How did you do financially last year? Very well, I hope, because rent in Manhattan, where all the breathless American dreamers yearn to live and "make something of themselves," rose 10% last year. The median rent in Manhattan is $3,200.
Wall Street is a perfect representation of Wall Street values: a constant and ever-increasing accumulation of wealth in the hands of a smaller and smaller elite. You'll be happy to know that Wall Street is continuing perfectly down this path, by laying workers off while raising the wages of the lucky few that remain.
Good news, relatively speaking, on the jobless front today, as the U.S. unemployment rate slid under 8%, its best number since January of 2009. Jobs are returning (a little). Consumer confidence is up (for now). Is it time for YOU to put your money into the stock market, that great engine of American prosperity?
News flash: Americans, who are, on average, not a bunch of wealthy muckety-mucks lighting their cigars with Benjamins, are spending too much money on their stupid cell phones. We as a nation have cut back on our overall spending even as we're spending more on our precious "smart phone" bills. Smart phone? More like... unnecessarily expensive device!
Allow us, please, if you will, to direct your attention to this paper on the topic of Can You Believe How Much Motherfucking Money These CEOs Make, And, Even Worse, How They Try to Justify That Shit As If It's All Good. As noted in Gretchen Morgenson's column yesterday, CEOs and the cronies that justify their salaries are, in most cases, full of shit.
Just another periodic update on the woeful state of our nation, here, America: "Nationally, the median income dropped by 1.3% to $50,502 in 2011." It's worse for the poor, naturally. "Los Angeles County households whose earnings put them in the lowest fifth for income in 2011 earned 12% less, on average, than the incomes of that same group in 2007, when the recession began." In New York, Mike Bloomberg's fortune swelled by 28% in the past year, to $25 billion. Meanwhile: "The rich got richer and the poor got poorer in New York City last year as the poverty rate reached its highest point in more than a decade, and the income gap in Manhattan, already wider than almost anywhere else in the country, rivaled disparities in sub-Saharan Africa." Poor smokers in New York spend a quarter of their income on cigarettes. And across the country, "extreme" racial segregation of schools "is becoming more common."
Leading scientific expert Peter Wadhams warned this week that it may be only four years until the Arctic—a place once known for its ice—experiences a total melting of its sea ice in the summer months. Wadhams called this a "global disaster" with "terrible" implications. Well Prof. Wadhams, perhaps you should change your name to Prof. Deborah Downer? Because it looks like you forgot about all the money$$$??
Well, here's something that is not a cause for concern, whatsoever, I want to emphasize right up front, and certainly not anything that might be an early indicator that you could consider "taking to the land" and hunkering down in your survivalist bunker with a cache of canned food and weapons until the "trouble" passes: the world's savviest investor is pretty sure that your state and/ or local government is a ticking time bomb that will collapse in a pile of valueless rubble.
The Powerball jackpot is up to $320 million. Why do you play the lottery? Is it because you have a dream? Because you have hope of a better future? Because—though you know it's a long shot—you just have a good feeling about this one? Because the twinkle in your eye and the spring in your step signify your jaunty, devil-may-care attitude towards the naysayers, and a firm belief that you, a fundamentally good person, will one day get your proper reward?
It's well known by now that you can spend outrageous sums to get a college degree only to find yourself jobless, through no real fault of your own. But it's also well known that college degrees are a decent bet, statistically speaking. I guess what the latest report is saying is: We ain't promising you the moon, okay?
A philosophical question: Is saving money a moral imperative? That is, given the means, are we all ethically obligated to save at least a small portion of our income, in case of emergency? Or are we morally free to blow every penny on impulse purchases, the future be damned?
One of the many distinguishing features of freedom-loving den of Reaganites California is that the voters, in their infinite wisdom, chose long ago to cap property taxes by law—one of those special kinds of laws that very specifically helps people who are already wealthy. Congratulations, wise self-disinterested voters of California! The rich are very happy that law exists right about now.
Every week, we're bringing you true stories from those caught in the unemployment crisis. The official U.S. unemployment rate is 8.3 percent; the true rate of hopelessness is much higher. This week: cops, businessmen, lawyers, students, academics, and other fellow Americans. This is what's happening out there.
This WSJ story today on the rising cost of college for the affluent is a cavalcade of shocking statistics about our current student debt crisis: the average price of a four-year college has more than doubled in real terms since 1985; three million households owe $50k or more in student loans, a number that's tripled since 1989, inflation-adjusted. When even the golf course set can't afford college, you know we have a problem.
Rich people across the Western world are anxiously watching France, where president Francois Hollande is vowing to raise the top tax rate—on earnings over $1.2 million a year—to 75 percent. Tres bien, Mr. Hollande. The problem with this otherwise fine idea is that the very rich can simply pack up and move to a more accommodating Western nation with lower taxes and less concern for income inequality, like America. There is, though, a more elegant solution to this: a maximum income.
