Rich parents bequeath their fortune to idiot offspring, who promptly redistribute the wealth.

Or the lucky who have a pot of Au fall into their laps, but before they die are in penury. One violinist was a cause celebre in France in the 1700s--wrote some decent music, reminiscent of Mozart and just good clean fun early-mid classical 'stuff' worthy of performance at times but not exaltation. Raked in the money; his last decade was craplife as (a) he had burned through 'in style' his wealth and (b) fell ill in body or spirit. Such happens.

In this case, think of it as what happens when you want to manipulate the system and fail. You lose cash.

In this case, as in all similar cases, think of it as what happens when power gets centralized so that it's make or break when it comes to getting special treatment from said power. A person or group has scant power, not worth spending beaucoup $ on getting them to think your way; as power increases, more try to toss money at it to corrupt it, more try to persuade it to benefit them and only them. "Power corrupts" is true, but it's not just because the person in power self-corrupts ... There's a coterie of would be flatterers and corrupters that come crawling out from under the baseboards to encourage and nurture said corruption.