The favorite activity of New Yorkers who are not in the banking industry is complaining about New Yorkers who are in the banking industry. I certainly joined in when I was a New Yorker. They outbid us for housing, they tipped too much, and in public places the younger ones often had a movie star's sense of entitlement without the easyness on the eyes, much less the ability to be consistently entertaining. Or so we used to whine.
Then there would be a recession, and everyone in New York would realize that all those overpaid weasels were, um, paying our bills. Bloomberg estimates that the cumulative tax loss to the city and state from the 2008 fiasco will be at least $33 billion--mostly in corporate income taxes, but $1.3 billion of that is just taxes on bonus income that evaporated in 2008. And if you think 2009 is going to be a lot better, would you be interested in putting a downpayment on a beautiful bridge linking Brooklyn to downtown Manhattan? No need to make a full payment until you get that bonus!
North of $50 billion seems like a better bet for the gap that the city and state are going to have to close over the next few years.
On the upside, it'll probably be a lot cheaper to get a nice condo on the Upper West Side. If you can find a solvent banker to float the loan . . .
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
As much as a tax hell as it is, one can only shiver at the thought of a New York State/City without an enormous and enormously profitable financial industry.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for the city of New York to be giving huge tax breaks to the financial industry these pasty few years and therefore, crowding out other industries looking to relocate to NYC.
Doesn't it make sense to not put all your eggs in one basket. Please see the city of wilmington, ohio for a bad example of this.
I don't fully understand why the finance industry has to be concentrated in one place anyway, what with modern innovations in telephony.
Rob,
It doesn't, and it had been increasingly decentralized- some adverturous firms had even moved personnel to New Jersey.
I've never quite understood people who, with every advantage in life including a top notch education, pursue a low paying career and then complain about how little money they have.
I have a friend who, along with her brother, had an English degree from a top school. She became a high school english teacher and he became a partner in an advertising agency. She makes 60k, he makes 360k. Well, she know that when she set out to become a teacher. You want summers off, a 37.5 hr/ work week and 100% job security, you only make 60k.
Neologism of the week: EASYNESS
So you moved to D.C. which is recession proof because everyone sucks at the government teat.
At least indirectly.
@billswift
You have no idea. Much of the government was outsourced over the past 8 years. Lockheed/Martin and Northrop Grumman used to be aircraft companies. Now they're a large part of the government.
"one can only shiver at the thought of a New York State/City without an enormous and enormously profitable financial industry."
No, one could also look at that outcome with a wolfish, anticipatory grin.
Michiganguy, I think that grin will become familiar to many NYC-ers over the next few years - on the faces of resurgent muggers as funds for things like police dry up.
I understand Bloomberg called in his department heads about this time last year and told them to cut their budgets anticipating problems in the financial industry. At a certain time last year we didn't have "one president" we had, in a sense, 3 counting the 2 'understudies.' McCain's 'presidential' choice of the beautiful Palin rather than Bloomberg deprived him of economic fluency which might better have served him IMHO.
I think the loss of 600 Billion in TARP money necessitated by our high flying banker, easily outdistances the loss of money to New York.
Silly post here.
It's true. Schadenfreude is the upside to recession.
So let me see if I have this one correct: a municipality actively pursues a monopoly on a high-income, high-prestige industry. Then, when it fails and the municipality suffers, the rest of us are supposed to feel bad? :)
Coming from East Nowhere, Nevada, I can't decide who is more insufferable: DC residents who think they absolutely. must. live there because it's the center of the universe, or Manhattanites who absolutely. must. live there because it's the center of the universe.
This shareholder is just angry at the weasels that pissed away my investments lavishing bonuses on themselves.
I don't give a fuck about the other weasels.
I can't decide who is more insufferable...
I don't mind either of them as long as they leave me the hell alone. That runs counter to most people's instincts, unfortunately.
Jeez, you're giving me a coronary. I work with a $13.7B 2009-10 budget gap (16%) estimate for the state. guess you are spreading that over time. Cite for the $33 Billion in lost revenue estimate?
crowding out other industries looking to relocate to NYC.
There are industries looking to relocate TO NYC? Which do they like best -- the ridiculously high taxes, the astronomical cost of living, or the incredibly onerous government meddling in their affairs? NYC gives taxes breaks to the financial industry because the financial industry is the one major industry that didn't pack up and get the hell out of New York years ago. New York is a lousy place to do business in.
