Times are tough out there. Millions of people owe more on their homes than those buildings are worth. The job market is still weak with many Americans just happy to take work that will help them pay the bills. Bankers can’t afford to add square-footage to their million-dollar homes.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in NYC explains to Bloomberg, presumably blotting his tears with a handkerchief made out of plain old silk. “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?”
Things have gotten so bad for one Wall Street headhunter that he not only has to shop at only slightly luxurious Brooklyn grocery stores, but he and his family also — prepare yourself to weep — occasionally look at coupons: “They have a circular that they leave in front of the buildings in our neighborhood… We sit there, and I look through all of them to find out where it’s worth going.”
And it’s not just the money people at banks that are feeling the pinch. Even the most vital people at brokerage firms — the marketing directors — sound like extras from an off-Broadway production of Oliver!
“I’m not Zen at all,” gripes the marketing director for Euro Pacific Capital, who has had to delay plans to add bedrooms to his Brooklyn brownstone. “I can’t imagine what I’m going to do… I’m crammed into 1,200 square feet. I don’t have a dishwasher. We do all our dishes by hand.”
Of course, he still sends his daughter to a $32,000/year prep school and plans to rent out a 3-bedroom summer house in Connecticut — but only for one month instead of his usual four.
“I feel stuck,” he adds. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach… All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had.”
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Viva La Revoluci√≥n…
*Clearly* this is the fault of all those people leeching off welfare!
The sad part of the story is the people’s obsession with money and status. I’m a graduate student and live on a stipend and I would bet my stipend that I am happier than these people. Of course, I’m in a graduate school to eventually make more $$$, so I’m going to work hard to NOT end up acting like these people!
Heh, I’m not even anywhere close to how much money this guy still has, and I have a dishwasher.
Lowe’s FTW.
Granted I didn’t have one for a few months as the old one broke, but I have these things at the ends of my arms called hands, use some soap and a sponge and it’s just as good.
People like this are why I have little respect for the rich.
Wow, this place has really mastered the art of snark in their stories.
Wah wah wah. Suck it up buttercup!
…honestly? -1, Troll
I started to write something empathetic…
…then I started laughing WAAAYYYY to hard.
Please Mr. Banker, cry me a river…
Is there a charity for the waaambulance fund? Think of all the poor bankers! /sarcasm
It’s not April 1st yet is it? I feel like I’ve been punk’d.
The only thing I have sympathy for is the bit about private schools. Not because I think “my child is a special snowflake who has to go to a $32,000/year prep school” is a sound decision. But because it sucks to have to change schools when you’re a kid because of factors beyond your control. And it sucks to have to deal with the fallout, as a parent.
Obviously expensive private schools are not a necessity and these people will all survive just fine. But I wouldn’t look forward to telling my child to say goodbye to all his friends. It’s true even if you’re moving the child to a better school, it’s true when you’re moving the child for more sympathetic reasons like job transfers and military moves, and it’s true when you’re doing something that is, in the long run, better for the family overall. This doesn’t mean I’m all torn up on their behalf – public school might do some of these kids some real good, if all they’ve ever known is a life of unrestrained spending – but I get not wanting upheaval when it comes to your kids.
For having to sell the Porche, though? Or not being able to add rooms to a house that costs ten times what people usually spend on a house? Or having to give up SOME of your time at the beach house? Yeah, I don’t care. At all.
They’re not worried about the kids losing their friends…they’re worried about what “other people” will think. Like the neighbors whispering “OMG, his kids are going to PUBLIC school now!–TEH HORROR!”
I hope some of them are reading this. And I hope they see my comment when I say: Tough. Get a real life, live in the real world, and stop your poor little rich kid crybabying. Because nobody here gives a damn.
Shut the hell up, bankers. I have windowpanes falling out of my house. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR IT.
Oh please. I’m paying an obscene amount of money for graduate work that has turned out to be nowhere near worth the amount I am going to have to shill out. (If you’re thinking of going, consider how much you’re going to be paying afterward, and whether or not you’re going to be working in a field that will make that acceptable.) It’s put me in a financial situation where my take home pay has to spread as thin as tissue paper to stay fed and sheltered. And they’re worried because their house feels too small? Seriously?
I have a dishwasher! I’m in the upper 1%!!!!!!!
This article is irritating because most of us could only dream of having the salaries these people have. If I earned what they do, you can be assured that I would be saving for a rainy day instead of spending 4 months on the beach.
Cutting your vacay down to 1 month or not having a dishwasher is way different than having to choose between heat and food or having your home forclosed on because you lost your job. Not being able to send your kid to a 32K a year school is much different than not being able to take them to the doctor. It is kind of like someone having a Rolls Royce gripe that the windows don’t roll down quickly enough when the rest of us are driving beaters. (Ironically, there are probably people who live in 3rd world countries who think the same thing about many of us!)
Even bankers are stupid enough to live at or beyond their means.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
Shame clipping those coupons won’t get them that extra yacht or another skank to hang on their arm.
“I feel stuck,” he adds. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach… All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had.”
‘stuff’ — that’s what it’s become about. Too bad. So sad. I won’t cry for you.