Sometimes when financial set-backs happen, you just have to be philosophical and say, "It's just money."

It's all coming to light in the summer doldrums.  

From a technical point of view, summer months are almost always predictably unremarkable ones for the stock market to perform well. There are a lot of explanations for why this is, for not everybody agrees to exactly what the real reason is.  But in any case, it's a time of financial uncertainty and, frequently, monetary reversals.  However, financial losses are in no way limited to just the stock markets; they can happen in many interesting and ways and places.  Here are three that are in the news--and semi-amusing to contemplate...

The Bruins know how to lose money very, very fast.

The Boston Bruins hockey franchise dropped close to $160,000 on adult beverages--in one evening--at a celebration party at the nearby Boston Foxwoods resort, all in a party after winning the Stanley Cup Championship.  Included in the payout, the waitress who served the team, one server "Danielle," also won a title of sorts, what with the team adding an obligatory gratuity for the waitress to the presented tab in the amount of $24,869.80.  

Of course, most ordinary people ask:  How can so much money be dropped so fast?  Well, the answer, in part, is that it's not that hard when one bottle alone costs $100,000 and--to supercharge the bill being run up by a lot of happy people--everyone was, to varying degrees, guided in their judgment [or the lack thereof] by the influence of the adult beverages actually being ordered!  I guess the best one can say is that the one redeeming part of the story--it's a tax-deductible expense for the team.  

Shouldn't a banker understand about paying on time?

Credit Suisse CEO, Brady Dugan, was ordered by the Connecticut Supreme Court to pay is ex-wife more than $750,000 as a penalty for being 12-days late with a divorce-related disbursement of $7.5M.  The original divorce decree specified that late payments would accrue interest at a rate of 10% APR--but Mr. Dugan--a banker who should know all about the realities and importance of interest payments--didn't get the job done on time and is now paying the costs for not taking seriously what his ex-wife, her attorneys--and now the state's highest court--thinks he should have, but didn't.  

Even for a guy whose personal worth is almost $80M, that's a big chunk of change lose--especially for failing to pay on time--something he wants all of his customers to do when it comes to the banks money, I sure!  

Poor Kodak and one even poorer mutual fund manager.

Poor Bill Miller!  As a renowned fund manager for the legendary Legg Mason Value Trust [LMVTX] fund--famous for out-performing the Standard & Poors 500 Index--his savvy has recently been called into question for having loved the Eastman Kodak [EK] stock for his fund, 'way too long.  His affection for owning Kodak stock started a little over ten years ago and in 2005 his fund owned as much as 25% of the outstanding shares.  Back then in a share holders report, Miller was quoted as saying "We think Kodak, currently selling around $56, is worth close to $100."

Over the past 10 months, Miller's finally liquidated Kodak shares selling today for under $4.  The entire fund is reportedly valued today at $3.4B, down from $21B in April of 2007.  Looks like Bill's had one enormous financial reversal, with a loss of over half a billion dollars from Kodak alone.  Dude, this is looking pretty bad, wouldn't you say?

I have a friend from high school days who lives today in Pasco, WA, who has a terrific way of viewing life's losses; indeed, he is very measured and philosophical when faced with set-backs.  I remember his telling me once that someone at his house--a visitor or one of his children--had had a dramatic accident that completely destroyed one of the new jet skiis the family owned.  When I asked him how he felt about the incident he said, simply, that because no one, thankfully, got hurt, the loss of the personal watercraft was just an incidental issue: "It's not a big deal, Keith, after all, it's just money."  

Somebody, I think, needs to whisper exactly these words to Mr. Dugan, Mr. Miller, and the Bruin's GM:  "Hey, dude, don't worry, it's just money."  
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Follow Keith's biz blog on Twitter for updates and see more of what he's reading about on his Facebook Page. If you are inclined, you can write him at kmurray@bryant.edu.