MaximusNYC - January 24, 2010 | 1:23 pm · Link

This is obviously a big part of their target demographic—the rich, or those who aspire to join their ranks.

asiangrrlMN - January 24, 2010 | 1:31 pm · Link

And we should pay money for this kind of ‘reporting’, because why again? Cry me a fucking river, wah wah wah. I heard similar shit on NPR about a year ago, and in a rage, I nearly drove my car off the road. Can’t have the second house in the Hamptons or have to skip out on the yearly-vacation to Europe this year? Keep it to your fucking self.

For this, I need the full range of rusty garden implements and not just my trusty rusty pitchfork.

cmorenc - January 24, 2010 | 1:34 pm · Link

If the tough economy for the non-rich changes the nouveau-riche/financial sector ethos toward discretion and away from conspicuous consumption, that will be a very constructive development, even though the huge bonuses themselves are decidedly not. A greater value on discretion and less on flash would hugely benefit our general culture from top to bottom right now, and have collateral benefits over many areas (environment, land-use, energy, etc) beyond simply whether rich bankers need to be anxious about an angry mob bearing tar and pitchforks might be coming their way any night.

Again, I am NOT at all supporting here any notion that the huge bonuses are a worthy or good thing, not at all. But to the extent the bankers are able to extract and hold onto them, their feeling the need to tone down conspicuous spending/display of same is overall a good thing.

scav - January 24, 2010 | 1:34 pm · Link

don’t cha love the little detail that these exemplars of the great and the good don’t even want to help their own “extended” families?

Col. Klink - January 24, 2010 | 1:35 pm · Link

If you cut capital gains taxes I’m sure he could have afforded a six million dollar home. Those bastard Democrats.

Walker - January 24, 2010 | 1:36 pm · Link

@MaximusNYC:

This.

My wife lived in the NYC area for a time, and has the utmost contempt for the paper because of the type of people that always bragged to be its readers.

arguingwithsignposts - January 24, 2010 | 1:39 pm · Link

@asiangrrlMN:

I need the full range of rusty garden implements and not just my trusty rusty pitchfork.

I foresee a whole line of asiangrrlMN Rusty Gardens™ implements, available wherever fine populism is sold.

asiangrrlMN - January 24, 2010 | 1:43 pm · Link

@Kryptik: Sadly, I thought you were channeling a winger when you wrote that and not doing satire. Sad, very sad.

@arguingwithsignposts: Oooh, that’s a good idea for a product line. Hm….

@You Don’t Say: Fuck Reagan with a rusty garden hoe. (Testing out a new product).

Task Force Ripper - January 24, 2010 | 1:44 pm · Link

@Walker:

My wife lived in the NYC area for a time, and has the utmost contempt for the paper because of the type of people that always bragged to be its readers.

People in NYC bragged about reading a newspaper there?
To whom?

Alex S. - January 24, 2010 | 1:47 pm · Link

sounds like the Gilded Age

darryl - January 24, 2010 | 1:48 pm · Link

January 24th, 2010 at 1:36 pm Reply to this comment
You Don’t Say
Anyone watching Fareed Zakaria? Noonan and Isaccson are really getting on my nerves.

Fareed Zakaria is talking to Peggy Noonan? That’s disappointing. I haven’t seen his show lately, but when I saw it, in the beginning, he actually talked to smart people.

Kryptik - January 24, 2010 | 1:50 pm · Link

@asiangrrlMN:

We’re all Onion subscribers now.

asiangrrlMN - January 24, 2010 | 1:52 pm · Link

@Kryptik: No kidding. The fact that the Onion can still find ways to be humorous about current situations is a testament to their grit and determination.

You Don't Say - January 24, 2010 | 1:55 pm · Link

@darryl: He had Robert Caro on the panel as well, which almost balanced it out but not quite.

Keith - January 24, 2010 | 1:57 pm · Link

This suppression of their ability – and desire – to brag, coupled with the press’ desire to interview them, is a chilling assault on their First Amendment rights.

