quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

Laurel fwiw the category of people in New York who rely on their parents to help them out of a tight spot now and then is i think much, much larger than what we're presented with here. i mean, dishwashers, livery cab drivers, nannies.. if they can't make ends meet they might also lean on their parents. of course they might get a "hell no" but maybe not. anyway just wanted to say that's not so damning, necessarily.

Well, no, I suppose that's true. You can just take it as "the kind of person who calls their parents for help with the rent instead of moving out of a $1500 studio on the Upper West Side."

I dunno there are plenty of people going broke for their manhattan apt who don't have parents they can go to for rent. just as there are plenty of poor people in the country paying the loans / gas bills for an SUV (or whatever). there are lots of bad financial decisions that people make, they just need to be framed as bad decisions.

There's nothing wrong with having a family/financial support system and using it to maintain a pricey apartment, or having it and not using it and living with tight finances, but having available, accessible family support and crying poor is tiresome.

(many disclaimers about understanding the complexities of family relationships and how not everybody who could call on their family for money can reasonably do so for a whole host of reasons)

Right, what Jenny said. Similarly, it's tiresome for a person with varied career/job options open to complain about how hard it is to make a living doing exactly what they want.

He went to his apartment to change for that evening’s victory party. He re-emerged in his conservative finery, dressed as Clark Kent to do Superman’s work. Ralph Lauren suit, wide tie, Church’s brogues. Is it true that his Turnbull & Asser shirts are custom-tailored?

“Off-the-rack doesn’t fit me,” Mr. Ellner said. “I have long arms.”

Wait what is that from?

profile article about gay rights activist- it's the last line. The "long arms" thing is a *do you see?* about his social connections etc. but the fashion spread prose is stomach-turning and nyt does that shit all the time.

"Is it true...?"

could it be, oh my god

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/nyregion/the-stolen-stroller-an-urban-bourgeois-problem.html

I don't know from strollers but I feel like the fancier ones would be U-lockable somewhere. These people live in Brooklyn, what do they think is keeping all those bicycles from disappearing?

I called the New York Police Department’s public information office and asked a spokesman whether there was any numerical or anecdotal information indicating that this might be part of a trend.

He suggested that I put my “very unusual request” in an e-mail, but warned, “Your answer will probably be ‘we can’t accommodate you.’ ”

Undaunted, she called it a trend.

Also:

“Well, did you leave it outside?” it seemed beside the point. It’s not as though I had left a tennis bracelet languishing on the stoop.

I'm pretty OK with victim blaming in this case.

eh its all a lil too self aware for my tastes

yeah same criticism I had but this was good

They are often left outside, especially when the alternative is usually dragging them up and down a flight of stairs.

the self awareness of is really the most ugly component of the article imho

Did you know if you leave shit unattended in plain sight it'll get swiped? Amazing.

In a "not so quiet" part of Brooklyn, no less.

that article makes me want to move to brooklyn so that i can steal strollers

In an e-mail following up on my initial inquiry, Detective Cheryl Crispin, a police spokeswoman, wrote that stolen strollers were “not a problem here in the city, period.”

“I believe it was a problem out West,” she wrote.

love the idea of a lawless frontier where death is a card game away and no $400 stroller is safe

people in brooklyn mourning their stolen smartphones is a quiddities article that needs to be written.

that article makes me want to move to brooklyn so that i can steal strollers

― j., Sunday, July 3, 2011 3:44 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah was thinking this is a market that needs exploiting

i wouldn't be looking to profit, just throw them in whatever river is closest

gowanus canal, filled w/strollers and guns

turning the entire canal into stroller-landfill = a cheap and easy alternative to the billion dollar superfund cleanup

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/nyregion/with-salary-freeze-more-new-york-judges-are-leaving-the-bench.html?hp

Emily Jane Goodman, a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan, said the practical effect of her stalled pay was that she had to sell a summer home in the Hamptons and was having trouble paying for increasing fees on her two-bedroom apartment in the city.