Dan,
I know, it's so crowded no one goes there any more.
Why is the cost of living and working in New York City so high? Probably because nobody likes living or working there
If I had said that no people liked living in New York City that would be an intelligent and witty response. Unfortunately I didn't, so it isn't.
There are plenty of reasons for a person to want to live in New York City. What there isn't, is any reason for an *industry* to want to set up shop there, unless its business is tightly tied to finance, theater, or city government. It isn't as though New Yorkers are so particularly intelligent or wonderful that businesses just HAVE to have them as employees. They're normal city-dwelling Americans, just with a far higher cost of living and a boundless sense of cultural superiority. Even if New York taxes weren't horrible (and of course they are) and the city wasn't a bureaucratic nightmare for business (and of course it is), there would still be the little fact that you're paying $100,000 to hire a New Yorker when you could hire a guy in New Jersey for $80,000 or a guy in Ohio for $50,000. So tell me -- why on Earth would an industry currently located outside of New York that doesn't specifically rely on something *in* New York want to open its new factory in New York instead of Dayton? Why open its new office in New York instead of Atlanta?
Dan writes: "Why open its new office in New York instead of Atlanta?"
Because some of us would rather listen to Magnetic Fields than Lil' Jon.
Not me of course..
Megan, you write a lot of good posts, but this one is not your best. Are we supposed to appreciate the bankers for their lost tax revenue? That is totally a second order effect. The main effect is that these folks made a killing for themselves loaning someone else's money to people they should not have loaned it to. That, incidentally, is a total failure of their job as bankers. They made bad decisions, and they should take full responsibility for them (like getting fired and their bank nationalized, like the S&L's), so future bankers don't think they can play the "heads-I-win-tails-you-lose" game again, expecting the government to keep saving their worthless asses.
Whoa!
bankers in NYC lent all the money?
last I checked, IndyMac was in California, as was Countrywide; WAMU was in Washington; Wachovia in NC (though bought big in California too) I could go on...
No, I can't blame Wall Street. We've had a democratization of credit, remember?
Super-regional banks could "bypass" Wall Street and get funding to the local markets they knew so well.
Sorry folks (don't want to be too much of an arrogant NYer) but it is the fat, dumb, lazy morons out there in middle america who bought big houses with 99% mortgages; 2 SUVs and way too much take-out food that fundamentally got us into this mess. It is american political mythology to blame Wall Street (jews, right?) for our economic problems, but let's face the truth about how the vast majority of the public has behaved the last 10-20 years
Actually, I do have a good idea. I lived inside the Beltway for thirty years. I just moved out the Labor Day weekend before 9-ll.
And all that outsourcing didn't reduce the size of government at all, it just helped it hide its growth a little.
"it is the fat, dumb, lazy morons out there in middle america who bought big houses with 99% mortgages; 2 SUVs and way too much take-out food that fundamentally got us into this mess."
You mean we here in the Midwest are mostly to blame? I thought the big problem state was California.
And to Megan, they tipped too much?
99% mortgages in middle America??? Must be the middle of the BosWash...
"There are industries looking to relocate TO NYC? Which do they like best -- the ridiculously high taxes, the astronomical cost of living, or the incredibly onerous government meddling in their affairs?"
Unions and local activists demanding a cut...or else face a picket line. That new age mafiosa crowd is what they like best about NYC.
In Chicago it was Rainbow PUSH. I am sure they have a similar version in NYC.
"last I checked, IndyMac was in California, as was Countrywide; WAMU was in Washington; Wachovia in NC (though bought big in California too) I could go on..."
... and those banks sold the bad mortgages to the even greater fools, the I-banks, who then passed them on to the greatest fool of all, the taxpayer.
I have to throw in a caveat when Ms. McArdle claims the bankers paid New York's bills. You can only pay bills, in a real sense, with money you actually earn, and it seems that far too many of the people in the financial services industry in New York spent money they acquired channeling other people's money to borrowers they knew, or should have known, had a poor chance of ever paying it back. In the world I live in, we call that fraudulent conveyance.