FlipYrWhig - January 24, 2010 | 2:00 pm · Link

@arguingwithsignposts:

I think it would be interesting to actually do a story about the writers who have to do these stories. How do they feel about these assignments?

I have always assumed that these were stories about the friends of the writers. A colleague was once quoted in the Times about American Idol. Did they go through a process of exhaustive research to find a typical American Idol fan? No, the person writing the article knew her and knew she watched it.

Jim - January 24, 2010 | 2:01 pm · Link

@darryl:
I’m guessing this is the same sort of network pressure that made Rachel have Uncle Pat on her show fairly regularly in those first few months. I actually take a perverse pleasure in watching the Magic Dolphin Lady on TeeVee. All that mugging and hammy emoting, like the slightly drunk suburban matron who bribed her way into the lead role of the community theatre production. If only some soap had offered La Nooners a recurring role in front of the camera in the nineties, what treacly horrors might we have been spared on Sunday mornings.

Jean - January 24, 2010 | 2:04 pm · Link

If you’d all just vote Republican and often, you too can someday have a house or two in the Hamptons. That’s what sold to the middle class. Truman, I believe, said, “If you want to live like a republican, vote like a democrat.

Cat Lady - January 24, 2010 | 2:04 pm · Link

@asiangrrlMN:

A rusty garden weasel would be a nice addition to your line, to use in conjunction with all of your other fine rusty garden implements – in particular on one weasel named Lloyd Blankfein.

Loneoak - January 24, 2010 | 2:07 pm · Link

OT, I liked Plouffe’s WaPo Op-Ed today. There’s no hippy punching in there, it’s all true, and very pragmatic. I’m relieved that Obama has brought him back in a big way.

Morbo - January 24, 2010 | 2:10 pm · Link

Dear NYT:

Please put this behind a paywall and don’t bring it back. By the way, you guys do realize that Colbert Platinum is a parody of these articles, right?

darryl - January 24, 2010 | 2:15 pm · Link

@darryl:
I’m guessing this is the same sort of network pressure that made Rachel have Uncle Pat on her show fairly regularly in those first few months

Something has to explain it. I refuse to believe that Rachel Maddow is personally dumb enough to think Pat had anything to contribute.

arguingwithsignposts - January 24, 2010 | 2:17 pm · Link

@darryl: Excellent idea. I’d love it if MTP just talked to someone outside the village every once in a while.

OTOH, it would be awesome to hear one day “our first guest today is Muhammed Al-Ajani, a taxi driver from Alabama to talk about what it’s like to be among the working poor.”

I mean, I like Barbara Ehrenreich and respect her efforts, but she can break the illusion and go back to her upper middle-class existence.

@Loneoak: I’m guessing now that Plouffe’s done with the book tour, he’s available for bookings. I hope this works out. But without some legislative victories …

Ash Can - January 24, 2010 | 2:22 pm · Link

Since the Times keeps running stories like these, I’m starting to think it’s a stealth hit job. Sure, the Times has affluent readers, but it also has plenty of non-affluent readers, as well as intellectual and influential readers on various community (and wider) levels. Once, maybe twice tops? Reporting on a (supposedly) newsworthy curiosity. Continually? Seems like the Times is looking to keep this topic on people’s radar screens. Now, if it were the Wall Street Journal running these articles, that would be an instance of “cry for these poor souls; they’re suffering,” because that’s so obviously the WSJ’s agenda. I’m suspecting an entirely different agenda on the part of the NYT.

GregB - January 24, 2010 | 2:23 pm · Link

Why is Noonan talking to Zakaria? I mean he doesn’t even look American.

-G

Ash Can, you mean the same Times that gave Judith Miller the front pages for Dick Cheney’s war alley-oops on Meet the Press? They are secretly pulling for the average Joe?