“Here I am,” Justice Goodman said, “in a position where I’m working to achieve justice for other people and I don’t feel that I’m experiencing justice.”

eh, as bad as that part reads, I think there's a legit issue in there. If you want good quality judges, you have to pay enough to make it a comfortable lifestyle. $144,000 is a nice salary but it's not a lot for someone with 20 or 30 years of experience and top qualifications in a specialized professional field. I mean a teacher with that much experience can make $100,000 in New York just for sticking it out that long.

Current and former judges described the pressures they felt in fending off offers and trying to pay for mortgages and tuition bills. Mr. Spolzino, 52, said he had expected that he would remain until retirement, as judges did in the past.

“It’s very heady when you walk into a room and everybody rises, people laugh at your jokes,” he said.

Must be tough, only making three times NYC's median household income and 'fending off' people trying to pay you more. But what choice does he have if he wants people to laugh at his jokes?

If you want good quality judges, you have to pay enough to make it a comfortable lifestyle.

this is nyt speak

I mean ultimately what's the lower limit of 'comfortable'? if we're comparing their salaries to nyc partner salaries, is $300,000 still not going to be 'comfortable'?

kids fresh outta law school who get into Manhattan BigLaw (and don't even know if they've passed the Bar Exam yet) make more than $144K/year (and that's not counting any bonuses). keep that in mind when critiquing Judge Goodman's statement.

how do you go from owning (or whatever) a summer home to having trouble paying fees on your two-bedroom apartment?

how do you go from owning (or whatever) a summer home to having trouble paying fees on your two-bedroom apartment?

condo fees and/or poor personal financial management are two possibilities.

condo BOARDS raising condo fees sky-high i meant.

el condo pasa

I'd rather be a judge than go to jail...

kids fresh outta law school who get into Manhattan BigLaw (and don't even know if they've passed the Bar Exam yet) make more than $144K/year (and that's not counting any bonuses). keep that in mind when critiquing Judge Goodman's statement.

yeah but we don't have to pay their salary w/ our tax dollars

yeah but we don't have to pay their salary w/ our tax dollars

actually, you do ... to the extent that any of these BigLaw attorneys have any federal student loans (which, admittedly, gets paid back with interest and is damn near impossible to discharge in bankruptcy).

the real point, though, is that newly-minted JDs who work for BigLaw and who've never set foot in a courthouse (and most likely won't for years) are getting paid more money than the judges who rule on cases brought by their firms. kinda absurd, regardless of who's picking up the tab.

being a judge is awesome tho

1 you get to wear a rad robe
2 screw over anyone you h8

^worth like 200k a/y imho

NY Supreme Court, BTW, is the trial-level court for the NY State court system. Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals (NYS's highest state court) judges probably make close to $200K/year.

http://www.ratemydrawings.com/images/thumbs/2009/09/05/5611/561155.jpg

Actually chief judge of the NY Court of Appeals earns $156,000:

http://www.courts.state.ny.us/publications/pdfs/NCSCJudicialCompReport.pdf

Report is worth skimming through. Judges haven't even gotten cost-of-living increases in 12 years -- their salary has been declining in real terms. It's less a matter of feeling sorry for someone that they have to give up a summer home and more just a matter of wanting to make sure we have qualified judges.

Report also notes that a lot of comparable public positions earn more -- including district attorneys!

she had to sell a summer home in the Hamptons

not getting into the actual pay grades of these folks, but uh this is not exactly about *struggle* is it

- I don't know how much a judge *should* make but at the end of the day they are public servants / the money we spend on them comes at the expense of something else
- any high-powered million a year partner job is gonna require other big lifestyle sacrifices (trustmeIknow)
- in any case if there's going to be a huge gap between what we can afford to pay for the 'best' lawyers, how much is it worth it for society to have the 'best' lawyers as judges?
- tbh I mostly just wanted to paste the quote where she says "I don’t feel that I’m experiencing justice."

er

in any case if there's going to be a huge gap between what we can afford to pay for the 'best' lawyers *and what they can make in the private sector*

i feel it's unjust not to own a house in the hamptons. how will little my little colin-dakota bean and sophia isabella bean ever get to look down on virtually all their neighbors?

not at nytimes – at atlantic monthly, but basically the same thing – but this article has some pretty choice quotes secret fears of the super-rich

maybe she's FROM the hamptons.

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