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

i don't know crap about this guy, nor do i care, BUT

when i was 22 i dated this very cute but not-very-smart guy. it was long distance, so we wrote a lot of letters (this was in the lol 90s). in one letter he told me that being with me made him feel "quidity". i smugly laughed a little because i figured that he meant "tranquility" and wow was this guy adorable for not being able to use a dictionary. then i looked up the word "quidity" and realized that it was real (although not what he meant, i am 100% sure)

this thread is the first time i have ever actually seen anyone use this word. the end.

maybe he was like "wow she thinks my made-up word means something.. what a dim-bulb"

what do you think he actually meant?

pretty sure he meant tranquility, like comfort (i remember this from context, but really this was a long time ago and i can't remember much about the situation aside from this strange misused word)

Megan McArdle on the piece. Judge for yourself.

Actually I kind of like her points?

ya i mean... not really sure why this piece is as contempt-worthy as some are making it out to be. it's kind of brutally depressing.

It is in a 'there-but-for' sense for sure. Not that I was ever going to try and be an economics reporter for the NY Times, but as time has passed I'm beginning to think the soundest piece of advice I've ever received in regard to writing was something J. D. Considine told me years ago -- 1993 or so -- in response to a random e-mail or two I sent him. He pretty much said, "Freelancing and journalism is very hard work and you should only pursue it on a full-time basis if you are willing to stick to that level." I'm honestly glad I heeded that and I think what you see in both pieces, regardless of whatever else feeds into their respective situations, reflects that.

At the same time, I'm trying to put my finger on what still jars about McArdle's response and it seems to be this sense of keeping up with the Joneses as paramount driving factor/potential excuse. At what point is leisure travelling to Europe, for instance, a 'minimum necessity' -- and I speak as one who's been there a number of times now. Still, I realize it's a sliding scale, says the person who has participated in a CSA thing with a local farmer for some years now.

Literal translation: quiddity = whatness

Ned, I read her response as being more about the foolhardiness of ever thinking ANY of those things are necessities. She seems to be (gently) chiding that whole tendency?

Yah... she's just sayin' that you hang with people for whom this is true, you wake up with fleas

I think maybe something to add to McArdle's response is that we have this general cultural tendency to view attention as somehow related to money, a connection that really falls apart when it comes to writers of all sorts -- it's very easy to withhold sympathy from people writing about their woes in public, as if they're coming from a position of privilege or just courting attention, but in plenty of cases they don't have much concrete privilege and writing about their experiences is just, you know, work.

he never really was that rich, especially by the standards of the new york times - but he sure lives and writes like he is. which is of course where the trouble started. getting a monthly keelhaul from the ex didn't help, either - i wonder if he writes about that in his book? - but i think this man's most basic problem was imagining that a take-home of $2500 monthly was enough to buy a half-mil pile.

Yeah, exactly -- although if I had to summarize a problem here it would basically be that a middle-aged family-man homeowner with a decent salary expected to continue living like a middle-aged family-man homeowner with a decent salary, even after a divorce that meant the bulk of his income was going to support a family home occupied by other people. This is an unrealistic and dumb expectation to seriously act on -- you'd think that $4k would be a good monthly reminder that situations done changed -- but I can totally have sympathy for the situation itself; that would suck. It would be painful to have to support the family home you used to live in and have to support yourself and your new family on a fraction of what you're earning.

The other thing is that -- while he can't and doesn't come out and say this directly -- his one list of charges makes me suspect a bunch of money was getting borrowed to maintain a certain lifestyle for the kids

I thought he said that very directly just by listing all those expenses! (I note though that he does seem to say even more directly that his wife did that too.)

Haha yeah, I guess the unsayable "direct" thing I had in mind was like "these KIDS were bankrupting us (that's right, Alex, I'm talking about you)"

I was going to jump past boggling at the beach house rental and wonder about the $700 at J. Crew, but I guess if you needed, like, one good suit and some decent sweaters for Christmas presents ... the world really does hold you to your socio-economic status, doesn't it -- even beyond nobody wanting to be the guy who gets divorced and suddenly has to start showing up to work in cheap suits, it'd be tough to be the guy making $100k who's like "I got you a candy bar for Christmas!"

yeah the erm narrative here is anyways at least partly "but banking professionals who should be my Friends and Advisors assured us it would be alright!"?

However fishy such blanket blame is in general, I'm not sure it's entirely misplaced re how things rolled out this cycle. At one point around 2006, I momentarily had a crazy amount of money in my account due to family property reorg stuff, and was by phone promptly invited to an "advisement meeting" with a dude at my bank, who tried to convince me he had the correct %ages I should place my assets in (all mediated by said bank, obv). (I still was in net debt though!) I was all very cynical and noncommittal, which is not due to my deep insight or anything, just because my current boss worked in a bank in the early 00s and has spilled much shit on how those outfits operate(d?). (My fave morsel: the guys who construct the deals don't actually inform the salespeople abt all potential downsides and builtin fees, as this may hurt their sales!)