Ash Can - January 24, 2010 | 2:37 pm · Link

@GregB: It doesn’t boil down to “pulling for” anyone, really, it boils down to getting as many readers as possible. If the NYT felt as though its readership was majority IGMFU-wealthy, this would be a sympathy play. I don’t think the NYT muckety-mucks think that’s how their readership numbers break down. I’m thinking the NYT’s primary purpose in running these articles is to throw red meat to the majority of its readers. But I think a secondary reason, in light of the more recent op-eds written by its own editorial staff (as opposed to the big-name twits), could possibly be that this really does reflect the consensus opinion of its staff today (as opposed to those heady and confused days of 2003).

Loneoak - January 24, 2010 | 2:42 pm · Link

@Jim:

@Loneoak:
I can’t imagine he didn’t run that by Obama first, and I like what he has to say. I’d like to see some follow up, and quick.

FWIW, Obama posted the OpEd on Facebook. LOL.

What I like about Plouffe is that he understands doing the right thing will result in political victories. He doesn’t traffic in double-backflip triple-twist insider legislative gaming. The formula is so simple it has to be right: pass legislation that makes people’s lives measurably better, consistently remind people that you have made their lives better, and then organize and ask them to re-elect you to make their lives even better.

How is that so fucking hard that Democrats fail on it nearly every time?

Jim - January 24, 2010 | 2:48 pm · Link

@Loneoak:

Cool. Can we take that as an Executive Order against bedwetting?
I love that Plouffe used that phrase chez Broder. I think he’s my kinda guy.

CT Voter - January 24, 2010 | 2:50 pm · Link

@Shell: You betcha! Bentley vs Rolls dilemma. . .and the anger these poor rich people feel:

One banker’s wife, who did not want to be named, said she and others like her felt more financially secure these days. “There is the sense in the community that the world is not coming to an end,” she said. Of bonus critics, she added, executives like her husband work hard and are unjustly singled out as greedy. “Everybody wants someone to blame,” she said, “and rich people are an easy target.”

ono - January 24, 2010 | 2:54 pm · Link

I’m going to start baking cakes for the peasants. The banksters won’t do it, but someone has to.

dr. bloor - January 24, 2010 | 3:10 pm · Link

@asiangrrlMN:

Is the impressive collection of rusty garden tools and home improvement devices you’ve put together to be found on some special aisle at Home Depot?

Church Lady - January 24, 2010 | 3:22 pm · Link

If it was banks still owing the Treasury money, I could understand the outrage and anger. It isn’t. Any bank paying out bonuses (which would more appropriately be labled “commissions” in many cases) either never took TARP money, or has paid it back, with interest, at a profit to the Treasury.

I look at it this way – whether or not the bankers receive bonuses doesn’t affect my life in any tangible way. It just doesn’t make a difference to me, and I’m trying to figure out how it affects anyone other than the people that actually get the money. Actually, it does affect all of us in one particular way – the bankers tend to make most of their campaign contributions to Dems. Obama received more money from Wall Street than any candidate for President ever had. Take heart and look at the bright side – their contribution dollars will probably continue to go to the candidates of your choice!

Where was the outrage when Fannie and Freddie paid out their bonuses earlier this year? Some of thoses execs were in line to get millions. Unlike the banks, they aren’t turning a profit. Last time I looked, they are both continuing to hemmorage money and there is no end it sight to the money they will lose. My friends, that is YOUR money that is being lost and YOUR money that paid those bonuses. How about pulling out your pitchforks and torches for them?

arguingwithsignposts - January 24, 2010 | 3:47 pm · Link

@FlipYrWhig:

(And, frankly, no, no they don’t “work hard.” Working under stress is not the same thing as working hard.)

A-f**kin’-men. Worse than the whining about having their net worth drop a digit is the argument that these people work “hard” for all that money. A garbageman works hard. A nurse works hard. A short-order cook works hard. A firefighter or police officer often works hard. A public school teacher works harder than people think.

Bankers? Meh. Cut off the air conditioning in their offices. Make their trading floor the bottom of a coal mine and then come back and talk about working “hard.”

(I say this as someone who doesn’t consider his work “hard,” but whose parents and grandparents did work hard.

