In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich
By GARY RIVLIN Published: August 5, 2007
MENLO PARK, Calif. — By almost any definition — except his own and perhaps those of his neighbors here in Silicon Valley — Hal Steger has made it.
Mr. Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. The couple’s net worth of roughly $3.5 million places them in the top 2 percent of families in the United States.
Yet each day Mr. Steger continues to toil in what a colleague calls “the Silicon Valley salt mines,” working as a marketing executive for a technology start-up company, still striving for his big strike. Most mornings, he can be found at his desk by 7. He typically works 12 hours a day and logs an extra 10 hours over the weekend.
“I know people looking in from the outside will ask why someone like me keeps working so hard,” Mr. Steger says. “But a few million doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe in the ’70s, a few million bucks meant ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. But not anymore.”
Silicon Valley is thick with those who might be called working-class millionaires — nose-to-the-grindstone people like Mr. Steger who, much to their surprise, are still working as hard as ever even as they find themselves among the fortunate few. Their lives are rich with opportunity; they generally enjoy their jobs. They are amply cushioned against the anxieties and jolts that worry most people living paycheck to paycheck.
But many such accomplished and ambitious members of the digital elite still do not think of themselves as particularly fortunate, in part because they are surrounded by people with more wealth — often a lot more.
When chief executives are routinely paid tens of millions of dollars a year and a hedge fund manager can collect $1 billion annually, those with a few million dollars often see their accumulated wealth as puny, a reflection of their modest status in the new Gilded Age, when hundreds of thousands of people have accumulated much vaster fortunes.
“Everyone around here looks at the people above them,” said Gary Kremen, the 43-year-old founder of Match.com, a popular online dating service. “It’s just like Wall Street, where there are all these financial guys worth $7 million wondering what’s so special about them when there are all these guys worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Mr. Kremen estimated his net worth at $10 million. That puts him firmly in the top half of 1 percent among Americans, according to wealth data from the Federal Reserve, but barely in the top echelons in affluent towns like Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton. So he logs 60- to 80-hour workweeks because, he said, he does not think he has nearly enough money to ease up.
“You’re nobody here at $10 million,” Mr. Kremen said earnestly over a glass of pinot noir at an upscale wine bar here.
Not every Silicon Valley millionaire, of course, shares that perspective.
Celeste Baranski, a 49-year-old engineer with a net worth of around $5 million who lives with her husband in Menlo Park, no longer frets about tucking enough money away for college for their two children. Long ago she stopped bothering to balance her checkbook. When too many 18-hour days running an engineering department of 1,200 left her feeling burned out and empty, she left and gave herself 12 months off.
Yet like other working-class millionaires of Silicon Valley, she harbors anxieties about her financial future. Ms. Baranski — who was briefly worth as much as $200 million in 2000 but cashed out only $1 million before the collapse of the tech bubble — returned to work in March.
Along with two partners, she founded a software company, Vitamin D, and already she is resigned to the sleepless nights and other stresses that await her. “I ask myself all the time,” Ms. Baranski confessed, “why I do this.”
Working inside a start-up has always been invigorating, she says. But she and her husband, 62, who also works, have concluded that she must stick with it if they are to continue to live the life they enjoy here.
Recently the couple hammered out an agreement: Ms. Baranski will work at least five more years for the sake of their bottom line.
“People around here, if they have 2 or 3 million dollars, they don’t feel secure,” said David W. Hettig, an estate planner based in Menlo Park who has advised Silicon Valley’s wealthy for two decades.
The Luck Factor
Many of the more modest millionaires here feel sheepish, even guilty at times, about their piles of cash. Talent played in a role in their financial success, but so did being at the right place at the right time.
“They recognize that if they happened to walk into a different office,” said Marilyn Holland, a Menlo Park psychologist who has been counseling the Valley’s elite for 25 years, “things would have turned out very differently.”
That is one big difference between these working-class millionaires and the country’s wealthiest tycoons, who tend to see themselves as pillars of the community worthy of the hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps billions, they now possess.
“A lot of the money here is accidental money,” said Bruce Karsh, 51, an engineer who puts his net worth at $2 million to $4 million. “People weren’t setting out to become gazillionaires.”
Ms. Baranski is one of them. The daughter of a college professor who died when she was 12 and left her mother to raise three children, she began college intending to become a musician. But worries about the debt she was racking up prompted her to transfer to the engineering school, where she eventually earned a master’s in electrical engineering.
That today she is worth around $5 million, said Ms. Baranski, who helped to put herself through school cleaning houses, “was unimaginable in my 20s.”
“I always ask myself, ‘Do I deserve it?’ ” she said. “It never feels like you do, because that’s a lot of money.”
Ms. Baranski is hardly the only working-class millionaire asking herself this question. Ms. Holland said she regularly works with multimillionaires who wonder why they are so well compensated when others, like teachers, who contribute so much to the world, are not.
The lucky moment in Ms. Baranski’s career came when she took a job as the head engineer at Handspring, the hand-held device maker, in September 1999. By the end of 2000, Ms. Baranski’s stock holdings briefly made her one of the wealthier women in Silicon Valley.
At quick glance, Ms. Baranski and her husband, Paul, live modestly. She drives a 2006 Subaru, her husband a six-year-old Saab. Their children attend public school, and vacations tend to be modest affairs centered on visiting family.
Ms. Baranski cares little for clothes or jewelry. They have a swimming pool, but only because Ms. Baranski pressed hard for one, a dream of hers growing up in Southern California.
Like most of her neighbors, Ms. Baranski splurged most on a house in a community studded with some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Early in 2001, when Ms. Baranski seemed richer than she was, they paid $1.95 million for a dilapidated house in Menlo Park, knowing they would tear it down. They spent $1 million over the next few years building their dream house.
Ms. Baranski recognizes, of course, that she is far better off than many of her neighbors. Even well-paid college administrators, professors and other white-collar professionals struggle to pay their bills in this expensive redoubt 30 miles south of San Francisco.
“I don’t know how people live here on just a normal salary,” said Ms. Baranski.
Her nanny rents an apartment in Palo Alto, Ms. Baranski said. She pays her what she described as a generous salary and gave her the keys to her old Saab when she bought the newer one. But “basically I have no idea how she survives here.”
Mr. Hettig, the estate planning lawyer, sums it up for many: “We’re in such a rarefied environment,” he said, “people here lose perspective on what the rest of the world looks like.”
‘A Dime a Dozen’
David Koblas, a computer programmer with a net worth of $5 million to $10 million, imagines what his life would be like if he left Silicon Valley. He could move to a small town like Elko, Nev., he says, and be a ski bum. Or he could move his family to the middle of the country and live like a prince in a spacious McMansion in the nicest neighborhood in town.
But Mr. Koblas, 39, lives with his wife, Michelle, and their two children in Los Altos, south of Palo Alto, where the schools are highly regarded and the housing prices are inflated accordingly. So instead of a luxury home, the family lives in a relatively modest 2,000-square-foot house — not much bigger than the average American home — and he puts in long hours at Wink, a search engine start-up founded in 2005.
“I’d be rich in Kansas City,” he said. “People would seek me out for boards. But here I’m a dime a dozen.”
No one knows for certain how many single-digit millionaires live in Silicon Valley. Certainly their numbers reach into the tens of thousands, say those who work with the area’s engineers and entrepreneurs. Yet nearly all of them still have all-consuming jobs, not only because the work gives them a sense of achievement and satisfaction but also because they think they must work so much to afford their gilded neighborhoods.
That certainly describes Tony Barbagallo, 44, who over the last two decades has collected around $3.6 million in stock and options from companies he has worked for. Despite his good fortune, though, he is surprised to find that he worries like most other Americans about matters as varied as the soaring cost of health care, the high price of college and the pressure to sock away more money for retirement.
Taxes have devoured about 40 percent of his stash, Mr. Barbagallo said, knocking that figure down to $2.2 million. Over the years, he has tried to live off his salary, but not always successfully. To limit their monthly expenses, he and his wife Catherine bought a ranch house far from Silicon Valley, in the town of Moraga, for $750,000 — by Valley standards a modest sum.
But they spent $350,000 on extensive remodeling — causing them, not for the first time, to dip deeply into their nest egg.
Today, he has roughly $1.2 million left in savings and another several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of home equity, Mr. Barbagallo said, with one child in college and a second on her way.
So he works as hard as ever, logging more than 70 hours a week at a San Francisco start-up.
“Poor Tony, he’ll never be able to retire,” Catherine Barbagallo said.
Chasing the Top 0.1 Percent
Many of these millionaires have options, of course, beyond working hard to earn another $5 million to $10 million. A few even choose to jump off the golden treadmill.
That is what Mark Gage, 51, an engineer, and his wife, Meredith, did when they left the Bay Area in 2005 with $3 million or so in assets. They bought a house in Bend, Ore. — “a bigger, much nicer home with dramatic views” — and now Mr. Gage works only when the perfect consulting job presents itself.
Yet the same drive that earned so many of the engineers and entrepreneurs who live here their fortunes keeps them tied to the Valley, which resembles nothing so much as a sprawling post-war suburb, though one whose roadways are thick with cars costing in the six figures.
Umberto Milletti has fantasized about downsizing his life to ease the financial pressures he feels despite a net worth around $5 million. In 2000, when his stake in DigitalThink, the online learning company he co-founded in 1996, was worth around $50 million, he bought his family of four a five-bedroom house in Hillsborough, an upscale suburb south of San Francisco. After his net worth fell 90 percent, though, he found the house more of an albatross than a dream.
“We could move,” Mr. Milletti said. “But if you do that, then you’re admitting defeat. No one wants to go backwards.”
