History shows that great wealth can sometimes be a curse. What are some examples?

Answer: US businessman Joseph Kennedy amassed an enormous fortune, yet three sons, including President John F Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy, and a daughter, pre-deceased him, while another daughter was institutionalized.

Arthur Guinness, who started the famous brewery in 1759 and became the richest man in Ireland, fathered 21 children but lost 10 before his own death.

Many of his heirs became alcoholics, died in poverty or ended up in mental institutions. Walter Guinness, Lord Moyne, Britain’s minister for Middle East affairs, was murdered in Cairo by a terror group in 1944. Some believe the Beatles song, ‘A Day In The Life’, was written about another Guinness, Tara Browne, who drove his car at high speed through red lights in London in 1966 smashing into a van and killing himself. In 1978 Lady Henrietta Guinness leapt off a bridge in Italy, while four-year-old Peter Guinness was killed in a car crash the same year.

The Getty’s, sadly, have had their share of tragedy, including the horrendous kidnapping of a young family member.

One member of a rich family has written that, ‘Though inheritors are given many things, no one is given a meaningful life.’

Source: General Historical Texts

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