Is this really possible?

It is possible and it happens more often that you would think.
There are many people who went from being millionaire to bankrupt and they bounced back.
Why will you never buy anything with Martha Stewart name?
I think that almost all people with her status do similar things what she did.
She was just punished as an example,just scapegoat.

It happens to women all the time when they turn 40.

Probably not. Look at some of the biggest scammers in the world who went to jail and they came right back. Martha Stewart for one. The junk bond trader ... forget his name. They have so much money they can hire PR firms to question their convictions, and lots of friends doing the same thing. What I found funny was the portrayal of the car business as so honorable.

such change is very common

In the 1920s, Durant became a major "player" on Wall Street and on Black Tuesday joined with members of the Rockefeller family and other financial giants to buy large quantities of stocks, against the advice of friends,[2] in order to demonstrate to the public their confidence in the stock market. His effort proved costly and failed to stop the market slide. By 1936, the 75-year-old Durant was bankrupt.[2]

After the fall of Durant Motors, Durant and his second wife lived on a small pension provided by Alfred P. Sloan on behalf of General Motors. He suffered a stroke in 1942, which left him "a semi-invalid",[2] and managed a bowling alley in Flint, Michigan until his death in 1947. He was buried in a private mausoleum at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Durant#Wall_Street_and_later_y ears

After the war, Cooke became interested in the development of the northwest, and in 1870 his firm financed the construction of the Northern Pacific Railway. Cooke fell in love with Duluth, Minnesota, and decided he must make it successful, the new Chicago. To this end he began purchasing railways with the dream of reaching the Pacific to bring goods through Duluth into the Great Lakes shipping system and on to the markets of Europe. In advancing the money for the work, the firm overestimated its capital, and at the approach of the Panic of 1873 it was forced to suspend. Cooke himself was forced into bankruptcy. Jay Cooke was heavily involved in financial scandals with the Canadian Government and caused the Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald to lose his office in the 1873 election. Cooke's shares in the Northern Pacific Railway were purchased for pennies on the dollar by George Stephen and Donald Smith who then finished building the Canadian Pacific Railway.

By 1880 Cooke had met all his financial obligations, and through an investment in a silver mine in Utah, had again become wealthy. He died in the Ogontz (now Elkins Park) section of Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania, on February 8, 1905.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Cooke#Northern_Pacific_Railway

Beginning in the early 1970s, Hunt and his brother William Herbert Hunt began accumulating large amounts of silver. By 1979, they had nearly cornered the global market.[6] In the last nine months of 1979, the brothers profited by an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion in silver speculation, with estimated silver holdings of 100 million ounces.[7]

During the Hunt brothers' accumulation of the precious metal, prices of silver futures contracts and silver bullion during 1979 and 1980 rose from $11 an ounce in September 1979 to $50 an ounce in January 1980. Silver prices ultimately collapsed to below $11 an ounce two months later. The largest single day drop in the price of silver occurred on Silver Thursday.[1]

Hunt filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code in September 1988, largely due to lawsuits incurred as a result of his silver speculation.[1]

In 1989 in a settlement with the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Nelson Bunker Hunt was fined US$10 million and banned from trading in the commodity markets as a result of charges of conspiring to manipulate the silver market stemming from his attempt to corner the market in silver.[1] This fine was in addition to a multimillion-dollar settlement to pay back taxes, fines and interest to the Internal Revenue Service for the same period.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_brothers#Silver_Thursday

Happens all the time in sports. Dwight Gooden come to mind. Cy young. Sports Illustrated, top of the world.....then, drugs, jail, divorce and he has now abandon his daughter and ex leaving them on food stamps.

"light is faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright until they open their mouth"

Is the name O.J Simpson ringing any bells? Or a *beep* of E True Hollywood stories about celebrities that were on top of the World at one point and now are virtually unheard of. Unless they invested their money properly, they could, and are, working for peanuts now. Another good example is famous Wrestlers. Go do a search on "What Are They Doing Now?-Famous Wrestlers of the 80's".

I honestly can't believe you're asking this question. The list is endless.

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Does the name MC Hammer ring any bells? The man had millions and millions of dollars, and basically went bankrupt.

Also, Michael Jackson's reputation went down the drain, along with most of his money because of the whole scandal about pedophilia. Ofcourse, he has now become a being of myth and legend, but this is after his death.

"Be it a grain of sand or rock, in water they sink as the same."