So he works 60 to 70 hours a week at InsideView, an online sales intelligence company he co-founded in 2005, in part to prove that his first success was not a fluke — but also to meet his monthly nut, which includes payments on a seven-figure mortgage.
Silicon Valley offers an unusual twist on keeping up with the Joneses. The venture capitalist two doors down might own a Cessna Citation X private jet. The father of your 8-year-old’s best friend, who has not worked for two years, drives a bright yellow Ferrari. Temptations loom everywhere.
“You see how much money you have in the bank,” Mr. Koblas, the computer programmer, said, “and your eyes get really big.” He described it as “upsizing your life to your cash flow.”
Then there are the additional burdens on this digital elite, said Ms. Holland, the psychologist — demands they are typically not prepared to handle.
“There are all these people who come to you for money,” Ms. Holland said. “Siblings, parents, other relatives. Organizations seeking charitable contributions. There’s this assumption you have all this money — so why don’t you write a big check to the school or to this other charity?”
Other pressures can come from within the social circle. Mr. Barbagallo, for instance, remembers when several couples tried cajoling his wife and him — unsuccessfully — to fly to Las Vegas for a charity event featuring Andre Agassi.
“You look around,” Mr. Barbagallo said, “and the pressures to spend more are everywhere.” Children want the latest fashions their peers are wearing and the most popular high-ticket toys. Furniture does not seem up to snuff once you move into a multimillion-dollar home. Spouses talk, and now that resort in Mexico the family enjoyed so much last winter is not good enough when looking ahead to next year. Summer camp, a full-time housekeeper, vintage wines, country clubs: the cost of living bloats.
To Mr. Milletti, it all looks like a marathon with no finish line.
“Here, the top 1 percent chases the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and the top one-tenth of 1 percent chases the top one-one-hundredth of 1 percent,” he said.
“You try not to get caught up in it,” he added, “but it’s hard not to.”
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/08/05/business/05rich1_lg.jpg
A few million doesn’t go as far as it used to.” NAME Hal Steger AGE 51 NET WORTH $3.5 million CURRENT JOB Marketing executive
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/08/05/business/05rich2_lg.jpg
“The pressures to spend more are everywhere.” NAME Tony Barbagallo AGE 44 Net Worth $1.5 Million CURRENT JOB Product management
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:36 (eighteen years ago)
"working-class millionaires"
― Martin Van Burne, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:36 (eighteen years ago)
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/08/05/business/05rich3_lg.jpg
“I always ask myself, ‘Do I deserve it?’” NAME Celeste Baranski AGE 49 NET WORTH $5 Million CURRENT JOB Co-founder, software start-up
That guy may be on a budget, but he should really hire a personal fashion advisor. I will do it for free, just because I feel so bad about his trouser-fit.
― Beth Parker, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:38 (eighteen years ago)
in other news:
"Efforts to free miners trapped in Utah unsuccessful so far"
Not that it probably isn't rough in the "Silicon Valley salt mines", I'm sure it is!
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:39 (eighteen years ago)
"Summer camp, a full-time housekeeper, vintage wines, country clubs: the cost of living bloats."
― Martin Van Burne, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:40 (eighteen years ago)
lol class
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:41 (eighteen years ago)
“The pressures to spend more are everywhere.”
i'm thinking the pressure should be a little greater on this guy to buy some patio furniture. where does he sit back there?
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:42 (eighteen years ago)
He gave it all to the nanny. He sleeps on his chaise-long.
― Beth Parker, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:43 (eighteen years ago)
my favorite times article this year is similar (well, maybe second after saturday's piece about the guy who built a working replica of a revolutionary war era sub and mounted an incursion against the qe2 off red hook):
AMAZING +: Driven to Excel; For Girls, It's Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too
April 1, 2007, Sunday By SARA RIMER (NYT); National Desk Late Edition - Final, Section 1, Page 1, Column 1, 4595 words
DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - To anyone who knows 17-year-old Esther Mobley, one of the best students at one of the best public high schools in the country, it is absurd to think she doesn't measure up. But Esther herself is quick to set the record straight. ''First of all, I'm a terrible athlete,'' ...
some of those poor kids will not get into an ivy league school!!!!!!
― edb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:44 (eighteen years ago)
I thought that first pic was Albee from Big Love.
Yeah, Another "Million bucks doesn't go far in Silicon Valley" SHOCKAH!
― schwantz, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:50 (eighteen years ago)
and don't get me wrong, i don't hate rich people. my wardrobe and my library have been immeasurably enriched by the cast-offs of dead rich people. i just think that congress should pass a law making it illegal for anyone with a million dollars in the bank to ever complain in public about money.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:51 (eighteen years ago)
They're just workin' for the man.
(I'd rather read about the Silicon Valley underlings of these upper-middle management types - how's Silicon Valley living on $100k a year guy? $20k for the janitorial staff?)
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:53 (eighteen years ago)
I think it's worthwhile to do an article on, well, the 'working rich,' or on social equality with respect to a class of wealthy people, or even on 'millionaire' not meaning what it once did (though, duh), but how many 'this is what the rich are up to' articles does the NYT have to do? Does it sell papers for them?
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:54 (eighteen years ago)
xp
where'd you get the 20k figure from, milo?
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:55 (eighteen years ago)
Anyway, what kind of self-pitying dipshit agrees to be interviewed for a story like that anyway?
More taxes. Now.
― Martin Van Burne, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)
or the 100k figure?
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)
it crawled out of his ass
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)
how many of them had money invested in those now-belly up bear stearns hedge funds?!?
anyway, i saw this headline this sunday -- i didn't actually READ it, but i was still curious in a really morbid way. not to mention that the NYT could've stuck to their own backyard & saved the money on airfare to silicon valley, gone to (say) chelsea or tribeca and found a few Wall Street/BigLaw asshats to bitch about how "only" a mil or two doesn't go very far in Manhattan any more.
― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:57 (eighteen years ago)
xp - The median income of Santa Clara County is $85k. Not everyone can be a 'working-class millionaire,' after all.
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 15:59 (eighteen years ago)
well, I imagine the NYT might have a body or two in or around Silicon Valley (and such airfare really isn't very expensive), but I do wonder generally how much such articles (especially the style section ones) are motivated by reporters wanting to get in on the action
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)
the median income in Arlington, TX is $48K
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:02 (eighteen years ago)
the median income on the Upper East Side is $65k.
not sure what the point of this little exchange has been.
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:03 (eighteen years ago)
you guys are trying to see who can be the biggest dick?
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:04 (eighteen years ago)
(just kidding, milo you win that race every time)
the median family income in Marfa, TX is $32k which may explain why the locals hate everyone
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:05 (eighteen years ago)
nah i'm rooting for gabbneb! x-post
― strgn, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)
i'm illustrating that your reference points may be rather off-base, milo. assuming they're correct for Arlington, translating them into santa clara county, the janitor makes 35k and the upper middle management dude makes 178k. (which isn't exactly true because we're not using individual incomes, and in any event your figure is wrong at least according to wikipedia. in actuality it looks like the janitor would make ~29k and the upper middle management dude would make ~145-150k).
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)
um, gabbneb, I said: "Silicon Valley underlings of these upper-middle management types"
Now, since the median income of Silicon Valley is $85k, I think it's safe to assume that there are individuals earning slightly more - and also individuals earning far less. Nothing about reference points or local wages or anything else.
Do read next time, will ya?
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:27 (eighteen years ago)
...
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)
$100K in DC is making fucking rent and paying off loans and credit card debt. Once in a while I buy a new TV or some speakers or a new computer to run Ableton. I drink too much. I try to save what I can for when I get the hell out of this hole. no sleep till brooklyn.
OTOH yeah silicon valley is a joke, there is absolutely no amount of money you could pay me to go work in one of those "los whatevers" or mountain view suburbs. All those people are 1. fucking crazy, 2. fucking nuts, 3. like some kind of nightmare nerd version of those hamptons/connecticut wall street commuter types. To think we still glamorize executives who work 60 hours a week just so they can enjoy a big empty house for a few dozy hours on Sunday is the biggest and most disgusting part of the American Dream.
100% estate tax NOW. Bonus: this would wipe out the LNS crowd.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:32 (eighteen years ago)
and by 60 hours a week of course I mean 80-90, what was I thinking, the week has 168 hours in it
100% estate tax NOW.
Seconded.
― Martin Van Burne, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:33 (eighteen years ago)
remember how lindsay lohan's friends used to give her shit about only making $7 million by age 20. they were right.
― sunny successor, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:34 (eighteen years ago)
xp - Tombot's first paragraph is what I was getting at before gabbneb started being gabbneb: a story about people who would be (very) comfortable elsewhere in the country but have to struggle in Silicon Valley (or DC) would be far more interesting than a story about people who are already (very) comfortable in Silicon Valley but would just be fuckin' rich anywhere else.
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)
has there ever been a child who thought that what they wanted to do when they grew up was to put on some pleated pants and play some golf with a blackberry holster? Is there anybody who actually thinks that's cool?
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)
TOMBOT 100% OTM.
also, repeal of estate tax repeal = the "keep Eisbaer employed in the future act" :-)
― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/brainiac/keaton.jpg
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)
wtf does the estate tax have to do with this?
― bell_labs, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)
My family all live in the south and I think they would probably be very, very confused if I were to tell them my living situation vs. my salary.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:37 (eighteen years ago)
a story about people who would be (very) comfortable elsewhere in the country but have to struggle in Silicon Valley (or DC)
if they worked elsewhere in the country, they wouldn't make as much
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:37 (eighteen years ago)
if the estate tax were 100%, you might have a few more people thinking for a second about what it actually means to have money vs. have a life, instead of just assuming it'll be nice for the kids to have a couple mil to kick around
the working lots of hours thing goes both ways. working a lot in general is glamorized in this country. whether you work 3 jobs and have no money (bootstrap stories, ya know. single mother going to school part time and working three jobs and then getting her degree in egyptology or whatever) or work a lot and make tons of money.
x-post to something. i can't remember...
