These poor, poor people…
Trying to Live on 500k in New York City
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[…] Crashing the Clubs (I found this on the Ivy Style site. Interesting experiment. Reminds me of that post I wrote: Cry. Me. A. River.) […]
wow! Heaven forbid they go without a nanny or a summer home in the Hamptons. That would be cruel!!
These bailed-out companies are going to need to get used to the government telling them how to run things from now on.
My sister sent me a link to this too. No sympathies from me! Wow, we don’t even come close to 500k and I think we have a pretty comfortable life.
They might have to live in Jersey and take the train!!!!!!
The horror!
P.S. I live in NJ so I found that part of the article especially amusing.
Wow… I couldn’t even get all the way through the article. We have four children at home, three of them teenagers. We survive on less than $700 a month in groceries, including the two dogs and three cats. We have no health insurance. We’re dangerously close to losing our home, and have no idea what we’ll do if that happens. When I read things like this, I am not sure if I should cry or throw up. Or maybe what I should do is move to New York and become one of their overpaid nannies. The miracles I could do with $45,000 a year, let along $500,000. Those people should be ashamed of themselves…
Ana – And that is just the nanny pay! I’m assuming she gets her own room/suite and board as well on top of that. And the price of groceries every ten days?!?!??!??! $425!?!??!?!??!?!? Even accounting for the higher prices in NYC, I can’ even figure out how I would spend that much per week if we ate filet mignon and lobster every day! They must spend a lot of alcohol as well to run up a tab like that.
I understand what everyone is saying. On the other hand I do not think that the government should raise taxes on anyone. Raising taxes on the rich just trickles down to everyone, the nanny, the private school teacher, etc. Our economy does best when the government cuts its own spending and lowers taxes for everyone. Is is right for the government to tax the wealthy more and redistribute the money to others? Who is wealthy? Who should pay more? Should I try to keep my income down so that I don’t get taxed more?
The saddest thing is that the American dream has been reduced to getting into as much debt as you possibly can, living high on the hog, and not making any provisions for yourself, because the government will bail you out. We as Americans are never satisfied and we keep borrowing from our children’s future with never a thought for tomorrow and the difficulties we might face then.
Yes, those of us who are not “rich” could do a lot with that money, but what are we doing with what we have?? The $35,000 my husband makes each year for us and our four children seems like a million dollars to some third world families. I bet they could be just as critical of our spending habits as we are critical of those who are richer than we are.
Paula,
I agree that raising taxes on the rich creates a lot of trickle down problems. We’ve seen it before. Tax their yachts and who loses out? The boat makers who go out of business. It isn’t as cut and dry as soak the rich and give it to the poor. I’m pretty conservative in my views so I am not opposed to people making a lot of money and being able to keep it. If honest people toil hard and succeed, then I think that is fair.
However…
It is hard for me to feel sorry for people having to “scrimp by” without their two vacations totaling $16k a year, $35k on ball gowns and $64k for private school for two children. If it is honest money, then, yes, it is theirs to do with as they want. And, yes, there are people who will benefit from them spending that money.
But…
When a lot of this money was made through corruption and greed, knowing that they were doing things that were unethical and damaging to their clients and our country in general…
I hope they end up scrubbing toilets at McDonalds and find out what it is like to try to make an honest living and live a real life. I am seriously surprised some angry people haven’t taken a few of these guys out yet. (I AM NOT PROMOTING THIS IDEA OR CONDONING IT.) But desperate people do desperate things and there are a lot of desperate and despondent people out there. If we lived in different time, some of these executives would have been run out of town with nothing or hung from the nearest tree. I have a feeling a few of those $75-$125k chauffeur/body guards are going to end up seriously earning their money before this whole thing shakes out.
As far as their lifestyle, their lifestyles are extreme. They live in Manhattan, but you have to have a summer home in the Hamptons too! And you have to go to the poshest private school. And even though your wife doesn’t work, she needs a full-time nanny so she doesn’t have to actually parents and can go hang out with her friends and workout and keep up her nails and hair.
And then they have children who also feel entitled. And then they get them jobs on Wall Street and the whole thing starts over again. I don’t know if anyone read the Princeton article in the NYT this week, I think the same issue, where all of these Princeton grads are shocked that they aren’t walking onto 6-figure jobs at the banks right after graduation at the age of 22! Ha!
This is not about merit or capitalism or the markets working as they should.
These people feel entitled. Entitled to extreme wealth. And they are going to keep it going as long as they can, even if it means giving out bonuses while taking bailouts from American taxpayers.