I don't think this guy deserves much point-and-laugh, btw, though it is obv somewhat funny he writes on economics.

I don't know that that's a big surface narrative, given the "I wasn't duped" and the bit about how a banking professional's refinancing maneuvers actually worked to carve down some debt

it's about even someone who should have known better made some really dumb mistakes, which is always a story worth telling imo

Literal translation: quiddity = whatness

A weird thing about "quiddity" is that the first definition, "essence", seems to be the opposite of the second definition, "a trifling point". So it can either refer to the essence of something or a minor, trifling detail? Confusing. I have a feeling that it's a word that's rarely used correctly.

my point is that there are hundreds of thousands of people with stories just like this who don't write for the new york times and have six-figure salaries who are perhaps just a leeetle more representative of the mortgage fallout going on right now - my pointing and laughing is at the editors, not this poor schmuck

well, they wanted a personal, first-perosn story, so going with a new york times writer... kinda makes sense, no?

he will die at some point

can't write about that tho

That's a fair point, Tracer, but the fact that the Times can be willfully class-blind is hardly news to anyone who's ever read the Style section, for instance.

what is sadder loss or death

conceptually, I mean

loss is a kind of death, when u think about it??

imagine in that picture that the dog is dead but the money is lost

you can use death as a pillow but you can you the money you lost to get a bunch of people to type in the middle of the day

imagine yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

uh oh i'm losing a life

actually, i am pointing and laughing at this guy too. sorry edmund.

It's funny that this guy gets himself into such deep shit but when the financial crisis comes it's actually a relief to him. For one thing, he can console himself with the spectacle of so many other supposed financial experts who screwed up at least as badly as he did. And more significantly, the banks are too swamped with delinquent borrowers to follow up on his case - so he has basically been living in the house rent-free for the past 8 months.

ya it's pretty crazy that that's how the story ends, i was expecting some sort of bankruptcy followed by a pledge of renewal or something remotely redemptive like that but it shocked me that it ended with him in this bizarre institutional limbo.

that there are hundreds of thousands of people with stories just like this who don't write for the new york times and have six-figure salaries who are perhaps just a leeetle more representative of the mortgage fallout going on right now

This is definitely true, but there is part of me that thinks ... well, even leaving aside the Times's readership -- or the fact that one of the notable things about the current situation is that its impacts are being felt higher up the economic ladder -- there's also the way it's all called into question the sustainability of a whole mainstream/normal middle-class existence that is built on suddenly shaky things like debt and home values. That is probably worth thinking about, and possibly edifying for middle-class people who are recognizing a shakiness to their economic lives that they hadn't previously had as big of a worry about.

Is 66% of your income anywhere near normal for alimony/child-support? I don't know anyone paying alimony (lol broek friends), but child support doesn't net them (everyone I know is on the receiving end) much.

should have used that credit line on a better divorce lawyer, amirite

I don't know that that's a big surface narrative, given the "I wasn't duped" and the bit about how a banking professional's refinancing maneuvers actually worked to carve down some debt

A fair enough point. The mania obv went beyond the professionals.

Talking of which: I don't know how recruiting works in this kind of business -- my biased, stereotypical prejudice says that you get the young people who are willing to work like 50 hrs weekly unpaid overtime etc from ambition alone, thus having no memory of even the Asia crisis, let alone the dotcom and the 80s yuppie downfall, thus by induction extrapolating bubble arising into Law of Nature or something. I dunno.

xpost nabisco correct on "normal middle-class" stuff after what I responded to btw. But they can't take away our Internet can they??? :p

A weird thing about "quiddity" is that the first definition, "essence", seems to be the opposite of the second definition, "a trifling point"

Haha good spot there, maybe this is a general defusing thing about words asserting importance -- see also moot (adjective):

1 a: open to question : DEBATABLE b: subjected to discussion : DISPUTED
2: deprived of practical significance : made abstract or purely academic

i suspect the second "quiddity" meaning might be contaminated with a sense of "quibbling" via misuse?

or else the identifying an object's "what-ness" is, in itself, a trifling pursuit?

je ne sais quid

i suspect the second "quiddity" meaning might be contaminated with a sense of "quibbling" via misuse?

Herring looks mighty red to me. Sorry.

Yup, we know what stuff which is what it is is (OR DO WE?).

There is a neverending demand for words meaning "thing I can't get worked up about", and obv the learnèd world (it's academic! it's just semantic!) is a fair source for this. (I like the pluralization "quiddities" btw!)

my guess was it was some 'liquiddity' pun or something?