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:38 (eighteen years ago)
xxxp - Are there people who grow up dreaming of the day they can enter dental school?
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:39 (eighteen years ago)
"elsewhere in the country" doesn't have the bizarre venture capital bubble-world that silicon valley does - you're being disingenuous, gabbneb, it has nothing to do with cost of living
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:39 (eighteen years ago)
-- gabbneb, Tuesday, August 7, 2007 11:37 AM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark Link
@%DEGw984tq#$^YQ#%(QEGA*()EHGQ#L#I5q34utvpn9qt7p3u9gb7q3%&B@^(*&W$%YJB($Y$W
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:39 (eighteen years ago)
oh I'm sorry I meant to type FUCK YOURSELF
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:40 (eighteen years ago)
milo I'd buy that a lot quicker. I mean I wanted to be a spy or an astronaut, right, and it probably still wouldn't faze me that I've found out both jobs also secretly suck and don't pay well
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)
xxxinfuriatedposts to Tracer's much more reasonable dissection of the problem with gabbneb's quip
I mean I wanted to be a spy or an astronaut, right, and it probably still wouldn't faze me that I've found out both jobs also secretly suck and don't pay well
http://www.borev.net/spies.jpg
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:42 (eighteen years ago)
watching The Recruit last night, I kept thinking what a loser the dude was to go join the CIA for peanuts when Dell would have handed him the moon. He could have played paintball on the weekends.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:44 (eighteen years ago)
The Bourne movies make a CIA career seem pretty glam. You could be Nicky, "an American student in Paris"!
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:45 (eighteen years ago)
Al Pacino only made 75 thousand dollars a year as a top-notch spy dude! The guy who delivers the bottled water to Microsoft probably makes more than that.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:46 (eighteen years ago)
i don't think that gabb has actually crunched the numbers. no, you can't do M&A work or fancy-ass computer-geek shit in, say, johnstown, PA -- but if you CAN find a decent-paying job in such a place (good luck with that, though) you might be shocked with just how far your money will go. (not to mention that you won't be competing with a bunch of clueless assclowns in a senseless conspicuous consumption potlatch)
also, y'all ALWAYS need to keep the following in mind when considering gabb's outlook:
http://www.outtacontext.com/life/images/s@ul_steinberg_nyc.jpg
― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:46 (eighteen years ago)
Are there people who grow up dreaming of the day they can enter dental school?
http://www.csh.rit.edu/~tommut/poll/poll_images/hermey.jpg
― Martin Van Burne, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:47 (eighteen years ago)
well yeah Scott the guy who delivers the bottled water is probably a Teamster, duh
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)
i keep thinking about that French woman in Sicko who when asked what the biggest money worry is after paying her mortgage ponders and says "fish - the fish is expensive"
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)
i mean, it's almost like doing a vulcan mind-meld with a veal calf!
― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)
Steve Martin and his motorcycle would eat that elf for breakfast
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)
Uh, how many Abominable Snow Beasts has Steve Martin neutralized?
― Martin Van Burne, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:50 (eighteen years ago)
ummmmmmmmm I'm sure Steve Martin could handle and Abominable Snow Beast, he rips off a dolls head in that clip for fucks sake.
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:50 (eighteen years ago)
actually, it was the Seattle Steinberg that used to be on my wall growing up, Tad
an omg-so-fashion girl from my hs whose parents aren't poor went to dental school. of course, she married a bond trader.
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:51 (eighteen years ago)
man you could not pay me a million dollars a day to be a dentist. yuck!
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:52 (eighteen years ago)
probably none of them, the barrier for entry to hedge fund investment is much higher than you think it is.
― hstencil, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:53 (eighteen years ago)
an old joke:
Q: what do you call the kid who finished at the bottom of the class in medical school? A: dentist.
― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)
people are fucking stupid. I could so so easily live on $1,000,000 for the rest of my life. ($50,000/ year @ a relatively paltry 5%). Of course 1) I'll likely drive my hand-me-down Buick until the wheels fall off, regardless of any future fortune 2) I like living in my modest fixer-upper. 3) I'm more or less debt-free.
really all I need to do is eat, pay my mortgage and maybe take a nice but frugal vacation every other year or so.
― will, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)
that's more of a truism than a joke, tad
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:55 (eighteen years ago)
read the article. most of the examples in it live in modest fixer-uppers (for the area of the country they live in) and drive older cars.
not saying the whole thing isn't disgusting, but really, might be worth reading the article before you posit that you are doing things differently than the people written about in it.
― hstencil, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:56 (eighteen years ago)
In order to comply with 3(c)(1) or 3(c)(7), hedge funds are sold via private placement under the Securities Act of 1933. Thus interests in a hedge fund cannot be offered or advertised to the general public, and are normally offered under Regulation D. Although it is possible to have non-accredited investors in a hedge fund, the exemptions under the Investment Company Act, combined with the restrictions contained in Regulation D, effectively require hedge funds to be offered solely to accredited investors. An accredited investor is an individual with a minimum net worth of US $5,000,000 or, alternatively, a minimum income of US$200,000 in each of the last two years and a reasonable expectation of reaching the same income level in the current year.
dunno what those bear stearns funds particular requirements were, but it seems that at least SOME of those folks would qualify as "accredited investors."
― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 16:57 (eighteen years ago)
one person in the article has a min of $5 mm, tad.
― hstencil, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:00 (eighteen years ago)
"or, alternatively, a minimum income of US$200,000 in each of the last two years and a reasonable expectation of reaching the same income level in the current year."
― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:01 (eighteen years ago)
yeah i'm sure hedge funds love to acquire new clients who are making $200k and spending $150k a year or whatever.
― hstencil, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:03 (eighteen years ago)
that said, i'm sure these people's portfolios are stocked with funds that invest in hedge funds for them. but no, they are not most likely the type of investors that hedge funds are looking for as primary investors.
― hstencil, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:05 (eighteen years ago)
are there people who seek social status totally unrelated to the concept of 'cool'?
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:09 (eighteen years ago)
Nobody in that article lives in a modest house.
― Kerm, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:12 (eighteen years ago)
Well I did read the article and yeah, I should mention that I have no children and I love in the South, but still:
Like most of her neighbors, Ms. Baranski splurged most on a house in a community studded with some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Early in 2001, when Ms. Baranski seemed richer than she was, they paid $1.95 million for a dilapidated house in Menlo Park, knowing they would tear it down. They spent $1 million over the next few years building their dream house
Hey I realize real estate out there vs. where I am are two completely different animals, but I have a hard time believing this was the only option available. I also understand that this is probably a fairly honest portrayal of "middle-class" in SV. I'm just suggesting that folks often have a difficult time discerning between wants and needs and can easily end up financially imprisoned by their own hand.
(probably shouldn't have called them "stupid" though)
― will, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:16 (eighteen years ago)
many xxxxposts
― will, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:17 (eighteen years ago)
If I were to take the people in this article at face value, I'd say they're pretty fucking obnoxious.
There are two major factors here. One is cost of living. If you rule out cost of living, these people are still incredibly wealthy. I know people who live in Manhattan, and the cost of living is dramatically higher, but not that dramatically higher. For example, $100,000.00 in DC is probably the equivalent of $75,000.00 in Minneapolis.
The second:
This, I think, has more to due with their worries than anything else.
These people have chosen their lifestyle, and the fact that they don't have the same kind of worries that people at the median income level or the fifth quintile have to struggle with is a great success in and of itself.
― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:24 (eighteen years ago)
fuck all these people
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:29 (eighteen years ago)
yeah try being surrounded by tons of butt-rich fuckers who are actively working to flush this country down the toilet, at least the computer business contributes something positive to the GDP and the tax base. Fuck.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:31 (eighteen years ago)
Some dude:
SHAKEY! WHAT ARE THE GREATEST THINGS IN LIFE?
Shakey:
TO HATE THE RICH, TO GLOAT WHEN THEY DIE, AND POST REPEATEDLY ABOUT IT ON INTERNETS
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:34 (eighteen years ago)
Conan is a shitty movie
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:34 (eighteen years ago)
You're a shitty dude
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:36 (eighteen years ago)
thx I love you too
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:38 (eighteen years ago)
Despite the 'worries' and burdens and whatever are referred to, these people clearly realize that they're living in luxury and don't want that to change.
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:42 (eighteen years ago)
of course, they all hate their jobs
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)
haha -- this article also reminds me of latrell sprewell bitching about how he needs more than $7M/year because "he has a family to feed."
― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 17:46 (eighteen years ago)
I think it's weird that you guys are arguing about whether these people actually make enough money to live comfortably in Silicon Valley. The issue here isn't the numbers, it's the human drive to never be satisfied with what you have, not matter how much you have. It's a psychological issue, not a financial issue.
― n/a, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:05 (eighteen years ago)
yep
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:05 (eighteen years ago)
just as work expands to fill the time available to do it, cost of living will typically expand to encompass your whole paycheck, no matter what it is.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:07 (eighteen years ago)
Please don't agree with me about anything ever, Shakey.
― n/a, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:07 (eighteen years ago)
too late!
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:08 (eighteen years ago)
Conan is NOT a shitty movie. Max von Sydow is great, Mako is great, etc etc etc
― kingfish, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:21 (eighteen years ago)
imho the only good movie the governor is in is The Long Goodbye
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:22 (eighteen years ago)
Shakey, now you have lost even me.