Wall Street did not add value,but people were willing to pay for it because the Bull market made everyone feel flush. After getting so badly ripped off the public won't buying next time around.NYC will have to find another way of giving value-maybe as a kind of Venice for tourists.
"it is the fat, dumb, lazy morons out there in middle america who bought big houses with 99% mortgages; 2 SUVs and way too much take-out food that fundamentally got us into this mess."
The outer boroughs of NYC are full to the brim with overweight SUV owners who have defaulted on their mortgages. Don't confuse half of Manhattan and a tenth of Brooklyn with the entire city- you provincial rube.
The people on this board tagging Wall Street as a coven of bandits are right, but only in the near-present sense of it all. Wall Street has mostly been successful in channeling worldwide capital to fuel the American economy, and has done so for decades. This latest spill comes largely from our friends in Washington, who twisted the arms of banks to make loans to people who obviously couldn't afford to repay. We all benefited from this powerful engine, and the ultimate parties who will end up holding the bag may well be foreign holders of American debt, like our good friends in Communist China.
Of course, whether centralization of such a pivotal industry in one geographic area is another question entirely. In an era of bloodthirsty terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, telephony and decentralization seem like a much better way to go.
I wonder how many people actually *read* Megan's post.
The post makes perfect sense from the POV of _New Yorkers_. And taken in that context, it makes a point that can then be applied universally.
Be careful how bitterly you envy the prosperous, when your very existence is parasitic on those same prosperous.
Fifty years ago, New York was a hard working industrial city. The Garment District was just that, a place where they made clothes. Immigrants didn't come and stay in New York City slums because they were able to get big paying Wall Street jobs. They came there because at one time New York had real industry and produced things. All that ended in the 1960s and 1970s, as New York proceeded to tax and regulate its manufacturing and blue collar job base to oblivion. Today New York is predominantly made up of four groups of people; the super rich, the hippster creative class of Megan and her ilk, public service employees including hospitals and universities, and poor people who live off dole. Honestly, does New York have any real revenue producing industries beyond Wall Street and tourism? Not many. Outside of big wall street firms, even big corporate headquarters have long since relocated to New Jersey or elswhere.
Why was Wall Street able to hang on so long? First, New York had such a monopoly that there wasn't really anywhere else for the firms to go. Second, Wall Street types made so much money that they could afford to pay the taxes. Sadly, I think that is about to change. There are lots of other places like Hong Kong or London or Deli or Dubei for these firms to locate and for companies to issue their stock. Further, New York through its rediculous tax rates and Congress through SARBOX has pretty much eliminated any advantage of doing business there. Why incorporate and trade on the NYSE and be subject to SARBOX and God knows what taxes when you can accomplish the same thing in any one of 20 other places in the world with lower taxes and less regulation? I think New York is headed for some really hard times and will in ten or twenty years no longer be an important city but instead be just another Disneyland for the rich the way Paris or Rome are.
I can't help but noticed that many if not most of the people on the far-left that do not work for the government work in fields that provide luxury goods to the wealthy i.e. theater, fine dining, arts, writers, new-age consultants, health food stores, etc. Cities like New York or San Francisco rise up as great commercial centers and then import people to entertain the wealthy. These entertainers or perhaps "lifestyle enhancers" form the nucleus of leftist politics that eventually take over the city.
I think a lot of the politics of these cities comes from articulate intellectuals who think themselves intellectually and morally superior to those who engage in commerce and then find themselves financially dependent on their imagined inferiors. They try to create a political system that will put them on top even if only symbolically.
This resentment and craving for status is so powerful that defeats their sense of enlightened self-interest. In trying to dominate and take from the economically creative, they create conditions under which economic creation is impossible.
We're going to see some ugly business when the leftist who dominate the cities politics try to squeeze an industry which needs no physical locale. The geese that lay the golden eggs will die or fly away.
Every banker I know was laid off with a middle-five-figure bonus, even the low-ranking ones.
So say my brokers, that's my rental markets are still buyoed - because jobless bankers can outbid me for rent.
BTW, John is exactly right. I grew up in NYC, but no longer live there.
My ancesters came to the US and settled at varying times in NYC because there was work.
That's changed. It's changed so much, that in my generation the *only* person who hasn't moved out of state works in the financial industry. (Which isn't me. You couldn't pay me enough to go back.)