Thread author! please inform on your intended meaning of quiddity!

1: whatever makes something the type that it is : essence
2 a: a trifling point

exactly the midpoint of these: trifling details that tell the tale; habits of the tribe

there's also the way it's all called into question the sustainability of a whole mainstream/normal middle-class existence

dude this guy writes for the new york times and pulls down $100K - he is not "normal"!

it wouldnt be controversial to call supporting a fam on 100k/yr in the nyc metro area "normal middle class"

actually he made more like $120,000 and the new light of his life made $60,000. not to mention the stock options.

(the house is in maryland.)

and the kids lived with the ex iirc

he wanted to pretend the monthly ass-whuppin his wallet was getting from his ex just didn't exist i guess

but i gotta say, it's a little hard for me to really put myself in his shoes

NYT trolling Tik Tok for content oy vey

august came early this year

xp This particular idea of putting together a bunch of grazing food on a plate and eating it for dinner has been taken from ADHD support Internet places, btw.

I mean it is also just called a charcuterie board.

I invited eating hunched over a sink grunting

Half of my meals are this. I am a fridge forager since my wife buys twice as much food as we need.

get your nunchucks and your dad's keys -- i know where we can find protein

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/nyregion/geraldo-rivera-fox-erie-canal.html

The 36-foot luxury motorboat, with its polished mahogany hull and American flag waving from the stern, set off from East Hampton on a recent Sunday morning, heading toward the tip of downtown Manhattan and passing beneath airplanes, bridges, thunderstorms and, eventually, a glorious blue sky. The trip would take the boat, named Belle, within view of the Statue of Liberty en route to the Hudson River and, finally, Lake Erie.

But first, she needed to navigate a narrow stretch of water that has haunted sailors for centuries: Hell Gate, a tidal strait named by Dutch explorers in the 1600s, where the currents of the East River, Harlem River and the Long Island Sound converge.

In just a few harrowing moments, Belle churned through the rough waters, and her crew exhaled.
“That was definitely hair-raising,” said the captain, Geraldo Rivera, his own tresses (and mustache) looking wind-tousled.

not the nyt but we still get the new yorker delivered and i have a weird post-pandemic aversion to it but whenever i pick it up - and yes i realize its the new yorker and its mascot wears a big top hat and a monocle - but i feel like they have just gone full speed ahead into some rarified peak capitalism world of ugh. these profiles that are just wide-eyed recitations of some rich guy's WILD exploits and all these weird justifications for excessive wealth. so, unfortunately, i can't unsee it and every page of the thing just seems like a capitalist apologia. maybe i'm just sensitive. taken for granted privilege is alive and well there. the times is so frequently ugh that i could probably post links here daily. there is a frantic nero-fiddling quality to conspicuous consumption now. this could be it. spend it while ya got it. or start a kicky little non-profit on the side. or buy a yacht. whatevs.

The rich have always been the legendary heroes of NY (in their own minds).

Did not even know this was a thing. You too can clone your dog for the simple cost of 50K!

Who gets the cloned dog in the divorce?

Some winners in this article:

They Fled City Jobs. Now, It’s Time for Farm Prom. A group of young urbanites gave up desk jobs to become farmers. They have earned the harvest party.

There was an oyster farmer with his date, a sometime organic-farm-stand cashier in a vintage fur, and a sungold-tomato grower in a plastic prom-king crown. At D.J. decks set atop a bale of hay was a flower farmer in a silver gown, bopping her head, which was topped with the Carhartt beanie she wears to work the fields.

But these farmers were not tilling the fields of America’s heartland.

Outside the barn doors were beach houses and wineries and the seaside resorts of Eastern Long Island. Few of the farmers stomping work boots on the dance floor came from agrarian roots. Most were corporate or academic refugees, who in recent years said they found new meaning in growing things.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/nyregion/farmer-prom-long-island.html

hrrruuuughggggghhhhhhnnnnnngggghhhh

Peter Treiber Jr., 35, an artist and vegetable grower on whose farm the dance took place

Google sez it's actually his father's farm, purchased after retiring from the family insurance brokerage.

insufferable savages

F you and your beanie

Ain’t gonna work on daddy’s farm no more

reminds me of the new yorker article on the fabulous new trend of FORAGING. the irony of rich people digging for edible plants when most of the world has been doing it forever lost on the people involved. omg, can you believe it, there's actual FOOD in the woods. and then the flood of wild mushroom photos on social media was unleashed.

don't get me wrong, i hate them too, but i'm honestly glad for rich people that they're discovering "growing stuff". presumably they are actually doing some growing themselves. not going to click thru and read about it though lol.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/20/style/class-of-palm-beach-tiktok-instagram-wealth.html

What the ultra rich wear to the grocery store