― kingfish, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)
okay Pumping Iron is kinda funny
"what are you doing Lou?" "Pumping up, ahnuld"
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:28 (eighteen years ago)
http://sportsmedia.ign.com/sports/image/article/749/749518/rocky-balboa-exclusive-clip-20061206014605149-000.jpg
xposts
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:29 (eighteen years ago)
milo z - EXACTLY
― will, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:43 (eighteen years ago)
I wouldn't know how to blow money in the Silicon Valley (nice car? house? that's about it).
― Spencer Chow, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:47 (eighteen years ago)
Use your imagination.
― n/a, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:56 (eighteen years ago)
walk-in humidor
― dan m, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:57 (eighteen years ago)
lots and lots of iPhones
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:57 (eighteen years ago)
electric dog polisher
gasoline-powered sweater
― n/a, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:57 (eighteen years ago)
That was an awkward moment of dork mind-meld.
― n/a, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:58 (eighteen years ago)
once you've banked X million dollars and you're in your fifties, you could move to Bumfuck and live out your days without the worries and anxiety (even if you still had to work)...
I was wondering the other day what the etymology of "Bumfuck" might be.
― dell, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 20:09 (eighteen years ago)
Like Podunk, but dirtier
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 20:10 (eighteen years ago)
ha, yeah... I think they're both nicely onomatopoeic.
― dell, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)
Maybe no one here cares to pursue this line, but I was struck by one of the letters-to-the-editor in response to the article.
...How can people with so much feel so anxious and unhappy about what they have and who they are? Perhaps because they choose to define who they are — and the ultimate meaning and purpose of their lives — by what they have. The problem with this, as pointed out by the millionaires themselves, is that there is always someone who has more and is therefore “better.”
These are smart people making dumb mistakes: they seem to lack the wisdom to define themselves in other, more substantive ways. I think of people who have less of the money and things but have more of the happiness and well-being precisely because they avoid this mistake and define themselves by the quality of their relationships, or communities, or passions and interests...
Yeah, but unhappiness comes in so many different varieties; i.e., one can always look to someone who seems to have "better" relationships, or who enjoys a deeper sense of community, or who has more passion and more interests in life.
Sure, it's important to realize that material wealth doesn't equal "happiness", but once one starts to look towards these other qualities, it sorta opens up a whole other can of worms as far as striving for that elusive happiness thing.
I dunno, I guess that's why so many people, in the U.S., at least, are either on antidepressants or embrace Christian fundamentalism. We're a miserable lot. I'm being partially facetious in saying that...really, I just wanted to comment on this b/c the letter seemed so smug in its "money doesn't buy happiness" prescription that I was bothered by how it ignored the dubiousness of the concept of happiness/satisfaction itself.
― dell, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 21:17 (eighteen years ago)
http://www.elkatif.org/Scimitar.gif Shriners! More community spirit than you can handle!
― Andi Mags, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)
money might not buy happiness, but i'd much rather be miserable and rich than miserable and poor.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:42 (eighteen years ago)
i would be a very happy rich person!
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:43 (eighteen years ago)
i just KNOW that it would buy me happiness.
as long as i could be one of those rich people who doesn't have to work 80 hours a week. that would take all the fun out of my riches.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:45 (eighteen years ago)
Yah, OTM, like after so long of living hand-to-mouth I think it would be really, really fun for at least half a year (before the novelty wears up) to wake up every morning and think, "I've got money in savings and wise investments! I have...money!" And I don't think I'd want to spend it based on my spending habits in the Sims & Sim City 2000 (frugal), the only "scenarios" in which I've had the opportunity to save or have income fulfilling my needs or beyond my needs.
― Abbott, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:55 (eighteen years ago)
My advice - become a public school teacher. Tenure and great benefits. You can stay middle class and keep reasonable hours without having to live hand to mouth.
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:56 (eighteen years ago)
dood teachers don't get paid shit and everyone looks down on them
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:57 (eighteen years ago)
(I say this as someone who was raised by a junior high school teacher and a public school librarian)
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:58 (eighteen years ago)
But think of the sweet vacations...
― schwantz, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:59 (eighteen years ago)
I won't deny that rich people have problems too, but the "I feel financially strapped" multi-millionaire crowd can go suck an egg.
Salt mines, my ass. You have many options available--more than 99% of the rest of the world. If you've earned it, enjoy it.
Gary, I don't give a shit.
Bottom line? Security? This is fucking sick. If she's working in "the saltmines" for the bottom line, at $5M net worth, she is ill.
― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 22:59 (eighteen years ago)
I was gonna be a teacher, actually, but then I took education classes at college & started learning a hella lot (independently through my own reading) about the current public school system. I don't think I could handle it. I was having panic attacks just thinking about it.
Between my husband & I we will both have enough to live comfortably & raise kids, I am not particularly concerned. I am still a student & hence the starving awesome.
oh my xpost
― Abbott, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:00 (eighteen years ago)
Fluffy Bear OTM.
― Abbott, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:01 (eighteen years ago)
Just being on my wife's health plan takes so much anxiety out of my life.
Other than that, the only thing that helps is perspective. You can say "Fuck, I can only afford a used car" "Fuck, I can't afford all these expensive restaurants," "Fuck I live in an apartment that's falling apart, and it's not even in the city," or you can say "Holy shit, I have a car, I can afford to eat a little take out when I don't feel like cooking, I have more space than I really need, I have time and means to pursue my interests, and I'm even saving money," (ok, I know not everyone on this board is even in that position,).
I'm a complete hypocrite, of course, because I'm applying to law school.
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:02 (eighteen years ago)
anybody with a net worth of 5 million who can't figure out how to invest some of that and get REALLY rich is silly. or they should take a class or something.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:03 (eighteen years ago)
Yeah, haha Hurting, all those things sound like some wonderful dream in my current situation. (Plz do not get the wrong idea, everyone, I'm not sitting in a dumpster getting wifi from a nearby McDonald's).
― Abbott, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:04 (eighteen years ago)
The nice thing about having a smaller house is you don't HAVE the room to buy a bunch of stuff to fill it up with. Plus plus much easier to clean.
― Abbott, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:05 (eighteen years ago)
every once in a while, i wish i had gone to school. and made lots of money. but i'm too weird to be that motivated about a career. my brain is broken. which is why i married someone who makes good money and owns land. hahahahahaha! i iz a golddiggah.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)
i do feel useful though. my job is all about the benefits. my kids will have good health care/dental care until they are in college as long as i can continue to clean up blood and feces.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:10 (eighteen years ago)
i have a feeling about this week's megamillions though...
well at least you know there'll always be blood and feces around to clean up.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:11 (eighteen years ago)
amen, brother.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:12 (eighteen years ago)
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/tragic_event_forces_man_to_spend
^^^^^^ gaaaaahhhh why do I laugh
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:15 (eighteen years ago)
cuz it's funny!
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:17 (eighteen years ago)
life is pretty funny. ya gotta laugh. which is why the dude who has banked more than two mil should go get wasted or something. buy a hot air balloon and fill it with hookers and gin. we are all gonna be cold and in the ground and nobody will care if you were a billionare. these sad rich folks bring a tear to my eye :(
― scott seward, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:19 (eighteen years ago)
I think Ms. Misery has a thing or two to say about the joys of being a public school teacher.
I think the best part about being stupid rich would be giving away money. Like cutting a check for ten grand to your nearest abortion access fund and another five for the local no-kill shelter and not even thinking twice. If I ever win the lottery I'm just going to run around handing out cash for the first year.
― milo z, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:38 (eighteen years ago)
My wife loves teaching but I guess it's not for everyone. Alternative: library school. Decent pay and benefits, high job demand, you get to work with books and films and music and stuff, work around intelligent people, and NYTimes says it's officially cool.
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:42 (eighteen years ago)
Pretty much all my friends who don't have some very specific career/academic path are going back to library school now.
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 23:45 (eighteen years ago)
which is why i married someone who makes good money and owns land. hahahahahaha! i iz a golddiggah.
ha ha! the point of this whole thing is that money is relative. I make "good money" to some, but I'm at the lower end of middle class. It feels like "good money" even though I'm always terrified about paying the bills every month and we don't have any extra, cuz we always have enough to eat and I can take my kids to the doctor when they need it. Savings? No. The thing is to be thankful, no? And hope for the best. But it would be awesome to be rich - at least at first. It might be inevitable to always say, "well, I have money, but not like they have money"
― Maria :D, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 00:39 (eighteen years ago)
Wow, I pretty much agree w/everything everyone said here. Though the teaching thing- ergh...summers off, yes, but there is usually a bunch of workload to come home with, and pay ain't so hot until you've been doing it for years and years.
Yeah, I don't understand the standing-on-my-patio in pleated pants somewheres amongst the South Bay sprawl thing that these people have locked themselves into. If I were fabulously wealthy, I would probably spend some months getting drunk lots until that got boring, and then I would travel around and see friends and stuff, and then I would pour money into some music project, and then, finally I would throw the rest into some philanthropic enterprises. And, yeah, it would be a blast to be giving money away in a less-organized fashion the whole while.
The fact that these folks feel such pressure is almost beyond bizarre. I never really freak out about money, even though I am, relatively speaking (like, as in compared to my "peer group"), horribly poor. (No savings, in debt, living kinda hand-to-mouth, dismally wayward (or non-existent, even) career path, etc.) Fuck, I could die before I complete typing this sentence, though, so why bother freaking out about shit. Granted, I don't have kids, and so am only responsible for myself...but, as Maria's implying if not outright stating, I think that being thankful and having a positive attitude goes a long way.