@Church Lady:

Where was the outrage when Fannie and Freddie paid out their bonuses earlier this year?

Link or it didn’t happen.

Church Lady - January 24, 2010 | 3:56 pm · Link

http://sweetness-light.com/arc.....ie-bonuses

Church Lady - January 24, 2010 | 4:01 pm · Link

I hope that you now believe that it happened. Now, please show a level of outrage equal to that of the greedy bankers.

CT Voter - January 24, 2010 | 4:06 pm · Link

@FlipYrWhig: The “investment banker community” is just a big bag of dicks. They don’t deserve to wear the label of “community

Hey, even dicks can belong to a community. They have mutual respect for each other, and they look out for each other, and if they can raise the circumstances of each and every member by screwing all the little people and little companies in a mindless orgasm of greed, they’ll do it! That’s community! What do you have against dicks, anyway????? Dicks are people too, you know.

arguingwithsignposts - January 24, 2010 | 4:10 pm · Link

@Church Lady:

I look at it this way – whether or not the bankers receive bonuses doesn’t affect my life in any tangible way. It just doesn’t make a difference to me, and I’m trying to figure out how it affects anyone other than the people that actually get the money.

I would argue that it affects your life in a very tangible way. The fast and loose rules by which these bank executives traded stocks and shuffled around other people’s money directly led to the financial shock of late 2008. Even the bankers begrudgingly admitted this when they appeared before congress recently.

They trade for short term profits to pump up their bonuses, ignoring long-term structural risks. Do you know anyone whose 401K plummeted by 50 percent? Anyone who’s lost a job? Who can’t get a home loan or modification? A small business owner who can’t get short-term credit?

There’s your tangible way.

Church Lady - January 24, 2010 | 4:42 pm · Link

@arguingwithsignposts:

Can I raise my hand on the 401K question (although ours was actually a Simple IRA plan and we only lost 40%)? I’ll also raise my hand to not being able to get short term credit (unless we want to guarantee single thing we own in exchange for a new line of credit). But do I blame banker’s bonuses? No, not really.

I’m more willing to blame the de-regulation (signed into law by Clinton, I believe) that allowed the banks to take extraordinary risks and AIG to insure those risks with no money to back it up.
I’m more willing to blame the Fed, which artificially held interest rates down for waaaaayyyy too long.
I’m more willing to blame Fannie and Freddie for being willing to water down their underwriting guidelines, which in turn (along with those artificially low interest rates from the Fed) allowed the ballooning of the real estate bubble. I’m more willing to blame those in the government that should have seen the shit storm coming and then done something to try to mitigate the damage BEFORE it happened. After all, if Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini could see it coming so very clearly, why was everyone in the federal government, on both sides of the aise, seemingly asleep at the wheel?
There is a shitload of blame to go around. Blaming it all (or even mostly) on bankers’ bonuses is just disingenuous.

arguingwithsignposts - January 24, 2010 | 4:53 pm · Link

@Church Lady:
Oh, wait, are you going to go after the community reinvestment act? Because that seems to be the RW talking point you’re barreling toward pretty quickly.

I’m sorry, but just because there was deregulation (which I do think contributed, and shouldn’t have happened, but was a bipartisan effort – Phil Gramm, anyone?) doesn’t mean the people who exploited that deregulation get off scott-free.

It’s like if the gov’t suddenly said, “we aren’t going to regulate murder as much as we have in the past.” Suddenly, murder explodes. Do I blame the gov’t. Sure. But the gov’t didn’t force those murderers to pull the trigger. Same with the bankers. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. The government didn’t force anyone to write NINA loans (no income no assets). The gov’t didn’t force banks to ramp up their leverage to 30-1.

So yeah, I don’t buy your argument. AIG, Fannie and Freddie all had their hand in it, but the bankers gladly took advantage of the laissez fair atmosphere to screw everyone royally. And the bonuses were a big reason why they thought it was a good bet. And a good bet it was, for them.

