Washington Post once again headlines the most important problems facing America today. I do not doubt that it hurts a parent to tell a little girl that she cannot have a designer cell phone like her friends at school. The problem is that highlighting these stories as preeminently important, which both WaPo and the Times do irritatingly often, facilitates the perspective that the people with ‘good enough’ insurance are fine and therefore America is fine. As much as my heart warmed when the article’s protagonist straightened her dark Armani suit and declared, “I can ride this out”, a lot of poor and uninsurable people are not riding this out. They are sick, young and broke, and the current crisis has put a lot more in that position than ever before. The state of America will be perceived as a crisis that we need to solve to the degree that major newspapers treat their plight as a bigger deal than Susie’s generic brand cell phone.
(*) Title credit to Atrios, who has been pointing out this irritating trend for a long time.
Lupin
Edith Piaf singing the song “Take the aristocrats to the lampposts and hang them” played in my mind while reading this.
Lupin
Piaf’s song on YouTube.
Those were the days.
linda
also note that the live-in nanny does not have dental or healthcare and treks to the nyu dental school for dental care.
and i loved the evidence of ‘economic distress’ — the fading highlights in her hair. but to the magpies, i’m sure that something like not coloring your hair to save money is a traumatic (and inconceivable) experience.
Leelee for Obama
Yeah, I’m losing so much sleep over this issue. How wondrous-grand that the two most read newspapers have decided to write about it. Whatever will we do if they stop having relevance?
low-tech cyclist
The article’s title in the print WaPo was “Squeaking By on $300,000,” which at least put the “Ignore This Crap” sign right up at the top.
Of course, it was one of the two top-of-A1 stories, so the WaPo editors clearly thought it was an important story to their readers.
Cat Lady
The part that brought me to tears in this story was that our struggling heroine only has an oil painting of her childhood Hamptons beach house to cling to in her despair.
/not
superluminar
Whatever will we do
if they stop having relevancenow?Fixed.
linda
oh yeah… and the kicker is that she’s a vp at mastercard.
Leelee for Obama
@superluminar: Copy editing is an undervalued career choice. Thanks!
JK
OT
More right wing trashing of Rick Pearlstein’s column http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/14/AR2009081401495_pf.html which was highlighted yesterday by Doug in his post “Out Of The Past https://balloon-juice.com/?p=25463
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/08/bainbridge-takes-down-perlstein.html – William Jacobson aka legal insurrection is a Dijon mustard fetishist
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/08/if-this-isnt-a-spoof-it-ought-to-be.html
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/08/15/how-the-left-views-dissent-today.php
cleek
who wants to read about poor people ? why should anyone trouble their beautiful minds with that?
“populist” is quite nearly a synonym for “demagogue”, these days.
calipygian
All that article made me do was want to punch that stupid woman in the face and then punch myself in the face for having read it.
El Cid
Of course, this could potentially teach some of these people that the upper income recipients who are, however, not fantastically rich, are better off under a more sane, better regulated, better run economy. But it won’t.
PeakVT
You really do have to wonder what the (il)logic is behind running these stories. Schadenfreude sells? The editors feel the need to be fair ‘n’ balanced between the sufferings of the rich and poor? Adjacent ad space fetches a higher price than stories about the poor? Is the story really just heavily disguised product placement? Are the editors just so far removed from reality they think these people reflect the middle class?
flounder
VP at Mastercard? This should have been a story about riding out the recession with your arms and legs bound in stocks and getting pelted with rotten tomatoes.
Notorious P.A.T.
“it hurts a parent to tell a little girl that she cannot have a designer cell phone like her friends at school”
I know just how she feels: if my car breaks down again, I will have to sell blood to repair it.
Notorious P.A.T.
“More right wing trashing of Rick Pearlstein’s column”
Who gives a rat’s ass?
stinkwrinkle
@cleek:
Well, looking at it statistically, the chances are overwhelmingly greater that you are either poor yourself, or personally know poor people, than that you are rich or know rich people. Stories about poor people you could probably write yourself, or ask your friends or family to tell you. The same is not likely to be true for the stories of rich people, simply due to their relative scarcity. Add in the schadenfreude factor, and the choice to run stories of the “hurting rich” becomes irresistible. Also.
Accidental Blogger
Can you imagine if we didn’t have a liberal media how bad this would be? Then all we’d read would be the perspective of people with six digit incomes who think Russ Douthat, David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer are today’s top intellectuals. Oh, wait.
JD Rhoades
Am I the only one who thinks the story is meant to be ironic?
WereBear
It hurts a parent to tell their little girl that the insurance company won’t pay for her operation.
Elizabelle
Can’t wait until David Brooks covers the Steins’ tragic situation.
Her plight will resonate with him.
The nanny without healthcare: clearly a character flaw.
Elizabelle
Cruise the slideshow accompanying.
Mrs. Steins II looks like Mrs. Steins the first’s younger sister. They are that similar in appearance.
different church-lady
I always get the feeling these kinds of articles are written as an implicit offer to sneer at these people.
But then the writers wimp out and play it straight, so we’re left with cogitative dissonance: “Am I supposed to feel sorry for these people? They’ re the protagonists — I’m not supposed to sneer at the protagonists, am I? But they’re absurd! *headdesk*”
Demo Woman
Has John, Lily and
Tunchgone Galt again?JK
@Notorious P.A.T.:
WTF is your problem?
It pays to know what your enemy is thinking so that you can more intelligently refute their fucking lies.