The reason that I originally brought up the bit from the letter-to-the-editor is b/c the things that the letter-writer brings up as salvific alternatives to basing one's happiness on material things-- well, in my case it has been just those very things which have messed with my sense of happiness, whereas money never has. In other words, I have felt bummed in the past b/c I wished I felt more socially connected, or wished that I felt better about myself as a person... but I've never cared about being "poor". Maybe this is partly a result of the company that I keep; but also, my favorite foods are very cheap, my taste in clothing is cheapo, and I don't require a lot of "living space". And I rarely buy shit in general, except for books and records...and beer. (OMG, I am such a wild and crazy bohemian madman. durr.)
And the library school thing! Yeah...probably a wise move. I've thought about it, to be sure.
― dell, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 01:26 (eighteen years ago)
this is fairly accurate from what I know of entrepreneurial types who sold to a bigger company and then stopped working:
If I were fabulously wealthy, I would probably spend some months getting drunk lots until that got boring, and then I would travel around and see friends and stuff, and then I would pour money into some music project, and then,
except that shortly after the drinking and the travelling, when it's time for the "new project," they don't feel like they have it in them anymore to do all the work and money goes down the toilet, sunk cost fallacy begins to take effect, and the next thing you know they're back at work, not really that rich anymore.
you burn through money in a big hurry if you don't plan and budget to live off a fixed income. This is why people who collect very large paychecks for a short time (athletes, actors, etc) can wind up nearly destitute, if they don't learn good management or hire a good accountant and listen to them.
to a degree, I would argue that's also why some of these SV folks are still busting their ass to make even MORE:
(67% of (5000000 U.S. dollars)) per (30 years) = 111666.667 U.S. dollars per year
^ thx google calculator
which, depending on what you want to leave behind, healthcare costs, and who knows what else might happen along the way, could just barely be supporting the lifestyle of some of these folks through retirement.
Just saying. I agree with scott, I basically feel sympathetic to anybody stuck in the rat race, though it's nobody's fault but my own that I'm in it myself.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 01:46 (eighteen years ago)
are libraries hiring like mad right now? what's the deal?
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 01:48 (eighteen years ago)
Information management, aka, 'helping people with no sense of reference skills how to use google.' (I overstate...slightly.)
Also you get to be featured in NY Times articles about going to bars in Willamsburg while being 'hip' and 'with it.'
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 01:54 (eighteen years ago)
Hey, the Times article sold me on it. Like whoa, if I get an MLIS I hang around Suicide Girls all day? SWEET.
― milo z, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 01:56 (eighteen years ago)
I really have nothing against the library school path for fairly obvious reasons (one of my two best friends is currently in a program and will do a tremendous job wherever she is hired -- see also the various library threads on here). At the same time a lot of the rhetoric almost feels like that which surrounded grad school programs in general in the eighties, which led to a massive glut in the nineties. There being many practical reasons and paths for general info management more so than there are are practical reasons to sit around and think about Derrida all day, I'm not foreseeing a similar crunch but a little less starry-eyed attitudes will be handy -- and an allowance for how trend driven library science is as a field just like anything else. (And often *behind* those trends but I'll stop here for now, but let's just say you'd be surprised how the new buzzword among many academic libraries is Second Life. Seriously.)
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 01:58 (eighteen years ago)
Libraries are certainly not hiring like mad; I've had one offer for a full-time job since I graduated in May. It's sort of this myth concocted by ALA and the library schools, and perhaps propogated by the media (hello hipster shushers). Also, it depends on where you live. The D.C. area is oversaturated with newly minted M.L.S.'s--and that's the case for a lot of places. NYC is one place that does actually appear to be hiring . . . . (crosses fingers)
x-post
― Virginia Plain, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 02:00 (eighteen years ago)
Ha, Virginia Plain confirms what I've suspected -- more heat than light. (This was the case for Ex Leon after she graduated from library school as well; took her FOREVER to get a job, though she did get a very good one.)
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 02:02 (eighteen years ago)
More light than heat rather. Yay screwing up metaphors!
Hey, the Times article sold me on it. Like whoa, if I get an MLIS I hang around Suicide Girls all day? SWEET.-- milo z, Wednesday, August 8, 2007 1:56 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
-- milo z, Wednesday, August 8, 2007 1:56 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
nobody in that article is a suicide girl.
― hstencil, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 02:09 (eighteen years ago)
Nah, really?
― milo z, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 02:11 (eighteen years ago)
Hmmm, El Tomboto, yeah, I hear what you're saying. I don't doubt that when the money suddenly appears before one, that it becomes alarmingly easy to burn through it in a brief span of time. Casualties are legion; as you mentioned, one need only look at examples of actors, athletes, and so forth for cautionary tales. I have never personally been acquainted with anyone in the kinda scenario that you're describing, but I don't doubt that such is apt to be the case.
I feel agh, sympathy for you, based on what you said upthread about living in DC. I lived there for a decade; granted it was pre-2000, and things have changed there radically, but, man...it still shocks me that it has become so incredibly expensive to live there. But, it's also kinda par for the course. Like, hasn't Boston also gotten ridiculously expensive in recent years? Jesus, I should just take the goddamn TOEFL thing and move to Bulgaria.
I don't want to go about defending my imaginary monied life, but, I would, I hope during my "drunk phase", have the good sense to drink whatevah beer i normally drink, as opposed to drinking Dom and 40 yr.-old exotic whiskies...and during the travel phase, I would fly coach, merely to the other side of the country, as opposed to repeated round-trip flights to Tahiti on a privately-commissioned jet or some such. But, I definitely appreciate how seeing so much green at one time can distort one's mind. I don't underestimate that power for a second.
Library school/job opportunities...I just mentioned it because the best job I ever had was working at a library during university...and, weirdly, it took several years afterwards for me to begin to say to myself, "oh, duh, why didn't I just go to school for frickin' library science?". Also, I've had a few coversations with people who have mentioned going back to school in that field over the past couple of years and it lit up the proverbial lightbulb in my head. (the one captioned, "duh.")
― dell, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 02:43 (eighteen years ago)
xpost just trying to keep you up-to-date, milo. nobody in the silicon valley article is a suicide girl, either.
― hstencil, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 02:46 (eighteen years ago)
nobody who can afford otherwise ever flies coach. all I'm sayin.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 02:49 (eighteen years ago)
I dunno. Is first class all that much better than coach? Really? You still have to be trapped for 6 or 8 or however many hours in a fucking airplane. Sucks no matter how much better the nuts and wider the seat IMHO.
― Maria :D, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 02:53 (eighteen years ago)
on the other hand, at least one person in the times article gets to work with gabbneb
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 03:00 (eighteen years ago)
heh, as someone who has never flown first class before, I couldn't even say. But, you are probably both right.
Also, can anyone provide me with a link to the times article that you guys are referencing? Thanks...
― dell, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 03:02 (eighteen years ago)
-- El Tomboto, Tuesday, August 7, 2007 10:49 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
I don't buy this.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 03:49 (eighteen years ago)
The fact is that that article profiled people who are already Silicon Valley millionaires - they're already more driven than most by the pursuit of wealth, so it's a little disingenuous to act like their feelings of lack are all just relative to their surroundings.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 03:54 (eighteen years ago)
i want them to do a story on all the young rich childless single silicon valley people who are having a ball with their dot.com wealth! there must be some, right? or are they all just inside their apartments playing halo 3?
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 04:22 (eighteen years ago)
somebody must be having fun with all their new money, right???
My brother in law just got some sweet silicon valley job. Him genius. I will report back in a few years to let you know if he feels like the same old spa resort isn't good enough for his wife anymore.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 04:24 (eighteen years ago)
I think the best part about being stupid rich would be giving away money.
I think about this a lot too. My lottery fantasy involved secretly paying off all my friend's student loans and mortgages.
Whenever I see people with money who keep on working, or athletes who keep playing way after their prime when they already have enough money to make me happy for the rest of my life, I don't get it. I'd be over and out as soon as I had enough in the bank to support my current (meager) lifestyle for the next 50 years or so. Then I think that this is why I'm never going to have tons of money in the first place - I don't have that drive / passion / need to keep up with the Jones that led to all the money in the first place.
― joygoat, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 04:34 (eighteen years ago)
Broker 1: If I ever made 10 million, I'd just retire and enjoy it. Broker 2: That's why you'll never make 10 million.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 04:35 (eighteen years ago)
not too long ago an old childhood chum of mine got in contact with me and he has worked in computers for years and he seems really happy. he lives in san fran though. and he told me that he is only a dot.com thousandare. he's one of the coolest people i've ever known. and the stuff he does seems really creative. he works for a company called Metaweb. and he is always going to cool open source and hacker conferences called Scifoo and Oscon. he invented the amazon recomendation software that they still use. the whole "people who looked at this thing also looked at this thing" deal. but he works on all kinds of AI stuff that i'll probably never understand.
anyway, i still like to hear about the brains of computerland/internet/techstuff. that's what i'm getting at. the money overshadows some of the cool stuff going on.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 04:54 (eighteen years ago)
joygoat, Hurting 2 otm
Not quite the same, perhaps, but nonetheless, I have never understood the mentality of people who retire, and then are "bored", and end up taking on consulting work. I feel fairly confident that I could entertain myself forever without a traditional "work" structure to order my day.
Scott, I have similar-ish stories. I know folks who made ridiculous amounts of money (thousandaires, not millionaires!) in Silicon Valley during the heyday of, as well as post-dotcom bust. Some of them split SF because they realized that, even as comparatively well-off as they were, they could never afford to own a home in the Bay Area...meanwhile at least one couple I know ended up buying a place and having a baby. They are very interesting people in their own right; while they are not in some self-imposed pleated-khaki gilded cell, neither are they playing baccarat on private jets whilst sipping some rarified cellared vino exotico.