Church Lady - January 24, 2010 | 5:07 pm · Link

No, no one forced anyone to write NINA loans, but why did Fannie and Freddie take them? Who thought it was a great idea to downgrade their underwriting guidelines? Could it possibly have been the Fannie and Freddie execs that were taking obscene bonuses from a quasi-governmental entity? People like Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines, hmmm? Believe me, I dealt with Fannie and Freddie underwriting guidelines for years in the process of issuing mortgage backed securities, and if those rules had been kept in place, the real estate bubble could not have occurred – most of the loans would have never, ever been made. After all, the banks made them because someone (read: Fannie and Freddie) was going to take that shit off their hands.

Your arguement fails on the merits.

Church Lady - January 24, 2010 | 5:43 pm · Link

No, it’s not all Fannie and Freddie’s faults – as you may recall from my posting at #75. As you and I agree on, there is plenty of blame to go around. What you and I disagree on, however, the the amount of blame that should be apportioned to Fannie and Freddie vs. the greedy, eeee-vil bankers.

Look at it in these terms: Fannie and Freddie don’t water down their underwriting guidelines. What happens then? The answer: no shitty loans! Why not shitty loans? Becausethe gangster banksters have no where to unload the shit. If there isn’t the ability to unload the shit onto someone else’s balance sheet, there is no advantage is allowing the shit mortgage to be be originated in the first place. After all, who wants to keep the shit on their balance sheet?

And no, I don’t blame the Community Reinvestment Act – something that started out with good intentions. I portion a huge amount of the blame on Freddie and Fannie for taking something good and twisting it into a giant, fetid, smoldering dung heap, which in turn started a huge domino effect.

Chad N Freude - January 24, 2010 | 5:58 pm · Link

1. Bankers work hard. It’s laborers who don’t work hard, they just stand around on street corners all day.

2. I consider a community to comprise individuals with shared interests and aspirations, so yes, bankers and bags of dicks do make up a community.

3. @Church Lady: The bonuses certainly have a direct affect on those who support The Community, such as real estate agents in the Hamptons, sellers of Aston-Martins painted discreet, non-flamboyant colors, etc. But such people are not the only ones affected. You and I and other members of the non-plutocracy are being told in a tangible way that We are different from Them, much like the sans-culottes were different from the Facebook followers of Marie Antoinette. The bonuses are tangible evidence of a growing class division between the have-a-lots and the have-somes and a driving (symbolic) force for the Tea Partiers, which I worry may have a serious tangible effect on me.

Wile E. Quixote - January 24, 2010 | 6:10 pm · Link

@Church Lady

Oh, any by the way, lest you think I’m some sort bank apologist,

I don’t think you’re a bank apologist, I think you’re a pathetic little tool who feels a sick and disgusting need to apologize for the actions of those in power. You’re a slave and you love being a slave.

Chad N Freude - January 24, 2010 | 6:18 pm · Link

@Wile E. Quixote: Well, that’s one way to avoid substantive discussion.

kay - January 24, 2010 | 8:38 pm · Link

I think what’s happened is that people were told these huge financial entities were essential to “Main Street” survival, for years and years. We had this finance system, humming along, and sure they got paid a ton and sure they were really enamored of huge, ostentatious displays of wealth, but we needed them. For something.
But then they crashed their own sector, and were rescued, and became profitable again, and nothing improved for most people.
They’re back and there’s been little or no effect on anything in the ordinary economy.
You can’t help but think they aren’t really all that crucial, other than as a malevolent thing that might turn on you, but they aren’t of much practical utility. Not a net positive, to put it mildly.
So you wonder why you went to all that trouble to rescue them.

Church Lady - January 24, 2010 | 9:21 pm · Link

@darryl: Yes, teachers are not paid enough. It’s the biggest reason I discouraged my daughter from majoring in education. However, not all states pay as crappy as you insinuate your state/district does. My sister-in-law earns over 50K teaching AP World History in Texas. She has a Masters in Education and 8 years teaching experience. If you are at or above this experience level, have you considered relocating to another state?