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mydogfarted

mydogfarted

Oakland, NJ
June 2003

FEB 29, 2012 11:53 AM

Smaller bonuses really hit hard for some


Andrew Schiff was sitting in a traffic jam in California this month after giving a speech at an investment conference about gold. He turned off the satellite radio, got out of the car and screamed a profanity.
“I’m not Zen at all, and when I’m freaking out about the situation, where I’m stuck like a rat in a trap on a highway with no way to get out, it’s very hard,” Schiff, director of marketing for broker-dealer Euro Pacific Capital Inc., said in an interview.


I feel ya buddy. Sometimes my job makes me want to scream dirty words at the top of my lungs too.


Schiff, 46, is facing another kind of jam this year: Paid a lower bonus, he said the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country’s top 1 percent by income, doesn’t cover his family’s private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.
“I feel stuck,” Schiff said. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach.”


I know how you feel. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to pay the $180/month for my daughter to go to the fancy pre-school she goes to either. I'm so stuck in my life too. I want to do upgrades to my house too. Having the roof leak into my dining room is just so bourgeois.

We really can't grasp how hard this is for them!


“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”


Appalling, isn't it? Imagine how tough it is going to be for Tad, Biff and Missy to have to be around people that have to wear off the rack clothing!


I can't continue this. I don't begrudge anyone who busts their ass to make a great living. But if you're going to say shit like


“I’m crammed into 1,200 square feet. I don’t have a dishwasher. We do all our dishes by hand.”



called his Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet “the Volkswagen of supercars.”



The closing costs, renovation and down payment on one of the $1.5 million 17-foot-wide row houses nearby, what he called “the low rung on the brownstone ladder,”


you're getting no pity from me. $1.5m is "low rung"? Shit, $1.5 million would probably buy every house within a 2 block radius of me AND a 911.

I had to read the article 3 times to make sure The Onion hadn't hijacked Bloomberg. This is just puke

Valentyno

Valentyno

North York, ON
January 2012

FEB 29, 2012 12:08 PM


“I wouldn’t want to whine,” Schiff said. “All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had.”



Wow. Between that and the other guy who had to stoop to $6/pound salmon...

Reading that article was quite the mood lifter. Heh.

mydogfarted

mydogfarted

Oakland, NJ
June 2003

FEB 29, 2012 12:15 PM

Valentyno said:


“I wouldn’t want to whine,” Schiff said. “All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had.”



Wow. Between that and the other guy who had to stoop to $6/pound salmon...

Reading that article was quite the mood lifter. Heh.



I want the stuff successful parents have too: food for the family, a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and kids that are respectful and well behaved. Besides, if you're spending $32k for your kid to go to school, $600 for a portable dishwasher won't kill you.

Valentyno

Valentyno

North York, ON
January 2012

FEB 29, 2012 12:16 PM

You would think one would get used to people lacking perspective and common sense.

Exactly.

motorfirebox

motorfirebox

Pittsburgh, PA
March 2004

FEB 29, 2012 12:27 PM

Jesus fucking christ.

TheFuckOffKid

TheFuckOffKid

NEWSWIRE

Australia

FEB 29, 2012 12:32 PM



SPOILERS! (Click to view)
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress!”


yellowkid

yellowkid

Boise, ID
May 2007

FEB 29, 2012 12:35 PM

Oh, the poor babies! Maybe we can organize a bake sale for investment bankers.

motorfirebox

motorfirebox

Pittsburgh, PA
March 2004

FEB 29, 2012 12:48 PM

yellowkid said:
Oh, the poor babies! Maybe we can organize a bake sale for investment bankers.


...Maybe it's just the delusions of the horrible flu that has gripped by body, but that would actually be a pretty good response. Show people close to--or under--the poverty line struggling to put together a bake sale to raise funds for the 1%.

mydogfarted

mydogfarted

Oakland, NJ
June 2003

FEB 29, 2012 12:57 PM

motorfirebox said:

yellowkid said:
Oh, the poor babies! Maybe we can organize a bake sale for investment bankers.


...Maybe it's just the delusions of the horrible flu that has gripped by body, but that would actually be a pretty good response. Show people close to--or under--the poverty line struggling to put together a bake sale to raise funds for the 1%.



Nope. It would be awesome. Especially if it started in Zuccotti Park. Show the Occupy movement where they went wrong. tongue

Valentyno

Valentyno

North York, ON
January 2012

FEB 29, 2012 01:07 PM

Maybe Taylor and Kanye can do a duet. It'd be a grand show.

CoyoteMike

CoyoteMike

Iowa City, IA
May 2006

FEB 29, 2012 01:45 PM

I figured out once: $1 million just sitting in the bank, earning the crappy interest most savings accounts get now, would earn more in interest than I make in a year.

lil_tuffy

lil_tuffy

MODERATOR

San Francisco, CA

FEB 29, 2012 01:51 PM

Are you sure this isn't from the Onion?

mydogfarted

mydogfarted

Oakland, NJ
June 2003

FEB 29, 2012 02:19 PM

lil_tuffy said:
Are you sure this isn't from the Onion?



