Letters From Grandpa #484

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 484

Dearest grandchild,

Wise King Solomon was once young like you are and he prayed for wisdom. “At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon at night in a dream, and God said, ‘Ask for whatever you want me to give you.’” (1 Kings 3:5) Solomon replied: “Now, O Lord my God, you have made me your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people too numerous to count or number. So give to your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours.” (1 Kings 3:7-9) May you also, like Solomon, pray for wisdom!

God answered Solomon’s prayer: “God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan the Ezrahite—wiser than Heman, Kalkol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations. He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He spoke about plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also spoke about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. From all nations people came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom. (1 Kings 4:29-34)

The book of Ecclesiastes explains how Solomon sought for meaning and significance in earthly pleasures and treasures “under the sun” and found them to be meaningless like chasing after the wind. He ultimately concluded that his goal in life should be “above the sun” and wrote: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Eccl. 12:13) Please don’t be tricked into limiting your life to earthly goals! Please remember that everything “under the sun” is temporal! Please focus on eternal goals and do not be deceived by temporal treasures. Here are a few examples to avoid and to stimulate your thinking.

• Charles M. Schwab was a young man who worked his way up from an entry-level job in an Andrew Carnegie steel mill at age 17 and became president of Carnegie Steel at 35. His business acumen and perceptive risk-taking made him a millionaire many times over by 1923. Even though the depression took his wealth he continued to spend lavishly and maintained a 900-acre estate in Loretto, Pennsylvania, and a $3 million Renaissance palace on Riverside Drive until his death in 1939. Sadly, he lived his last years on borrowed money and left behind an insolvent estate with debts and obligations totaling over $1.7 million.
• Howard Hopson was a former New York utility regulator who, along with John Mange, bought up Associated Gas and Electric Company. By 1929 Hopson had turned it into one of the country's largest utility holding companies. AGECO declared bankruptcy, however, in 1940. In 1941 Hopson was sentenced to five years in prison on seventeen counts of mail fraud. He had bilked investors out of $20 million. He was sentenced to two years more for income tax evasion. Sadly, he lost $74 million and died in 1949 at the age of 67 in Brooklea Sanitarium.
• Richard Whitney was the Harvard-educated son a Boston bank president. He bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange at age 23. When the stock market crashed on “Black Thursday” (Oct. 24, 1929) he strolled across the floor placing generous orders for a variety of blue chip

stocks. His bravery halted the panic. The market rallied and for his courageous act in providing confidence in the market he was proclaimed a hero in the next day's headlines. After that he was rewarded with four terms as the president of the NYSE. Whitney, however, proved to be a very poor manager of his own financial affairs. He spent $5,000 per month during the height of the Depression and began embezzling money to support his lavish life style. He was arrested in 1938 and sentence to 5 – 10 years in Sing Sing Prison.

• Arthur William Cutten, of Guelph, Ontario, left home at the tender age of 18. He emigrated to America and by the 1920s became one of America's richest citizens with a reported worth of $50 million. Sadly, he lost it all in the stock market crash. Then, in 1936, he was indicted for income tax evasion and died of a heart attack the same year at the age of 66.
• Leon Fraser was a PhD graduate of Columbia University who became the President of the Bank of International Settlements in 1935. A brief ten years later he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
• Jesse Livermore was known as the "Wall Street Wonder." He was considered one of the most flamboyant and successful market speculators in history. He claimed to make over $100 million after the great Crash of 1929. Livermore, however, also committed suicide at New York's Sherry-Netherland Hotel a week after Thanksgiving in 1940.
• Albert Fall was a New Mexico rancher, lawyer, prospector, miner, and legislator. In 1929 he was fined $100,000 for accepting a bribe from oil man Edward Doheny and was also sentenced to a year in prison. He was pardoned after only 10 months so that he could die at home.
• Ivar Kreuger was a Swedish businessman who founded and ran a multi-billion-dollar match conglomerate named Kreuger & Toll. When the company went under in 1932 investors lost millions. Kreuger had cooked the books and claimed $250 millions in assets that never existed. He committed suicide March 12, 1932.
• Samuel Insull was another wealthy man who managed a company that would later be known as General Electric. His personal fortune was estimated to be between $75 and $300 million. When the stock market crashed he lost everything and fled to Greece. He was forced to return to the U.S. to stand trial for mail fraud and embezzlement. He died of a heart attack at the age of 78 with 20 cents in his pocket.

Truly, “here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Jesus said it like this: “Watch out! Be on guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15)

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce