You Try to Live on 500K in This Town
PRIVATE school: $32,000 a year per student.
Mortgage: $96,000 a year.
Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year.
Nanny: $45,000 a year.
We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.
Five hundred thousand dollars — the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money — seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half a million a year can go very fast.
The cold hard math can be cruel.
Like those taxes. If a person is married with two children, the weekly deductions on a $500,000 salary are: federal taxes, $2,645; Social Security, $596; Medicare, $139; state taxes, $682; and city, $372, bringing the weekly take-home to $5,180, or about $269,000 a year, said Martin Cohen, a Manhattan accountant.
Now move to living expenses.
…
Barbara Corcoran, a real estate executive, said that most well-to-do families take at least two vacations a year, a winter trip to the sun and a spring trip to the ski slopes.
Total minimum cost: $16,000.
A modest three-bedroom apartment, she said, which was purchased for $1.5 million, not the top of the market at all, carries a monthly mortgage of about $8,000 and a co-op maintenance fee of $8,000 a month. Total cost: $192,000. A summer house in Southampton that cost $4 million, again not the top of the market, carries annual mortgage payments of $240,000.
Many top executives have cars and drivers. A chauffeur’s pay is between $75,000 and $125,000 a year… To garage that car is about $700 a month.
A personal trainer at $80 an hour three times a week comes to about $12,000 a year.
The work in the gym pays off when one must don a formal gown for a charity gala. “Going to those parties,” said David Patrick Columbia, who is the editor of the New York Social Diary (newyorksocialdiary.com), “a woman can spend $10,000 or $15,000 on a dress. If she goes to three or four of those a year, she’s not going to wear the same dress.”
Total cost for three gowns: about $35,000.
You get the picture. Sing it Lemmy…
There’s a book called Nanny Diaries, written by someone who worked for some of these people. You might want to read it before you apply.:eyes:
:yikes: :faint: :sst: Wish I could get a nanny job there.
Ummm, that’s ok. 😀
If people stop paying or are unable to pay those absurd prices the cost will come down. The spoiled rich (many of whom who are probably up to their eyeballs in debt) are going to have to lower their standards. The banks can easily set up head office in another location as all business is done electronically. New york City will feel the impact of the recession – the bigger they are the harder they fall.
Here’s something to think about as we look at these numbers also.How many make a living off of that rich person’s spending. As you mentioned think of all the jobs that are created by the spending of that “rich person”. If all the spending that was done by the rich suddenly stopped or was taxed away. Where would the driver, the nanny, the cook, the tailor, the maid, the trainer, tutor, gardener, secretary, etc. get their living? I guess they’ll just be fed by the government. Which is I guess what the socialists want anyway.Well I did it again, sorry Robert, you started it.
Seriously: how many jobs does the purchase of a $35,000.00 toilet create?…And then they go begging for a government handout???*tsk* *tsk*
The nanny, the cook, the tailor, the maid, the trainer, tutor, gardener, secretary, etc. are only a minority compared to the thousands in the US and around the world who are losing their jobs and savings due to the incompetence executives who engaged in the pyramid selling of junk loans as AAA rated investments. At least with the nanny, the cook, the tailor, the maid, the trainer, tutor, gardener, secretary, etc. you could see value for money in their work. I wonder what tangible benefit the bank executive can demonstrate he has achieved during the last hour that was worth $1,000.00 an hour (or maybe even $5,000 an hour).
It is curious how entertainers and actors get a pass on the whole “evil rich” title.How much does your average football, baseball, basketball star make “an hour”? Or take any Hollywood star and look at their take per movie. They produce a few minutes of emotional escape for a movie goer and instead of being berated for their private jets and multimillion dollar homes they get asked for interviews and autographs.The actor is idolized by same people that will rip up a banker or CEO. A business owner that actually provides incomes and pensions for thousands of “middle class” people is insulted because he makes a great deal of money.Even more ironic in this is the same people that will curse the rich, will buy a lottery ticket and pray they win big. Everyone celebrates a guy getting millions by a gamble more than a guy making millions by hard work.That is twisted thinking.
It is curious how entertainers and actors get a pass on the whole “evil rich” title.How much does your average football, baseball, basketball star make “an hour”? Or take any Hollywood star and look at their take per movie. They produce a few minutes of emotional escape for a movie goer and instead of being berated for their private jets and multimillion dollar homes they get asked for interviews and autographs.The actor is idolized by same people that will rip up a banker or CEO. A business owner that actually provides incomes and pensions for thousands of “middle class” people is insulted because he makes a great deal of money.Even more ironic in this is the same people that will curse the rich, will buy a lottery ticket and pray they win big. Everyone celebrates a guy getting millions by a gamble more than a guy making millions by hard work.That is twisted thinking.
How many make a living off of that rich person’s spending.And where do they get all that spending money? From us, through our bank deposits– because it’s nearly impossible to function in a capitalist society without a bank account– and through interest they charge to lend us, drawn against the combined capital of those and other people’s deposits.And when it comes to spending bailout money– that’s NOT THEIR MONEY! It’s OURS!!!They get us yet again!And since Ronald Reagan took office, their salaries have gone up at 500% the rate of inflation. The disparity between rich & poor grows ever greater. Which means they are NOT returning the money to the greater society, but are stockpiling that money, or investing the money in the increasingly monopolistic Worthless Mass Media™ to saturate that media with anti-regulatory propaganda, which they sell as the “Free Market”– and don’t EVEN get me started on how Monopolistic Capitalism is antithetical to the existence of free markets!*whew*trust me. I could go on like that.And I can provide a very long list of old-school conservatives that will also explain to you why the recently (albeit not dearly) departed administration was anything but conservative…
I wouldn’t go as far as saying the “evil rich”. Many entertainers and high paid athletes (the stars) would admit they are paid absurd ammounts and also that their fame could be short lived.Banking should be a fairly simple business (it’s not like a business that has to produce a new model car every year) with centuries of history to base their guidance on and yet these idiots manage to bungle it. I have the greatest respect for business owners, but some of these financial CEOs and directors (as opposed to business owners) have demonstrated that they are overpaid incompetent wankers. The gap between rich and poor is too wide, it is not fair any more.I am enjoying this rant, sock it to me.
