The New York Times reports that getting wealthy all of a sudden can be a problem. But of all the problems one could face, I think it's a pretty high class one.

Here are three examples:

• Ken Jennings won $2.5 million ($1.5 million after taxes) -- after prevailing in 74 consecutive Jeopardy games. He moved into a bigger house in Seattle and now designs board games.
• Laurel Touby sold website MediaBistro for $26 million and found that her $11 million share was not enough to afford a private jet.
• Elwood Bartlett, a Maryland accountant, won $84 million in a lottery last summer -- $33 million after taxes. He gave away $200,000 to the Special Olympics but gets lots of requests for more charity.

One financial adviser recommends they splurge with 5% to 10% of the money. Jennings' Advice? "put your money somewhere not idiotic and leave it alone as much as possible."

What do you think these sudden wealth winners should do?

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

Tribulations of the suddenly wealthy originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 29 Dec 2007 09:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox News Channel (FNC) has admitted defeat in the field of political satire. That's because, according to MediaBistro, it will shut down its short-lived attempt to satirize Viacom Inc.'s (NYSE: VIA) Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

The TV news satire show which airs Sunday nights, first aired February 18 with more than 1.4 million viewers. But it has fallen back to an average of 258,000 viewers in its last 10 airings -- while still leading its time slot in every airing except one. FNC will air the final show September 16.

What happened? I don't really know why FNC is canceling the show if it was so successful. And since I've only seen a few clips, I can say that I found those clips to be unfunny. I think Stewart and Colbert satirize what passes for "fair and balanced" reporting on FNC.

And I think it would be pretty hard for any media outlet to do a good job of both creating the object of satire and to make viewers laugh at a satire of the satire of that object.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in News Corp. or Viacom.

Fox can't do political satire originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.