NYC has little left worthy of note other than the financial industry, the pretentious, and ALOT of hungry mouths.
John, I think the main reason Wall Street is still in Manhattan is because modern trading is so dependent on concentrations of computing power and telecommunications, operating nonstop. Moving the facilities would be too disruptive to business. It's the same reason Boeing still builds planes in Seattle.
Now, if something like a terrorist attack or natural disaster destroys those facilities, and Wall Street has to rebuild anyway, I'd be surprised if they didn't do it somewhere else. (Note that 9/11 narrowly missed destroying one of NASDAQ's main trading processing facilities, which was across the street from the south tower.)
Back over a hundred years ago, cowboys used to drive cattle north from Texas to railheads in Kansas for shipping the stock east. At the end of the drive they were paid for their work, relatively good money at the time. Soon new towns would spring up at the railhead or along the routes. As you can imagine so did the saloons and houses of 'pleasure' that only a field hand could dream of [lacking anything like an iPod or Xbox to keep'em entertained]. Well, some of the towns reached a critical mass of population to attract enough 'good folk' to start organizing. Soon enough there were demands to put the place in order and bring some responsible government to the place. The usual moral crusades arose demonizing the behavior of the cowpokes and setting up all sorts of rules and laws to end their behavior. Well, the boys didn't like it all that much and the trail boss had to keep his crew. So more often then not, under such conditions, they just adjusted their routes and destinations to more friendlier locations. Them good folks always were left wondering why their little towns dried up and disappeared not long after those unwanted and horrible wretched cowboys moved along.
For awhile, I was in a startup that was interested in selling to traders. They were so concerned about trading speed, measured in milliseconds, that they were actually moving their trading computing infrastructure back to NYC from other areas as the extra milliseconds due to more "stuff" between them and the trading computers was costing money.
I'm not sure if that applies after the crash, but even in the internet age, proximity can still "matter".
One other thing - and a reason why Silicon Valley is still where it is as well - is that I-banks and SV startups tend to have high pay and high failure rates. Since an I-banker is unlikely to keep his job for more than a few years, he'll want to be in an area where he can easily find other jobs without moving.
Cousin Dave; actually many of the finacial firms are already out of NYC as a result of 9/11. The moved to Westchester, NJ and even to PA. There are a good number of Headquarters buildings that are being rented out to any and all because the big guys even left. None of them want to be there when terrorists hit again.
Lots of finacial work is "phoned in" using the internet. Don't have to be there any maore except for the lunches :)
Cousin Dave; actually many of the finacial firms are already out of NYC as a result of 9/11. They moved to Westchester, NJ and even to PA. There are a good number of Headquarters buildings that are being rented out to any and all because the big guys even left. None of them want to be there when terrorists hit again.
Lots of finacial work is "phoned in" using the internet. Don't have to be there any more except for the lunches they use to have :)
You know, some of your are ignoring a major reason why financial firms want to be in NYC. Because that's where young, educated, driven people who qualify for these jobs often want to live. It's just true that Atlanta or other such megalopolises are just not that enticing. Look at the early morning trains from Grand Central to Greenwich full of hedge funders and employees of UBS & RBS who reverse commute FROM NYC to go to the burbs where their firms are. The trains are so packed that Metro North railroad had to make them into peak hour trains and charge higher fares. The fact that these people aren't moving to Stamford from where they'd have a 10 minute commute, says a lot. People want to live in NYC for the food, culture, and not having to get your fat overweight behind into a car to get to the grocery store.
I don't like condescension by New Yorkers towards people in middle america (no matter how deserved most of it is). That's where they want to live, great, that's their business. But likewise, much of middle america is too narrow minded to understand why people would want to live in New York.
That's definitely a major reason why the financial industry is in New York and not in Atlanta or some other hellhole like it.
Josef has it exactly right. Manhattanites can gaze out from their Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover world view and see those vaguely shaped blobs beyond 10th Avenue and the Hudson as populated by overweight, blinkered, gun-toting philistines who know nothing, because they just don't keep up with the New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair the way they should. If they did, they would know that the secret to New York's continued financial solvency is...more of the same! Much more. More corrupt, bloated government. More and ever higher taxes supporting more union-clogged, unsustainable-benefit-laden, overbearing utopianism. Business exists only to serve as government's cash cow, right? I mena, sure, Obama said the other day that it is the private sector that generates wealt, but we know that was just Alinskian misdirection to pacify the rubes while we go about growing entitlements and government bloat. All that and save people from salt, too! Keep up the good work, New York. You've got it all figured out!
