The NY Times on the sad story on banking executives who will have to take a pay cut in order to get a government bailout.
PRIVATE school: $32,000 a year per student.
Mortgage: $96,000 a year.
Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year.
Nanny: $45,000 a year.
We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.
Five hundred thousand dollars — the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money — seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half a million a year can go very fast.
“As hard as it is to believe, bankers who are living on the Upper East Side making $2 or $3 million a year have set up a life for themselves in which they are also at zero at the end of the year with credit cards and mortgage bills that are inescapable,†said Holly Peterson, the author of an Upper East Side novel of manners, “The Manny,†and the daughter of Peter G. Peterson, a founder of the equity firm the Blackstone Group. “Five hundred thousand dollars means taking their kids out of private school and selling their home in a fire sale.â€
Comments
32 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.I kind of doubt that. One of the big differences between being broke and actually being poor is that poor people have no resources to deal with crises — you can actually lose your job just because your car breaks down. Rich, connected people like CEOs have tons of options. They can pick up a grace seat on a board for extra money. They can call in a favor and get refinanced. They can get some lawyer to put their house in a charitable trust that then rents it to them, or whatever. They can sell their vacation home instead.
Or, you know, they could just suck it up, just like everyone else who lost their house because of this situation they caused.
I feel bad for these people.
Wait, no I don’t.
I have my son in a private school, and my wife and I make a combined $175k a year. You can do whatever you want to do if you really have to.
$16000 for vacations? Chauffeur? Party dresses? These people live in an alternate universe if they think we’ll feel bad for them.
Perhaps these suburban enclaves should shelter SUCCESSFUL bankers w/o tax-payer help. I do not wish to continue to finance whining failures. Sickened.
Obama’s a softie.
I’d like to see their assets seized and give them orange jumpsuits with their names embroidered on them. Then I’d like to see them all in an even bigger house.
The nanny gets $45,000?
The sense of entitlement to luxuries is what got us into this mess in the first place. I don’t (and won’t) feel the slightest bit sorry for these people and their “needs” as I watch my average Joe family and friends worry about losing their jobs and struggling to make ends meet in this economy. I hope the article is somewhat tongue in cheek because it’s completely disgusting.
Steveo, excellent point about successful bankers. Obviously most of them SUCK at what they do and don’t want to deal with the consequences of SUCKING.
I never thought I’d say this, but I suddenly aspire to be a chauffeur. 125k?! Cripes!
Also, what 99% of the population would give to be in the dire straits that these unfortunate folks are in.
I wish that while in school I could study to be a bad CEO. It’s the greatest job in the world. You don’t have to do it even remotely well and you get big fat severance when they finally let you go.
wait, mortgage AND a Co-op maintenance fee?
I feel sorry. I feel sorry for all the people who lost their jobs because of these asshole bankers whining about half a mil of income.
There is a solution to this crisis. Sponsor a CEO. (This Hour Has 22 Minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbf6o8NBEUU
Some easy solutions:
1) Drive your own sorry a** to work
2) Have your unemployed wife be the nanny and housekeeper
3) Skip out on vacations, like the rest of Americans have to do in order to make an honest pay
4) Summer home??? Get real!
5) Rely on the millions of dollar that have been made in previous years and should have been saved
These people are just asking for their companies to crash… FAIL- NO BAIL OUT FOR YOU!
Awwww….. They’ll get my sympathy when they are forced to eat left overs for three days straight and turn in pop bottles Sunday night for gas money to get into work on Monday morning.
As a person living in New York with a tenth of that salary, I’m doing pretty well. To say that the poor CEOs don’t feel like they fit in with the crowds in the subway is absolute bullshit. I live in Harlem, I don’t “fit in” with the majority of the people there, and I don’t give a crap. Aren’t you supposed to outgrow this high school mentality of “fitting in”. Clearly the private schools they went to didn’t toughen them up and prepare them for the realities of life.
Hey, I could run a company into the ground for $500k a year. Pick me! Pick me!
I just noticed that guy’s name is “Peter Peterson”
What mondo said.
Seriously, cry me a river.
You just have to feel for these women who are dating the bankers who are being cut back.
http://dabagirls.wordpress.com/
I am shocked at the amount they are paying their tutors. When I was in college I tutored two boys who went to a very prestigious private school and were obscenely wealthy. I was paid $20 and hour and spent about 15 hours a week with them. I can’t believe these people are paying tutors more than $100 an hour. I was gypped!
Que the worlds smallest violin.
#16,
That was my first thought before anything else after finishing the article!
Aside from that fun point it serves ‘em right. It’s nice to think that these people may finally get a bit of a reality check, but I’m sure they’ll find some loophole to keep at at least $1 million / year.
My kids are going to private school for much less than a tenth of that. Good thing, because I also make much less than ten percent of a half a million. Lucky lucky me! I don’t have to pay a nanny or a tutor or a chauffeur or a maid…
Life’s a real bitch in the 6-digit bracket. Deal with it, losers! They should all be forced to watch the movie “Trading Places” and see what it REALLY means to fall from grace.
We need some Bud Fox/Gordon Gekko justice here!
I’m seriously crying over the plight of someone who has A NANNY? Don’t forget car payments on the Mercedes, the other Mercedes, the Hummer, and the Ferrari while you’re at it, assholes.
So these bankers are bad with money? Exactly the kind of person who should be running a bank! No wonder the banks are failing. I can’t believe any of these people still have jobs.
The worst part about this whole thing is that these jokers expect us all to say “Oh, I understand now!” That’s how out of touch they are. I don’t even understand why they are getting $500,000. They should be getting $0 and a pink slip. Christ, I don’t even make as much as the nanny and the limo driver makes 3 times my salary! I’m a public school teacher and have about as much sympathy for them as I have sympathy for Pol Pot.
I’m glad to see the populist uprising begin.
i couldn’t understand the article. was it entirely satirical?
it really bugs me when pundits fret aloud over whether the salary cap will cripple banks’ ability to attract the most talented leaders. have we seen the slightest bit of evidence that anyone in the competition gunning for those spots is remotely worth it? they’ve simply risen to the top of a corporate culture that celebrates taking credit for others’ work while blaming others for their mistakes.
“Five hundred thousand dollars means taking their kids out of private school and selling their home in a fire sale.â€
Tough tits bitch, st least you have a home to sell.
jackie, that’s my favorite comment in the thread.
I’ve been a nanny for five years and I make nowhere near that amount.
I’m obviously in the wrong city…
You know, I really don’t think any of those assholes care what we or anyone else thinks. And they’ll get what they want, like always.