Apparently it's impossible to live on a $500,000 salary in New York. Or at least, it's impossible for a banking executive living in the ritziest parts of the city if "to live on" includes the banker being the sole bread-winner for his family, and no change whatsoever of lifestyle.
“Some of them want their drivers to have guns,” the driver said. “You get a cop and you have a driver.” 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.
Not every bank executive has school-age children, but for those who do, offspring can be expensive. In addition to paying tuition, “You’re not going to get through private school without tutoring a kid,” said Sandy Bass, the editor of Private School Insider, a newsletter that covers private schools in the New York City area. One hour of tutoring once a week is $125. “That’s the low end,” she said. “The higher end is 150, 175.” SAT tutors are about $250 an hour. Total cost for 30 weeks of regular tutoring: $3,750.
Two children in private school: $64,000.
Nanny: $45,000.
Ms. Bass, whose husband is an accountant with many high-end clients, said she spends about $425 every 10 days on groceries for her family. Annual cost: about $15,000.
More? Restaurants. Dry cleaning. Each Brooks Brothers suit costs about $1,000. If you run a bank, you can’t look like a slob.
I think I'm actually offended by this newspaper article. Seriously, if Allen Salkin, the reporter who wrote this Times article, wants to just crawl into a hole and die of shame, I'd be okay with that. I'd even shed a crocodile tear for the sake of appearances if that would help the process.
It's one thing to say it's more expensive to live in Manhattan than Fargo, which is clearly true. It's another to say that kids all need to go to private schools — which is not an absurd position, actually, but then the honest thing to do is to mention the combination of bad policy and racism which causes the problems with public schools in big cities. And it's a great leap further still to say that, as a matter of course, these kids can't get by in school without expensive private tutors, and $250/hr tutors for the SAT. Similarly, it's one thing to say that a person running a bank can't look like a slob, so we'll let the Brooks Brothers suits slide. It's another to say that a person running a bank needs to own a summer house, and has to take two expensive family vacations per year, totaling at least $16,000. Seriously, is the author insane? Completely detached from reality?
People all over this country are losing their homes — not their summer places, but their sole places of residence. There's a healthcare crisis. A lot of people are losing their jobs, people can't afford to buy proper food, and we're supposed to be upset that President Obama doesn't want to allow banks to be bailed out with federal tax dollars and allow executives to be paid more than $500k/yr? As if there's a moral obligation to ensure that the rich and powerful continue to remain rich and powerful? Their kids who are unmotivated or just too stupid to otherwise get into Harvard or Princeton (or, God forbid, Brown or Cornell) have to get their ridiculously priced tutors on top of their expensive private schools! They need to take their families to Hawaii in January and the Alps in March! I mean, screw the poor and the middle class, if they can't afford their prescription medications tough! They should have thought of that before all the rich people decided that the rich people needed to be bailed out!
At the risk of sounding like a populist, I'm just going to suggest that maybe perhaps the government's moral obligation is to take care of the many Americans who need help in these difficult times, not the few whose lives of luxury are at risk of becoming slightly less luxurious.
Accidental Blogger 
6 responses to “I Think I Hear the World’s Tiniest Violin (Joe)”
Great post, Joe. I didn’t see this article, and now I wish I hadn’t. I’ll take issue with a couple comments. First, “If you run a bank, you can’t look like a slob.” Not so. I don’t know what’s lately happened in men’s business attire fashion, but wow, would somebody please design a tasteful pin stripe suit? (In fact, it appears Brooks Brothers doesn’t even do pin stripes.) I’ve seen so many hideously striped suits these past five years, designs that look like a caricature of a Hollywood gangster during Prohibition, that I’ve thought about ditching my day job and setting up a fashion consultation service. But anyway, lots of financial businessmen, not to mention government big shots, dress appallingly. I ought to know. I, too, am a slob, and I recognize a kindred sartorial spirit when I see one. And why can’t the bank owner wear jeans, by which I mean inexpensive, worn-out duds?
Second, lay off the kids, Joe. I wouldn’t blame any son or daughter of John Thain for being unmotivated or disdainful of the “need to take on the appurtenances of what defines [their] culture.” Some of them might even, unlike Thain and his despicable ilk, grow up and out of their parents’ post-adolescent high school mentalities.
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Oh, cry me a river!
Frank Rich points to the wannabe bloodsuckers in the public sector.
And Joe, there is no “risk” in sounding like a populist when such egregious greed drives our financial world. There is a wide world of difference between being an ideological communist and common-sensically fair.
As I said in my recent post in the same vein, throw these Masters of the Universe into the real world and let them wake up and smell the Sanka.
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Dean, I didn’t intend to go after the kids — I was upset by the notion that as a matter of course all of them need significant extra/expensive tutoring. I don’t doubt that some kids legitimately need tutors. But to the extent this is because they’re not going to get into Ivy League colleges on their own, I’ll basically stand by the point.
Ruchira, thanks for the link to the Frank Rich piece. It’s an interesting read.
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Glad someone else found Salkin’s article offensive.
See my post:
NY Times Shills for AIG
http://mindbodypolitic.com/?p=1194
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nice i was able to get lots of information about Tiniest Violin
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hahahah, the worlds smallest violin gets me everytime.
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