14 DAY TRIAL // This one goes to all the girls out there who, endowed with outstanding good looks, believe their goal in life should be that of marrying a very rich man who would then provide for every one of their whims. It’s not going to happen because you are not marriage material – and we’re not the ones saying that, but a man who makes more than $500,000 (€377,572) a year, the CEO of J.P Morgan.
File this one under Viral of the Day or under Goldigging 101 because it’s not exactly new but it will always retain its relevance: we’re talking about the hilarious but oh-so-painfully-accurate response from the CEO of J.P. Morgan to one young woman’s query online for tips to land a rich man as a husband.
The woman, named just Mrs. Pretty, is candid in her ad: she is beautiful and wants to capitalize on that. She’s always dated well-off men but she is now looking for one who makes $500,000 (€377,572) to marry her.
She wants to know which are the places she should hang out at to be noticed, what she should do to “land” such a man, and most importantly, why rich men don’t have better looking wives because, from her experience, they seem to go for average looking women. However, their mistresses are always young and pretty.
She doesn’t want to be a mistress anymore, she wants to be a rich man’s wife and she’s willing to take advice from anyone on the matter.
The CEO’s response was just as candid: she would have better luck trying to make that kind of money each year on her own than to get this kind of “fool” to marry her. His words might seem harsh, but they hide a more powerful message: if you trade beauty for money and have absolutely no other quality to recommend you as a woman, you will never be more than a temporary mistress.
And you will always be dumped and forgotten once your good looks fade.
“From the standpoint of a business person, it is a bad decision to marry you. The answer is very simple, so let me explain. […] There’s a deadly problem here, your beauty will fade, but my money will not be gone without any good reason. The fact is, my income might increase from year to year, but you can’t be prettier year after year,” the CEO explains.
“Hence from the viewpoint of economics, I am an appreciation asset, and you are a depreciation asset. It’s not just normal depreciation, but exponential depreciation. If that is your only asset, your value will be much worse 10 years later. By the terms we use in Wall Street, every trading has a position, dating with you is also a ‘trading position’,” he continues.
Marriage would be a very unwise financial decision, he adds.
“If the trade value dropped we will sell it and it is not a good idea to keep it for long term - same goes with the marriage that you wanted. It might be cruel to say this, but in order to make a wiser decision any assets with great depreciation value will be sold or ‘leased’,” the CEO says.
So girls, don’t trade your good looks for money. Dream bigger: instead of waiting for a rich man to marry you, make your own fortune. If the CEO of J.P. Morgan says it can be done, who are we to argue.