Because that's where young, educated, driven people who qualify for these jobs often want to live.
If you say so. I don't think I've met such a person in my entire life, if you don't count the people who actually grew up, or went to college, in or around NYC.
"People want to live in NYC for the food, culture, and not having to get your fat overweight behind into a car to get to the grocery store."
Ummm yes, and all the food, culture and grocery stores sell overpriced merchandise because of stupid government (state and city) policies which have driven up the cost of just being in New York.
Good thing all those rubes from Flyover Country come to Broadway to see the shows and visit the museums, or else there'd be fewer of them -- certainly, there aren't enough New Yorkers who care/can afford to patronize them.
The writing on the wall came some time ago, when longtime NYC institutions like American Airlines, J.C. Penney (to Texas) and the Joffrey Ballet (to Chicago) decided that the oh-so desirable NYC address just wasn't desirable anymore.
Just wait until Wall Street moves to Greenwich CT and see how much "food and culture" will be left in Manhattan.
NYC has always operated on the assumption that no matter how much they fleece people, there'll always be more coming.
It's not a good long-term strategy. We're not in the 19th century anymore, nor even the 20th. Money can be made anywhere -- NYC certainly won't have the monopoly much longer.
Oh, and by the way: this rube from Flyover Country thinks that Paris kicks Manhattan's ass when it comes to food, culture and standard of living (I've just come back from an extended stay there).
If I were forced to choose between the two, NYC wouldn't get a backward glance.
The big problem here is the catch-all terms "Bankers" and "financial industry".
The folks who made bad loans, i.e. retail bankers, were everywhere in the country and the world. Traders, fund managers, analysts, deal makers, etc., are concentrated in and around New York.
Those guys make ridiculous amounts of money, have $100s of thousands of income in the highest tax bracket, pay lots of property taxes, etc.
Lumping them all in with the problems caused by the mortgage/retail banking industry is pretty dim.
But I do love all this hatred of "financial" people at bailout-receiving companies getting good bonuses. Those guys getting bonuses are the ones in the part of the company that actually made big profits. Thereby, they're keeping those troubled financial companies afloat.
Instead of encouraging those successful parts of those firms, we're railing at them, demanding cuts to bonuses. We're forcing them to leave those businesses, to join untroubled firms where they won't get abused, but instead will be appropriately rewarded, for doing highly skilled jobs well.
We're sealing the fates of these troubled companies by driving away their competent workers and income producers.
It would be hilarious if it wasn't going to force NYC into bankruptcy. The only solace is NYC is a liberal city, and liberals are killing it themselves.
"That's definitely a major reason why the financial industry is in New York and not in Atlanta or some other hellhole like it."
It has much more to do with the fact that the New York City started out as the financial capital of the country, and all the money moved there.
And only by virtue of the fact that NYC just so happened to be the place, did the money stay here. In the past, folks came here because this was where the money was.
And "high" culture, food, etc., follow money. Not the other way around.
If you're trying to raise $100 million in bonds, it's easier to move the dog and pony show around in the town where all the folks lending the money happened to be. It has been NYC since before we were a nation.
It worked in reverse too. If you wanted to get in on great lending opportunities, it made sense to be in the same city where those with the best deals went to shop them around.
Holds true for venture capital, municipal lending, and all aspects of the financial world.
In the past, when this varied industry went belly up and the money disappeared, it always came back to NYC because, well, it kinda had to. There was nowhere else that made sense.
Now, with the technology the way it is, it remains to be seen if the money is really going to need to come back to NYC. When the jobs go, the people will go too. It's going to be a lot easier to find jobs everywhere else in the country in our wired world than it was 20 years ago.
Will there be enough financially-savvy intellectual capital still around in NYC in 5 or 10 years? WIll there still be a NEED for lenders/borrowers, etc., to be physically located in the NYC area, to allow the varied parts of the financial industry to flourish again as they did up till a couple of years ago?
I don't think it will. A decent amount will come back, but it probably will never, ever be close to the same hayday we've seen in times past.