I really, really want to believe it is. Sadly, idiots like this live in the suburbs around me, so I know it has to be real.

Waldo_Jeffers

Waldo_Jeffers

United Kingdom
OLD SKOOL

FEB 29, 2012 03:25 PM


Dlugash, the accountant, said he’s spending more time talking with Wall Street clients about their expenses.

“You don’t necessarily have to cut that -- but if you don’t cut that, then you’ve got to cut this,” he said. “They say, ‘But I can’t.’ And I say, ‘But you must.’”



Its astonishing to think that people as (materially) successful as these need an accountant to explain such basic stuff as how to economise!!!

Valentyno

Valentyno

North York, ON
January 2012

FEB 29, 2012 04:30 PM

Why did Bloomberg print this? To point out this guy's folly or as a PSA for a decent % of its readership? In publishing this interview, they basically dealt his future prospects a major blow.

The below in particular stuck in my mind while I was grocery shopping...

Dudes like those are going to drop hundreds of thousands on their children's educations, and reinforce the same value systems and skewed perspectives. That carries a hint of tragedy to it really.

METOO

METOO

Chicago, IL
October 2011

FEB 29, 2012 04:52 PM

My god a portable dishwasher, Brooklyn, shared walls!!!... 1.5 million could buy half my block. I'd like to know where he "drove" from to Brooklyn? It takes 45 minutes to go the 3-4 miles from Manhattan to Brooklyn I'd scream because of that alone, but no way he'd share the subway with all those commoners.

FuzzyDunlop21

FuzzyDunlop21

Columbus, OH
February 2012

FEB 29, 2012 05:25 PM

There was a similar article in NY Times awhile back, about how 'difficult' it was living on half a million in New York City. Its both funny and depressing that these wealthy investment bankers genuinely dont consider themselves rich.

Jamila

Jamila

SUICIDEGIRL

Oregon, USA

MAR 01, 2012 08:10 AM

I didn't know I had it so bad! I'm crammed into 800 square feet and I have to do all my dishes by hand too! The horror.
puke

cpkz

cpkz

Portland, OR
September 2006

MAR 01, 2012 08:41 AM

There was actually some psychology paper published (that I can't find because I'm lazy) about how after you make enough money to take care of the necessities, your stress starts going up again. There was a low stress zone where you had just a little extra, but not enough where you could start dreaming bigger.

But...anyone who wants to compare the stress of "private school or public" to the stress of not knowing if you'll be able to eat this month, let alone afford rent, is an asshole.

pascipio

pascipio

Irving, TX
July 2002

MAR 01, 2012 09:47 AM

I used to be an investment banker. Why will nobody give me any money? Of course, I was in Texas, so our super cars were Mustangs or very large pick ups.

I am not unsympathetic, so I will help him out.

1. Pull your kids out of the schools they are at, send them to Catholic school. Par less expensive, same high level of education.

2. Ditch the rental in Connecticut, buy a house in Cabo San Lucas.

3. Renovate one thing at a time. Do something else next year. Buy GE stock, so you have an excuse to use GE appliances, rather than Wolf, Sub Zero, Asko, and Bosch.

I never came close to $350,000. I did make several times my salary, and so should he. Not everything you touch will turn to gold, but it is incredibly easy to make money as an investment banker. You are right there with your finger on the pulse of the market. He is spendthrift and incompetent.

Otoki

Otoki

SUICIDEGIRL

Minnesota, USA

MAR 01, 2012 10:13 AM

pascipio said:
I used to be an investment banker. Why will nobody give me any money? Of course, I was in Texas, so our super cars were Mustangs or very large pick ups.

I am not unsympathetic, so I will help him out.

1. Pull your kids out of the schools they are at, send them to Catholic school. Par less expensive, same high level of education.

2. Ditch the rental in Connecticut, buy a house in Cabo San Lucas.

3. Renovate one thing at a time. Do something else next year. Buy GE stock, so you have an excuse to use GE appliances, rather than Wolf, Sub Zero, Asko, and Bosch.

I never came close to $350,000. I did make several times my salary, and so should he. Not everything you touch will turn to gold, but it is incredibly easy to make money as an investment banker. You are right there with your finger on the pulse of the market. He is spendthrift and incompetent.


That's the point, though, isn't it? A lot of 1% proponents paint non-wealthy people who are struggling as people who should "stop whining" and "get a real job" and "stop wasting money", yet don't understand how incredibly out of touch that makes them.


motorfirebox

motorfirebox

Pittsburgh, PA
March 2004

MAR 02, 2012 03:00 PM

It's a sad day when a racist investment banker can't afford a cab ride home. The first purchase the bake sale needs to make is a bigger knife for the investment banker. Seriously, only six stitches?