― dell, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 05:21 (eighteen years ago)
scott have you broken it to him that the amazon recommendation system is totally horrible and dumb?
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 05:52 (eighteen years ago)
anyway, don't fuss too much about these whiny assclowns -- they'll get theirs once the real estate bubble pops and their $1.8M "fixer-upper" ends up worth a fraction of what they paid for it.
― Eisbaer, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 06:21 (eighteen years ago)
The living-in-the-present, blowing-all-your-cash proponents probably do not have kids. I also dream about giving away lots of money; I'd surely "tithe" - but now that I have kids my thoughts on that have changed, too. I'd want to help organisations I support, but firstly I'd put funds away for my kids.
― Maria :D, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 08:10 (eighteen years ago)
Aren't they already "getting theirs"? Cuz the American dream sure ain't what it's cracked up to be.
― Maria :D, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 08:12 (eighteen years ago)
I can sort of understand their insecurities and, up until a certain point, agree with the "a million doesn't go very far these days." It's all very relative. I know that for some I live a very comfortable life (big house, no financial worries, savings,...) but to a lot of people I'm probably a poor person. I am a terribly worrier and always think of Worst Case Scenarions, realizing that in a day it can all "poof" go up in smoke and I could be living a much simpler life. But I have *taught myself* that a simpler life could/can be just as great as this one. Something which these guys obviously don't realize. So many people are working so hard for what? A dishwasher which they need cause they work all day long. Work less hours and you need less luxury because you have more time (to enjoy life).
Well, the American Dream is of course not what it's cracked up to be. You can wake up from a dream.
― nathalie, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 08:34 (eighteen years ago)
dishwashers are awesome though
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 12:31 (eighteen years ago)
"scott have you broken it to him that the amazon recommendation system is totally horrible and dumb?"
haha, see, and here i was bragging about my friend. i honestly don't know what people think about their system. i just know a lot of people use it. (i never buy stuff on amazon. i use their site for reference.)
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 12:53 (eighteen years ago)
this article is ridiculous - and i bet the writer got paid quite well too!
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 12:54 (eighteen years ago)
(it is good for writers to get paid well though but at the same time i'd want to be writing something with a little more substance/less reprehensible eesh)
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 12:55 (eighteen years ago)
"NYT Article on the Burden of Being An Office Worker Posting on ILX"
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 13:52 (eighteen years ago)
are you kidding?? ok I mean yeah the Times pays better than most but newspaper journalism is not the place to make your fortune.
also I don't think the writer is "endorsing" these ppl, just pointing out that they exist ...
― dmr, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:32 (eighteen years ago)
Yeah, I was gonna say. A lot of NYTimes writers move to the suburbs because they can't afford city RE/rent
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:33 (eighteen years ago)
recommendation systems everywhere suck, though, because they were developed by computer scientists instead of anthropologists with statistical experience - they should not be based willy-nilly on what other customers looked at. they should use some entropy and distance functions to figure out who the most predictable and similar customers are, and define other customers' recommendations based on their distance from the means
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)
and first class is totally worth every penny, unless you just have a fetish for the coach experience
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:36 (eighteen years ago)
OF PRODUCTION
xpost damn you
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)
x-post -- I don't have a fetish for it, I'd just rather use the monetary difference at my destination rather than en route.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)
after my good experience flying to seattle, the one thing i am gonna pay extra for from now on are direct flights. i HATE having to go halfway and wait in another airport and get on another plane. it's like 75% of what i have hated about flying since i started flying with maria. (without maria i wouldn't be anywhere near an airport. she likes to travel.)
just mentally getting on a plane and then actually being where you want to be when you get off is so major to me.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:44 (eighteen years ago)
If I made $2 mil, I think I would be torn between moving back to Wisconsin and chillin on it for many years or blowing it in Ray Smuckles-esque flights of excess.
― Jordan, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:46 (eighteen years ago)
i do not understand a) why people fly first class if cost is at all a concern b) why people don't fly direct wherever possible unless cost is really a concern
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:48 (eighteen years ago)
Yeah, the worst part of air travel for me is mind-numbing layover time. I'm thrilled that Memphis-Amsterdam is going to be nonstop.
― Rock Hardy, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:52 (eighteen years ago)
Layover time = eats. I try to make it as quick as possible while allowing for the evil of delays screwing up a schedule. There's no direct flight between OC and Monterey anymore, sadly, so I've had to layover in either LA or SF ever since when I go home to visit, annoyingly.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:55 (eighteen years ago)
i do not know how much nyt pays writers of features like this one :/ was just thinking 'oh, nyt feature prob pays more than like $500?' i mostly dislike newspapers anyway i shld probably know these things though xpostsss
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)
There's no direct flight between OC and Monterey anymore, sadly, so I've had to layover in either LA or SF ever since when I go home to visit, annoyingly.
Ned is now posting via Mad Libs
― n/a, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)
These people could learn a thing or two from this instructional film:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Blank_Check_film.jpg
― Abbott, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)
x-post -- Indubitably.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)
"Preston embarks on an extreme shopping spree over the course of 6 days, buying a castle-style house (by outbidding Quigley using the voicebox on his computer over the phone) along with many other expensive items (limousine service, go-kart track, water slide, etc.). He spends $999,675 of the original $1,000,000. Preston covers himself by saying he is making these purchases for a millionaire known only as "Macintosh" who lives in the castle house (named after Preston's Macintosh Performa 600)."
― Abbott, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:01 (eighteen years ago)
if I made $2 mil, I wonder what the probability would be that i'd buy a winnebago and start writing guidebooks
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:02 (eighteen years ago)
i do not know how much nyt pays writers of features like this one :/
I just thought it was funny to mention "well-paid writers" in a thread about ridiculous millionaires. whole different league!
also I think if an article sparks this much discussion it's probably a good article (even/especially if the discussion is "omg fuck these people")
― dmr, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)
that's true! i was initially criticizing it for leaving out nuance and questioning but in fact it's kind of brilliant to leave that out b/c the 'working class millionaire' is a rather absurd concept anyway and the whole thing was without a doubt going to spark interest/discussion
haha yeah maybe what i meant by 'well paid' re: writer was that if he was being paid decently by the nyt he should have at least provided more of the other side of the coin, but that's not nec up to him but up to editor and the article got the 'stirring interest/discussion' job done as it is
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)
gabbneb based on yr roadtrip threads and your stated taste in music I estimate that probability at 99%
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)
i thought this was especially eye-popping:
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:24 (eighteen years ago)
1.2 million dollars in savings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
quick, what kind of interest can you make in a year on 1.2 mil in a dumb IRA account or something?
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)
yeah to a degree this is also about having the guts to break out of the somebody-else's-start-up game and be your own capital for once. I mean shit man the dollar's weak right now! freelance yourself to some londoners or something, do the dan selzer!
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)
(by which I mean calculate an actual budget you can live to, and consult/contract as necessary, work 3 weeks out of the month or so)
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:29 (eighteen years ago)
"do the dan selzer" is my nu-slogan
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:34 (eighteen years ago)
x^3-post Just fly Horizon. The (good) beer and wine is complimentary throughout the plane, and after boarding they go "Just let us count you and then you can switch seats where ever." I've never had a flight attendant ask to refill my coke/coffee/water as many times as those nice ladies asked me, "More beer, sir?"
― Kerm, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)
maria gets paid in euros. she roots for u.s. downfall on a daily basis.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:38 (eighteen years ago)
I'm not really sure what "the other side of the coin" means here, but I think it's pretty clear the writer was aware of the irony of the situation and just decided not to hit readers over the head with it.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:38 (eighteen years ago)
to seattle we took air alaska and they were awesome. so nice. no fuss. no muss. they were always asking you if you wanted more booze/food/etc. plus, they have some old stoner on the tail of their plane.
http://aircrafts.ibelgique.com/Alaska737oct299SFO.jpg
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:40 (eighteen years ago)
http://alaska.org/gettingaround/images/AirAlaska.jpg
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:41 (eighteen years ago)
'the other side of the coin' or what i meant by that is perhaps going further than reportage and talking more about what some have been talking abt in this thread - the general idea that people seem compelled to spend as much as they earn and the 'struggle' is about more than money issues - but whatever i always want something more intellectual and this is a newspaper article, i realize that, so it's fine hey
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 16:59 (eighteen years ago)
well, it's not fine, but you know what i mean
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:03 (eighteen years ago)
people with too much money end up doing what that lady up there did. buying a 2 million dollar house and then tearing it down and spending another million on it. crazy stuff. although a lot of people tear down the 2 million dollar house and spend another 10 million dollars on their new house. so she's only kinda crazy.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:07 (eighteen years ago)
spending $3mn to wind up with a $1mn house is way crazier than spending $13mn to wind up with a $10mn house.
― milo z, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:09 (eighteen years ago)
It's amazing how people with supposed high-level skills (computers, medicine, law) can also wind up having very little financial sense.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:11 (eighteen years ago)
that's like saying it's amazing that people who are so good at golf can still be crap at bowling
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:13 (eighteen years ago)
Some report on Naked Scientist suggested people of slightly-above-average intelligence were the best w/handling money and the very smart and very not smart were the worst. Thinking of all the v. smart people I knew, this anecdotal evidence upheld this 30-second blurb I can now verify is empirically true.
Whether it was or not, it was interesting.
― Abbott, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:17 (eighteen years ago)
I wouldn't be surprised if that's because the very smart tend to overestimate their own ability. Like "I'm a fucking genius, so I'm going to open an e-trade account and beat the market in an hour a day with only my smart intuitions!"