As I said before, riches only make you MORE of what you are, so I don’t call anybody “The Evil rich” myself. I have met both good and evil people; some were rich and others penniless.What would you say was banking’s biggest bungle, Brunobear?Also what time period were you thinking about when you said “…it is not fair anymore.” When was the gap small and life fair?One more question, what would make life fair do you think?
Well, one thing leaps to mind: stop throwing yourself lavish parties when your helping yourself to OUR tax money!
I agree. Tax payer moneys are not for parties. Unless the tax payer is having the party and spending his own money on the party.No person or group should be given tax payer’s money unless the tax payer knows about it and their representatives in government are spending it the way the tax payer wants it spent.No person should give away that tax payer’s money without even knowing where it is going. Or without even being told in writing where it is going.No matter how quickly a president says he needs to give that money away, and that the tax payer’s should just play along and TRUST him to do the right thing with thier money. Without even having the time to reading the bill that is now signed into law.Signed four days AFTER it was rushed through because the president said, “each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes.”Who else feels a little…sore?
Wezall – in answer to the banks biggest bungle. In Australia the banks will only give a mortgage up to 80% of the house valuation, for an apartment or a farm it is up to about 60%. In the US they have been lending up to 100% to people who would have no hope of qualifying for a loan here. These high risk loans have been bundled into AAA rated investments that unsuspecting people here in Australia and around the world have invested their retirement savings in. These investments are now worthless. These are simple basic facts, so how out of touch are these CEOs. See my blog “Financial greed”.Our Government is throwing taxpayer money about in bid to ward off recession. example:- $1,500 worth of free roof insulation for those who don’t have it! So if you have already paid for insulation you get nothing. To me that is stupid. I don’t object to them spending on hospitals, schools and infrastructure but I don’t like them giving free handouts. What is not fair in the US. A wefare system that is below the poverty line. A hospital and medical system that dosn’t provide adequately to all the population. An adequate minimum wage. Employees that have to depend on tips for an income. People losing their jobs because the government has been caught napping (out of touch, out of control financial system). The US has a reputation for getting things done, let’s hope Obama can fix the problems.
The reason the US has a reputation for getting things done IS because we haven’t looked to a president or government to “fix the problems”.Most Conservatives will tell you a big powerful government IS the problem.A good example is the current banking situation. Banks were made to give those ridiculous loans to people in the name of “fairness”. Well here we are. Now the government is saying we should pay off the loans or just let the people keep the homes and let the rich pay for it with their tax money. (Since the “rich” pay the majority of all taxes) Now that’s stupid.One of the problems with welfare is that it isn’t designed to help or encourage people to not need welfare. Our democratic socialist leftist “controlling” party in Washington would love to have as many dependants as possible. When more people depend on government to keep them fed, clothed and entertained. You have a ready made seedbed for socialism. The Democrats are happy to oblige by adding more and more “entitlements” services and programs to do just that. They’re blindly rushing headlong to the left so they can stay in power, trampling our constitution as they runIf you really don’t believe that handouts are the right thing to do then why would you want the same thing in the health industry or any other business? If the government would untie the hands of its people they would take care of their neighbors more. Americans give more aid than any other country. It’s who we are. If we paid fewer taxes I’m sure we’d all help out the needy a whole lot more. There seems to be a similar sort of mindset in Australia. I think almost an American type of independence in it’s people. Maybe that comes from the aboriginals or maybe it comes from living in that country. I feel almost kin to your countrymen.Sorry, Robert, we seem to have hijacked your blog.
No problem. That’s part of what blogging is about.
It is hard to know what is best. We had 11 years and you have had 8 years of right wing government and whilst most of those years were a boom, in the end it resulted in a massive collapse. We are similar to you and we get heaps of American news, TV, etc. Whether a country is left wing or right wing there is always corruption and unfairness. Most pollies start out with high ideals then they come under so much pressure from lobby groups and the media that they start favouring popularity over their ideals. Australia’s problems are over priced housing and massive credit card debt. You may not realise it but you have been spoilt with low taxes, low interest rates, low food, clothes, fuel, auto (car) and house prices. Some things need to be run by government, like essential service monopolies. We have private and public hospitals. The private hospitals don’t cater for emergencies. As a business they want planned forward orders and 100% occupancy to maximise profits. The public hospitals are left to cater for emergencies like heart attacks and accidents. It is easy to criticise the public hospitals as being less efficient, but the hospitals don’t compare. When my wife had an emergency situation on a long weekend, the only hospital that would admit her and that had a specialist on call, was the public hospital. She was in a ward with 3 other private patients. We could not do without public hospitals.So true that you do give a lot of aid to other countries and may not get full recognition for doing so. However the rich should have paid more taxes to give a bit more to the low income people. The gap between rich and poor just gets bigger all the time. I don’t think taxpayers money should be used to bail out big business’s. Where does that fit in with the free enterprise system?We tend to be conservative. Would you beleive the Queen of England still has the power to sack our Government if she so desired. Despite that we are motivated and similar to you Yanks.