"One other thing - and a reason why Silicon Valley is still where it is as well - is that I-banks and SV startups tend to have high pay and high failure rates. Since an I-banker is unlikely to keep his job for more than a few years, he'll want to be in an area where he can easily find other jobs without moving."
You're discounting the networking component. Many of my CMU colleagues went to Silicon Valley after they graduated. If they were unhappy with their jobs, they would call up a friend, have lunch with a higher-up at that company, and get a new job the next day.
You can't do that in Pittsburgh....
Bankers (I don't mean retail bankers and the scum/dopes that sell subprime/AltA mortgages) locate where there is a large pool of talent for their firms , as do publishers, ad agencies, fashion houses, artists, et al.
That is among the reasons NY thrives, but yes, NY is killing its golden goose (or the goose is killing itself)
There are 99% mortgages in middle america BTW. Michigan, Ohio, Illinois are rotten with defaulted subprime and AltA mortgages. "Middle america" is a concept, and "state of mind", and exists in California and Long Island, not just fly-over country. It is where the loud, fat people are who live for consumption of more. I am not saying that the people who go to NY or LA are any better or less materialistic, just usually less mindlessly materialistic. They don't just want more however, they typically want better. There is a difference between More and Better.
It's funny to see a post about the supposed resentment of New Yorkers against financial workers overrun by commenters from "Real America" seething with resentment toward New York itself. Folks, places like NYC pay the bills of this country, and allow you to live in your welfare-hoovering red states at the level of comfort you do now. Don't understand why anyone would want to move to NYC? Great, please don't, we don't want you.
As to Megan's post, it is just a special case of a broader tautology, that communities are better off if they have wealth to support a tax base. In this respect it doesn't really matter who has that wealth or how evenly it is distributed. Resentment toward financial workers, in my experience, is not directed toward their high salaries per se, but toward their general effect on city life. They are willing to pay a premium to live in an interesting social/cultural environment, which has the unintended consequence of pricing out the other people who actually make it interesting. Meanwhile, they have a disproportionate proclivity toward very douchy, over-grown frat-boy behavior (come on, you know it is true) that adds insult to injury.
In short, just because NYC needs a large tax base to support itself, there is no a priori reason why it has to be this particular arrangement. And your banker friends are only going to get so much sympathy for having to live on domestic cavier instead of imported. Sorry, but human nature is what it is, deal with it.
Right on, Jozef. I think that's a much underlooked concept. More in this country doesn't mean more money, but More Stuff. More money in NY is usually Better, not More Stuff.
Look at the huge homes people buy in suburbia. Mindless amalgam of vapid architectural styles that make no sense together (cf. the Tuscan kitchen in a Georgian home) but are just gaudy for the sake of conspicuous consumption.
Kim du toit,
Perhaps Paris is better than NYC, I'll grant you that. But, presumably the US financial industry isn't getting all hot and heavy to move to Paris. The ideas bantered about here is that focus will move to Charlotte or Atlanta or Omaha or somesuch other dump. Remember about 10 years ago when NationsBank bought BofA and First Union/Wachovia merged and became a banking giant, etc. People said, Charlotte would be the new banking capital. How did that work out for ya Tar Heels? Point being is that NYC may not be Paris, but the other cities in the US are even less like Paris than NYC is.
It's kind of an amusing thought that tourists are helping keep NYC's restaurants afloat. Most of them stick to going to Applebees, Olive Garden, and Chipotle in Times Square. They're too scared to try that fancy food!
And by the way, if you think NYC restaurants are so expensive, you're crazy. In most parts of the country, at a fancy restaurant, entrees run easily $35-40 entrees. At many of the greatest NYC restaurants, entrees run under 30 (these are Michelin starred places, mind you). Yes, maybe the NYC TGIFridays is more expensive. But we keep those places in and around Times Square so that the tourists don't have to leave their pens.
Viktor, I don't think Jozef or I ever said we like how the city government runs the city. We're merely saying that there's some messed up things about the rest of the country too and this is why many educated people want to come here.
In fact, I absolutely hate how the city government runs the town. It's inefficient, pretty corrup, and mostly incompetent. I have some friends who work there, and it's really a mess. No denying that. And it's sort of unfortunate that many guys on Wall Street don't care because they're wealthy enough to not have to take the subway too often, wealthy enough to pay the insane city taxes, and wealthy enough to just pay whatever fine/licensing fee/lawyer necessary to navigate through the beureaucracy.