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:19 (eighteen years ago)
Some people are compelled to keep up with the Jones...
And buying a $1.9m property and then tearing down the old, small house that's on it and then spending $1m on construction probably produces a better than... well hang on lets see:
C313st3 B4r4nsk1 - 89O C0l3M4N, assessed value: Improvements: $1,100,000 Land: $2,095,017 Total Assessed Value (for taxes): $3,195,017
3 beds, 3.5 baths, 4,470 sq ft on 1.05 acres
Zillow calls it $3,439,956 and the article says they spent $2.95m on it in 2001.
― Kerm, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)
Surrounded by houses in the 1800-3000 sq ft range, only one of which is worth over $2m.
― Kerm, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:36 (eighteen years ago)
At quick glance, Ms. Baranski and her husband, Paul, live modestly.
Because you cannot see their house from the street.
― Kerm, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:41 (eighteen years ago)
Americans have a pretty warped view of "modesty" for sure.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)
The modest would not even mention that had a home!
― Abbott, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)
you guys are goinng way too easy on gary rivlin, the person who wrote this article. he uses the phrase "working class millionaire" in earnest! it's beyond describing a phenomenon of self-delusion - it's actually buying into that delusion himself and asking you to share it, if you are to stay up on things that people who read the new york times are up on.
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)
I assumed he wasn't using it in earnest, but maybe he is?
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:54 (eighteen years ago)
that's what i mean, tracer! thank you! my brain + words are not so working today
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 17:58 (eighteen years ago)
i can't find a picture of a lexus with a dead sticker on it
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:05 (eighteen years ago)
apparently this is part two of a cross-departmental series, called "the age of riches". the other story in the series is from the business section. it's called "The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age", by someone named louis uchitelle. it appears to finally relate the story of the mega-rich.... through their eyes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/business/15gilded.html
despite a few notes of token critique, these are insubstantial, fluffy pieces that could come straight from the styles section. what about joined-up journalism? what about the estate tax? what about the ratcheting up of material expectations? how did these men become rich anyway? what about the overwhelming evidence that executive pay is unrelated to profits? let's not just hear hints of these things - let's see the evidence.
it's not just louis uchitelle and gary rivlin who need to be shamed for these stories, it's the people who ask for them and wave them into print:
business editor: Lawrence Ingrassia. lame, lawrence.
technology editor: Kevin McKenna. bone dumb, kevin.
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:06 (eighteen years ago)
"Ms. Baranski is hardly the only working-class millionaire asking herself this question."
this just accepts the category at face value, which would be hilarious if it weren't so numbingly obsequious to these people's deluded self-definitions
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:08 (eighteen years ago)
viva la raza
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)
and yes yes, there is a tone of "can you believe these people really think this?? guffaw" but it's never said out loud. why not?? i really think this is what some journalists think "objective reporting" means. you take whatever your interview subjects say at face value, parrot it, and if you don't believe what they say, don't bother doing research to show that they are lying or deluded, just parrot what they say with a tone of voice that helps your readers know you are deriding them. this is how all presidential campaigns are covered now, for instance.
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:12 (eighteen years ago)
otfm
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:14 (eighteen years ago)
journalists are supposed to oppose wealth
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)
journalistshuman beings are supposed to oppose wealth
fixed
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:17 (eighteen years ago)
journalists are at least supposed to raise questions about wealth/class
― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:20 (eighteen years ago)
Yeah, you have a point. Maybe I'm just getting a bit numbed by the zeitgeist
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:23 (eighteen years ago)
they are? i think they're supposed to portray their society. readers are supposed to raise the questions.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:23 (eighteen years ago)
did you really just say that journalists aren't supposed to raise questions?
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:23 (eighteen years ago)
Shakey, just assume that I reject your whole perspective, ok?
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:24 (eighteen years ago)
journalists should resist the temptation to just give up and do what their advertisers want, which is write about nothing but "lifestyle porn"
if you disagree with that, gabbneb, i guarantee you can have a long and fruitful career in "journalism"
my point was nothing to do with the actual subject of these pieces though, it's about the way they're reported, which i find spineless and nauseating - "portraying" society demands more than this, i'm afraid
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:25 (eighteen years ago)
i enjoy "quote" marks
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)
I have been bothered lately by stories that trivialize wealth inequality by making it sound as though the only thing wrong with it is that it makes the people on the bottom feel less good about themselves.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)
This is nowhere NEAR as good as the article where the people with the $600k house complained about having to walk to a community mailbox.
― Abbott, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:28 (eighteen years ago)
That one still brings joy to my heart when I think about it.
― Abbott, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:29 (eighteen years ago)
"opinion is divided on whether the wealthy are, in fact, gods, or just supermen; whatever the answer, we'll tell you where they shop and what they buy!"
BOOM, PORTRAY'D
ask away
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:29 (eighteen years ago)
xp Because as Katt Williams once said, "Bitch it's called SELF-ESTEEM, that's esteem of your motherfucking self. How am I gonna fuck up how you feel about you, simple bitch?"
― Kerm, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:29 (eighteen years ago)
A related bit of reading, from 10+ years ago: James Fallows writing on Why Americans Hate the Media
― kingfish, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 18:39 (eighteen years ago)
gabbneb i hope you never watched bill moyers.
― hstencil, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:00 (eighteen years ago)
i guess you missed my dream with him. these days, i might keep him on for a while if something else i'm watching leads into him, but i wonder what he thinks he's accomplishing telling people things they already know; sometimes i wonder if his intention is just to record this stuff for posterity.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:05 (eighteen years ago)
sometimes i wonder if his intention is just to record this stuff for posterity.
gosh no virtue in that is there. who needs history?
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:11 (eighteen years ago)
sorry, I know I shouldn't bother
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:13 (eighteen years ago)
yeah, if not for bill moyers, no one would write this stuff down
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:15 (eighteen years ago)
kingfish: that exchange with Jennings and Wallace... wow.
I'm watching that episode online right now: http://www.learner.org/resources/series81.html (free registration required)
― Kerm, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:17 (eighteen years ago)
i guess you missed my dream with him. these days, i might keep him on for a while if something else i'm watching leads into him, but i wonder what he thinks he's accomplishing telling people things they already know; sometimes i wonder if his intention is just to record this stuff for posterity.-- gabbneb, Wednesday, August 8, 2007 7:05 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Linkyeah, if not for bill moyers, no one would write this stuff down-- gabbneb, Wednesday, August 8, 2007 7:15 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Link
-- gabbneb, Wednesday, August 8, 2007 7:05 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
-- gabbneb, Wednesday, August 8, 2007 7:15 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Link
"buying the war" was on last night. the whole point of moyers' work in that particularly fantastic piece of journalism exploring the buying and selling of the iraq war was that someone was writing, but they worked for knight-ridder and nobody cared.
― hstencil, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:18 (eighteen years ago)
it was particularly fantastic? i guess i judged incorrectly when i turned it off after 10 minutes. i already knew, tho, that knight ridder's coverage had been good and it had been fucked in the media consolidation wars. moyers and other people seem to be missing the point that the problem might lie as much or more with consumers as with producers of media.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:36 (eighteen years ago)
sometimes i'm convinced you're a republican. it would be okay to just admit it if you were.
― hstencil, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 19:37 (eighteen years ago)
gabbneb, noted for his party disloyalty. i think the government should be democratic, the media should be non-partisan, the democrats should get some game, and the people should pay attention.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 21:33 (eighteen years ago)
and yet you're still a dick. congrats.
― hstencil, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 21:57 (eighteen years ago)
now now, everybody play nice. One man's apologist is another man's, uh...
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 22:01 (eighteen years ago)
look at shakey, trying to be nice!
― hstencil, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 22:01 (eighteen years ago)
i'm sorry for being mean to bill moyers. he's a very nice man.
― gabbneb, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 22:08 (eighteen years ago)
I wish we could avoid ad hom attacks like this on threads that aren't going so badly otherwise, but one of you guys probably "zing" me for saying so. Fire away.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 23:20 (eighteen years ago)
hey man I only do sarcasm. namecalling not so much.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 8 August 2007 23:22 (eighteen years ago)
I was really hoping some people would talk about "Blank Check." Sometimes I feel like I made that movie up.
― Abbott, Thursday, 9 August 2007 01:13 (eighteen years ago)
didn't it also star Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise?
― milo z, Thursday, 9 August 2007 01:14 (eighteen years ago)
No, it didn't, but Tone Loc was in it.
― Abbott, Thursday, 9 August 2007 01:16 (eighteen years ago)
Oh man, the IMDB "goofs" for this movie are GREAT. I love the research and care put into them:
Continuity: When Preston goes to cash his million dollar check the owner of the bank gives him the money, and if you look at the bills they are all ten and five dollar bills. This means there were between 100,000 and 150,000 bills Preston would have to fit in his backpack. This is extremely unbelievable for Preston to carry; there's too many bills, and it would probably weigh a good thirty pounds as well.
Revealing mistakes: When Preston throws the money in the air in his bedroom, you can see some of the backs are blank (mostly on the bed).
Revealing mistakes: The license plate on the limo reads "EZ-LIFE" as the car pulls away from the water fountain scene. Once the driver drops off Shay and pulls away the license is a numerical one.
Factual errors: When Preston calculates the time required to accumulate one million dollars from the birthday check, the answer is in error by several times. The movie shows the time as 342,506 years. If the interest is calculated yearly, it should take 338 years, or monthly it should take 331 years and 7 months.
Factual errors: Preston's expense report towards the end of the movie indicates that he spent $999,667.83. However, after calculating the math and tracking the listed expenses with their appearances through the movie, the actual amount Preston had spent at this time totaled $504,879.08. Meaning he still had nearly half the money left.
