrected *respectful nod*, I was originally going to use small loan officer, but not having been in the Uk for over a decade, maybeI'm wrong there too. I'm sure retail sales are still doable though.

That's genuinely appreciated.

Regarding the small loan officer: banks aren't lending at the moment. All those rounds of QE are still in the vaults and the banks aren't sharing. It's a serious problem as even the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, now realises they banks are laughing up their sleeves here. There's no money flow here now at all and it's going to get worse.

Whilst it stirs the cockles of the hearts of Tories everywhere, the reality is whilst Osborn is cutting benefits ( the 1% increase masks the restructured housing benefit and universal credit which will see many people on even the lowest rate of benefits between £10 and £20 a week worse off), it's restricting the massive volume of small purchases in the high street. People on low incomes and benefits actually spend their all money as they have no alternative. Cut that spending and it's going to have a massive knock-on effect.

Britain's high streets are seriously dead now. Decades of retail parks and out of centre 'malls', not to mention internet sales, have got the high streets on their knees. Even charity shops are struggling to stay open in many places, I read that next year something like a 1/4 of all charity shops will close in Wales. The Tories are always going on about small and medium size businesses, but all they're doing is helping them die off.

But back to loans, one sector that's doing rather well, and tend to be Tory party donors, is the 'pay day loans' sector. The biggest of these, Wonga, is pretty chummy with the Tories. Wonga, incidentally, have a 4,214% APR.

I have no sympathy for this guy what so ever..

Not when i had to accept a 20% wage cut, nearly lost my house making me and the wife ill with worry, I've worked all my life to pay for and taking on 2 jobs to make ends meet, and lost all my savings and my beloved car, that i no longer have and is still paying for a year after selling it.

I love these story's, karma a bitch.

Karma is REAL. And who better for it to happen to than those who took part in completely SCREWING up the world for everyone.

GO GET 'EM KARMA!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL OF 'EM!!!!!!!!