I am not saying that the people who go to NY or LA are any better or less materialistic, just usually less mindlessly materialistic.
Somebody needs to read the DABA girls posts. "Mindless," indeed.
They don't just want more however, they typically want better.
I'm afraid that I must consider the purchase of Hermes handbags "mindlessly materialistic" and "conspicuous consumption" even if they are better made than something you find at Nordstrom's.
Live in New York one year and you will have more than enough time to experience all the FOOD and CULTURE!
People in NYC do not like each other very much. It is not a friendly place. Talk about the suburbs all you want but people at least are familiar with the names of their neighbors. Not in New York City.
If ever there was an overrated place. If only some entrepreneur can bottle the status seeking chemical that seems to be in Manhattan's water.
As mentioned above, the industry holding up the Big Apple was the financial industry. I just hope we do not return to homicides numbering over 2000 a year.
I have lived in Manhattan for 30 years. I've seen it bad and I've seen it better. What comes next scares me.
"Michiganguy" says above: "One could also look at that outcome with a wolfish, anticipatory grin."
I'm trying to figure out what kind of "one" hates a city of 8.2 million people so much that this "one" gets his rocks off pondering the possibly crippling destruction of its economic base. Included among these 8.2 million people are cops, firefighters, and many others with occupations that I'm guessing "one" considers salt-of-the-earth enough not to hate, and many of these people will lose their jobs in the next few months. Better start licking your chops, "one"!
As for Megan's post...I think she sometimes gets a bum rap from lefty blogs, but this just reads as a half-assed attempt at contrarianism. First of all, I've lived in New York City since the mid-'90s, running with a crowd that is heavily concentrated in the hated media and arts professions, and I can say with full confidence that nobody's "favorite activity" is complaining about people in the financial sector. Yeah, housing is a problem here, and rich people can make entire neighborhoods unaffordable for the rest of us, but bankers aren't the only rich people. As for complaints that they act like movie stars and tip too much (!), I honestly don't have the faintest idea what she's talking about.
Believe me, any halfway intelligent New Yorker understands that one of the things that makes NYC more habitable than many other American cities is that rich people want to live here. Since they don't all flee to the suburbs, this city has an actual tax base, which is why it isn't an empty shell like, say, Detroit (are you listening, "Michiganguy"?).
Seriously, Megan, what was your point here? That Mommy and Daddy may have gambled away their nest egg, but after all, without them us kids wouldn't even be here, so we should take it all in stride? What rank bullshit.
Oh, and by the way, your attempt to riff on the old Brooklyn Bridge joke sucks. If I don't need to make any payments until my "bonus" comes in, I guess I get to have this bridge in perpetuity without paying for it. Lucky me!
New York doesn't seem to have much of a tax base. Take away Wall Street, the bonuses associated with it and NYC is on its knees.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/30/giuliani.corporate.bonuses/index.html
I remember reading that there were 13,000 millionaires living in NYC. That is out of a population of 8 million. I do not remember what percentage of tax revenue those millionaires contributed but we can be sure it was far and above their percentage of the population.
Hey Greg, you sagely urban sofisticate, let me explain Michiganguy to you:
Misery Loves Company.
A short while ago, the republican party and the media chattering class (BASED IN NYC) told the US Auto industry aka the state of Michigan to go F itself and Die.
Megan McArdle said that the starting $18.72/hr paid to line workers is too high, access to a doctor or giving children braces was Stalinist, and that they were just an overpaid gang of Jimmy Hoffas who deserve what they get.
Defender of the powerful McCardle thinks the workers who obey all the rules should suffer because the incompetent republicans who run the companies "don't have a plan". How many times did Paulson's "plan" change from October to January 20th?
The banks have a plan, rip taxes from the paychecks of autoworkers and give out multimillion dollar bonuses to worthless thieving executives as a reward for ruining the economy with their cdo ponzi scheme.
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/keep_bailing.php
The republicans who run the auto companies have ruined it - it wasn't the union or the workers who decided in 97' that the only thing they'd build was SUV's, and it was the "don't regulate me" republicans running GM who refused to invest enough $ to meet their pension obligations.
