If media accounts are to be believed, Taylor Swift is presently the most famous person in the world. Imagine what it’s like to walk in her shoes.
For fun, and for the purposes of this write-up, imagine her situation if she no longer had shoes. What if the singer and global phenomenon emptied all of her bank and brokerage accounts, gave away ownership of all of her songs, houses and planes, only to be back at zero. It’s a ludicrous presumption, but sometimes ludicrous is useful as a way of explaining things.
If Swift really and truly gave all of her worldly possessions away it’s a safe bet that she could still walk into any pawn shop, bank, or investment bank only to exit any of those financial intermediaries with enormous amounts of money at her disposal. More important, her borrowing rate would be at or near the lowest in the world. Financial institutions all over the world would be competing heavily to match her with capital.