― Abbott, Thursday, 9 August 2007 01:20 (eighteen years ago)
Shakey, just assume that I reject your whole perspective, ok?-- gabbneb, Wednesday, August 8, 2007 6:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link
-- gabbneb, Wednesday, August 8, 2007 6:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link
I never remember who most people are on ILX. I'd appreciate a chart of who zings who, a dummy's guide to who snarls at who with most regularity. so Shakey and gabbneb are on different sides of something? TOMBOT also seems quick to YELL at a few characters. Probably shouldn't stir the pot. I'm offtopic.
― Maria :D, Thursday, 9 August 2007 05:38 (eighteen years ago)
shakey likes to publicly celebrate the deaths and misfortunes of people that he does not like for whatever reason. he has decent taste in music, though.
gabbneb is ILXor's local Democratic Leadership Council commissar. sometimes he's right and sometimes he isn't.
tombot likes to yell at a few characters, and is often one of ILXor's most sensible regular posters (IMHO) -- which may be why he ends up yelling a lot.
― Eisbaer, Thursday, 9 August 2007 06:00 (eighteen years ago)
i thought he was on meth
― gershy, Thursday, 9 August 2007 06:05 (eighteen years ago)
he said "most sensible"
― Kerm, Thursday, 9 August 2007 06:13 (eighteen years ago)
most insensate
― gershy, Thursday, 9 August 2007 06:18 (eighteen years ago)
least likely to suffer a fool
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 9 August 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)
And thank god for that.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 9 August 2007 14:17 (eighteen years ago)
ALL CAPS IS NOT YELLING. THIS IS YELLING.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 9 August 2007 14:17 (eighteen years ago)
i am still roffling at this
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 9 August 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)
SO IF THIS IS NOT YELLING WHAT IS IT THEN
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 9 August 2007 16:39 (eighteen years ago)
SPEAKING WITH A SENSE OF PURPOSE.
LIKE BARACK OBAMA.
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 9 August 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)
HAMMA RAMMA JAMMA
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 9 August 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)
anybody see the thursday styles section today? lolz.
― hstencil, Thursday, 9 August 2007 16:56 (eighteen years ago)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/fashion/09STICKER.html?ref=style
are you talking about this article? the revelation that there is snob appeal in buying something which is out of the reach of most people is shocking. even more shocking is the news that ultraluxury goods are very expensive!
― lauren, Thursday, 9 August 2007 17:07 (eighteen years ago)
lolol @ dying medium
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 9 August 2007 17:09 (eighteen years ago)
no i meant this one:
August 9, 2007 Be Yourselves, Girls, Order the Rib-Eye By ALLEN SALKIN
MARTHA FLACH mentioned meat twice in her Match.com profile: “I love architecture, The New Yorker, dogs ... steak for two and the Sunday puzzle.”
She was seeking, she added, “a smart, funny, kind man who owns a suit (but isn’t one) ... and loves red wine and a big steak.”
The repetition worked. On her first date with Austin Wilkie, they ate steak frites. A year later, after burgers at the Corner Bistro in Greenwich Village, he proposed. This March, the rehearsal dinner was at Keens Steakhouse on West 36th Street, and the wedding menu included mini-cheeseburgers and more steak.
Ms. Wilkie was a vegetarian in her teens, and even wore a “Meat Is Murder” T-shirt. But by her 30s, she had started eating cow. By the time she placed the personal ad, she had come to realize that ordering steak on a first date had the potential to sate appetites not only of the stomach but of the heart.
Red meat sent a message that she was “unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic,” she said, “that I’m not obsessed with my weight even though I’m thin, and I don’t have any food issues.” She added, “In terms of the burgers, it said I’m a cheap date, low maintenance.”
Salad, it seems, is out. Gusto, medium rare, is in.
Restaurateurs and veterans of the dating scene say that for many women, meat is no longer murder. Instead, meat is strategy. “I’ve been shocked at the number of women actually ordering steak,” said Michael Stillman, vice president of concept development for the Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group, which opened the restaurant Quality Meats in April 2006 on West 58th Street. He said Quality Meats’ contemporary design and menu, including extensive seafood offerings, were designed to attract more women than a traditional steakhouse. “But the meat is appealing to them, much more than what I saw two or three years ago at our other restaurants,” Mr. Stillman said. “They are going for our bone-in sirloin and our cowboy-cut rib steak.”
In an earlier era, conventional dating wisdom for women was to eat something at home alone before a date, and then in company order a light dinner to portray oneself as dainty and ladylike. For some women, that is still the practice. “It’s better not to have a jalapeño fajita plate, especially on the first date,” said Andrea Bey, 28, who sells video surveillance equipment in Irving, Tex., and describes herself as “curvy.” “You don’t want to be labeled as ‘princess gassy’ on the first date.”
But others, especially those who are thin, say ordering a salad displays an unappealing mousiness.
“It seems wimpy, insipid, childish,” said Michelle Heller, 34, a copy editor at TV Guide. “I don’t want to be considered vapid and uninteresting.”
Ordering meat, on the other hand, is a declarative statement, something along the lines of “I am woman, hear me chew.”
In fact, red meat on a date has become such an effective statement of self-acceptance that even a vegetarian like Sloane Crosley, a publicist at Random House, sometimes longs to order a burger.
“Being a vegetarian puts you at a disadvantage,” Ms. Crosley said. “You’re in the most basic category of finicky. Even women who order chicken, it isn’t enough.” She said she has thought of ordering shots of Jägermeister, famous for its frat boy associations, to prove that she is “a guy’s girl.”
“Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson,” Ms. Crosley, 28, said.
Not all red meat, apparently, is equal in the dating world. The mediums of steak and hamburger each send a different message. Dropping into conversation the fact that steaks of Kobe beef come from Wagyu cattle, but that not all steaks sold as Wagyu are Kobe beef, demonstrates one’s worldliness, said Gabriella Gershenson, a dining editor at Time Out New York. It holds the same currency today that being able to name Hemingway’s four wives held in an earlier era.
Hamburgers, she added, say you are down-to-earth, which is why women rarely order those deluxe hamburgers priced as high as a porterhouse.
“They’re created for men who want to impress women, so they order the $60 burger, then they let the woman taste it,” Ms. Gershenson said. “The man gets to show off his expertise and show that he can afford it.”
When Paris Hilton was arrested for driving under the influence, she announced that she had been on her way to In-N-Out Burger, the Southern California chain revered for its gut-busting Double-Double, as if trying to satisfy a craving for two slabs of meat and cheese was an excuse for drunken driving that anyone could understand. And twice last year, Nicole Richie, persistently facing rumors that she suffered from an eating disorder, was photographed biting into burgers in Los Angeles, an effort that seemed designed to demonstrate her casualness toward calories.
Of course, there are always those rare women who order what they want and to heck with what a man might think.
Saehee Hwang, 30, a production director at Artnet.com, found herself out with friends at DuMont restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when she started feeling attracted to a new guy in the group. She said she had wanted to order a burger, but started having second thoughts. “I didn’t want to appear too much of a carnivore,” she said. “It might be off-putting.”
But then she decided she should not change her order to fit a preconceived idea of what a man might want. She ordered the house specialty, a half-pound of beef on a toasted brioche bun with Gruyère cheese. “We started dating afterward,” Ms. Hwang said. “And he told me he liked the fact that I ordered the burger.”
What about when the tables, so to speak, are reversed? Can a man order a juicy New York strip on the first date and make a good impression? Gentlemen, be careful. Real men, it seems, must eat kale.
“When a guy sits down and eats something fatty and big, you wonder if they eat like that all the time,” said Brice Gaillard, a freelance design writer. “It crosses my mind they’ll probably die early.”
― hstencil, Thursday, 9 August 2007 17:09 (eighteen years ago)
Does "earlier era" mean 1926?
― milo z, Thursday, 9 August 2007 17:14 (eighteen years ago)
this is the thread for batshit gray lady staff writers
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 9 August 2007 17:14 (eighteen years ago)
I intentionally do not read Thursday Styles. I often read Sunday Styles though. It's like at least 20% there's someone I know or have heard of in there.
― gabbneb, Thursday, 9 August 2007 18:39 (eighteen years ago)
There's something deeply fascinating about this blog. It is by the guy who runs the taxi company Uber.
http://swooshing.wordpress.com/
He says things like this:
"At the end of the day RTS is about travel adventures with other like-minded people, in our case technology entrepreneurs. We make sure to take some down time and hang out, talking shop, jamming on new ideas and life. But at the end of the day we’re constantly looking out for adventurous times. We like to ask ourselves the question, “How do we turn the dial up?” The answer has ranged from creating a flashmob Reykjavik house party to attending an inspiring music concert with diplomats and dignitaries in Cape Verde’s congressional hall, to virtual anarchy on the street markets of Dakar (and a whole lot in between).
For me RTS has been about making the Flat World my world, and living life as an experience. The more stories I come home with, the better the trip. And taking a week or two a year to change your environment in an extreme way to see the world differently… that’s living. The great thing is anybody can create their own Random Traveler’s Society. Giddy up!! Get your globes out. We’ll see you in Argentina next year!"
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, 20 May 2012 22:47 (thirteen years ago)
https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-fb73df021e7a#.f88oijzft
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Saturday, 20 February 2016 01:58 (ten years ago)
jesus christ. move to kansas city. move to charlotte, north carolina. these places are not really that bad. you can get a shitty customer service job there and eat real food that you buy from actual grocery stores!
i hate california. it should be depopulated, and probably will be soon (or within 100 years)! thank god.
― Gatemouth, Saturday, 20 February 2016 04:05 (ten years ago)