Now the parasitic republicans of the finance "industry", who don't produce anything other than collateralized debt obligations, have screwed NYC by their own rigid ideology and greed. well boo frickin' hoo.
When NYC needed help on 9/11 Michiganders gave generously, and now NYC curses Michigan, AND steals our tax money for "bonuses".
Want to see what you Elites are in store for? Rent "Roger and Me" by Michael Moore, Flint was a precursor for whats happening to the whole country. But Moore is an extremist anti-american, unlike Rush Limpbaugh or John Thain with his million dollar office remake.
Just outsource the NYSE and be done with it, a guy in Bangladesh can read a stock ticker for alot less than $25 million a year plus bonuses.
So when someone in Michigan laughs at the misery possibly coming to NYC, its not spiteful, its just our way of saying welcome to the club.
As a New Yorker (Park Slope, baby), I feel justified in a hearty "fuck you".
I'm prosperous, happy, and weathering the storm well, thank you, and have nothing to do with the ibankers or any of the attached barnacles. Missed in the all of the Randian nonsense is that those bankers got tons of tax breaks, relief from zoning issues, etc. that those of us who build businesses that don't involve trading on the floor never get.
I'm not going to cry if a suit doesn't steal my seat at Cafe Evergreen anymore, or if his mistress leaves him for someone who actually adds value. I swear, I looked at CDOs back in about 2001 when a potential client wanted some software, and thought that it was about the equivalent of some geek teenager making a complicated role playing game. (Note: I was once a geek teenager who made complicated role playing games.)
People look at NYC and think Finance, and then maybe Media, but there's a whole hell of a lot more going on here that only locals see. For that matter, there's a whole hell of a lot going on that a local like me never sees, because we're fucking huge.
If you think a downturn is going to flush NYC, please, please bet on it, however you can, and let me know. I'd be glad to take your money.
Hey "Feckless," you corn-fed heartland hick, let me respond to your post.
Misery may love company, but only sadists get hard (or adopt "wolfish grins") waiting for misery to strike others. It's that simple.
That you claim the “chattering class” is “BASED IN NYC,” and therefore New York has it coming just shows you don’t know fuck-all about New York. Idiots may broadcast their idiotic conventional-wisdom-spouting news shows from here, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is one of the most liberal cities in the country, one that for the most part is appalled at how the banks are being treated versus the auto companies in all this stimulus talk.
As for Megan, of course she takes the party line. That’s her stock in trade: parroting conventional wisdom with a ham-handed dose of contrarianism. What did you expect?
But thanks for reminding me about 9/11. It's true--gallant Michigan really did save the day. Seeing the Michigan Militia patrol the smoldering ruins of the WTC really brought a tear to my eye.
WALL STREET RED INK BAILOUT BOYS
(Heinrich Hoffman's Struwwelpeter, Inky Boys)
WilliamBanzai7
The Story of the Red Inky Boys
As he had often done before,
The newly elected President
One nice fine day went out
To see his constituents, and walk about;
Then Johnny Thain, little noisy banker wag,
Ran out and laughed, and waved his big red bonus flag;
And Vikram Pandit came in jacket trim,
And brought his French jet fleet and baseball stadium sponsorship with him;
And Ken Lewis, too, snatched up his toys
And joined the other naughty Wall Street boys.
So, one and all set up a roar,
And laughed and looted more and more,
And kept on singing,--only think!--
"Oh, Obama, we pay ourselves huge bonuses with taxpayer red ink!"
Now tall Secretary Geithner lived close by--
So tall, he almost touched the Wall Street sky;
He had a mighty regulatory inkstand, too,
In which a great Federal goose-feather grew;
He called out in an angry tone
"Boys, you better leave your Wall Street bonus toys home!
For, if Obama tries with all his might,
He he will put your loss riddled banks a bonus black hole overnite."
But, ah! they did not mind a bit
What great Geithner said of it;
But went on laughing, as before,
And hooting about their bonus hoard.
Then great Geithner foams with rage--
Look at him on this very page!
He seizes Thain, seizes Ken,
Takes Pandit by his little head;
And they may scream and kick and call,
Into the TARP black ink he dips them all;
Into the inkstand, one, two, three,
Till they are now bonus capped as capped can be.
Illustration on WilliamBanzai7 Blog