John Hamilton Farr
Haven’t visited Atrios in months. Is he actually writing longer posts than single sentences now? :-)
ominira
I look at the WaPo article and then read this: White House appears ready to drop the public option and my blood boils. I’ve already written my senators and congresswoman about keeping the public option, and Jane Harman supports it, but it looks like enough people need to do speak up so that Obama and the Dems know they’ll face a serious backlash from their core supporters in ’10 and ’12 if the health reform bill that’s passed is essentially a concession to the insurance industry. I canvassed and voted for several Dems last year but I wouldn’t do it again if that’s what ends up happening (it would demonstrate a disturbing lack of spine). It’s a shame the Greens don’t seem to try too hard to field good candidates for senate or congress.
ericblair
I always get the feeling these kinds of articles are written as an implicit offer to sneer at these people.
I’m pretty sure that’s right: it’s the dead tree equivalent of The Real Housewives of X. Everybody reads this thing, sneers at the idiotic rich whiner who just can’t figure out how to make ends meet on six times the average family wage, and writes all sorts of amusing outraged snark in their letters to the editor.
Just like cable channel decay, where stations called The Learning Channel and Discovery degrade from educational documentaries to trash reality TV shows about bitchy rich women and big sweaty guys operating heavy machinery, we’re getting newspaper decay. Soon the Style section will be redundant, as the non-Style news will be a quarter of page C18. It the end of civilization, I tell ya.
Warren Terra
To be fair to the writer, while it’s an abomination that this story ever got commissioned, let alone given such prominent billing, the story is written so as to make absolutely sure that the still-considerable opulence of the Steins cannot escape the reader, and nor can her sense of entitlement.
In fact, while I’m not going to dig up any links, I think this story may be a significant improvement on the last time the Times did the same story; I can at least imagine that in today’s WaPo piece the writer’s contempt for their subject’s absurd self-pity is bleeding through, and the reader is being encouraged to feel similarly, while the Times piece was written in a manner that iirc treated the soiiled rich people’s travails as being much more plausible and deserving of sympathy.
Tokyokie
This sort of reminds me of the first Fun With Dick and Jane movie: The Jane Fonda character’s suggestion on how to deal with husband George Segal’s layoff is to suspend one child’s skiing lessons and start having domestic wines with dinner.
Martin
Once again, the existential question of the next generation is ‘pony or no pony?’
Joshua Norton
who wants to read about poor people ?
The SF Chronicle makes attempts at being topical about shit like that, but usually fails miserably.
If there’s a a media buzz about high gas prices or soaring utilities or food costs or insurance they’ll go out and interview people about how it’s impacting their life. People will chatter away about how gas jumping 2.00 a gallon is an outrage and they can’t buy grannies medication and what-not. Then the story will always end with some dipshit shrugging and saying bravely “oh well, what can you do”?
So the message being sent to corporate price gougers is not one of how they’re hurting people, but one that tells them these stoic little door-mats will take anything that’s dumped on them. And they won’t lift a finger to object or to help themselves.
Blah!
angulimala
@Demo
I thought Tunk was born Galt.
Notorious P.A.T.
“nor can her sense of entitlement”
No no no no no! Only poor people have a sense of entitlement! ! ! ! ! !
“It pays to know what your enemy is thinking so that you can more intelligently refute their fucking lies.”
If that’s the spirit in which you post those links, then I apologize.
John Hamilton Farr
Okay, I have to open my big mouth here:
@JK:
Well, we don’t all have to “intelligently refute their fucking lies.” That’s the amazing thing. We just don’t. :-) (Most blogospheric activity is, well, unnecessary…) When this sinks in with full impact, it’s like tossing sandbags out of your balloon gondola. This is all about growing new neural pathways, so to speak. When people can go all Buddhist commando on your ass and you’re still smiling, you’ve escaped the box!
It’s taken me six decades to reach this point. Almost no one seems to understand and accuses me of all kinds of stupid shit, but I don’t seem to care.
(Nothing *wrong* with intelligent refutation, of course, so have at it, and give ’em hell!)
Notorious P.A.T.
“who wants to read about poor people ?”
not me! ;)
ABC had a story about Remote Area Medical last night. Word is getting around.
Corner Stone
@John Hamilton Farr: I don’t understand your stated approach and believe you’re up to some really stupid shit with this mindset.
Corner Stone
@Martin: Hmmm…no pony?
gbear
OT. Steve Bennen/Bruce Bartlett part two.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_08/019508.php
(DougJ highlighted part one yesterday in a post called “Bartlett’s Quotation”.)
Dr. I. F. Stone
That’s a real heartbreaker of a story. Cry me some river and feed me some cake.
Steeplejack
@calipygian:
“Punching in the neck” is the preferred Balloon Juice protocol.
Steeplejack
@Notorious P.A.T.:
I’m calling hoekstroika! Ur, reverse hoekstroika, I guess.
Cat Lady
@Warren Terra:
[the writer’s contempt for their subject’s absurd self-pity is bleeding through]
Maybe. Looking through the slideshow does give a sense that there’s a particular viewpoint of the writer that she’s subtly expressing – the kids are shown in full brat mode; the careful choosing of the color chip for the hallway in spite of the subject’s “angst”; the living room scene, etc. belies sympathy for her subject. Your irony meter has to be fairly fine tuned to pick up on the subtlety though. And how did this particular woman get chosen for this story? It must be an acquaintance of the writer or an editor or someone who an insider at the WaPo cares about, otherwise, why her? MasterCard VP? Really, we should fucking care about a MasterCard VP?
AhabTRuler
I regret nothing!
Martin
Are we all not aware that half of all conservatives think that Colbert actually is a right-wing pundit? Sneering is why the south thinks the Times and Post are elitist rags – it’s the “Here are some people who think they are mainstream, go laugh at them.” In this case they’re rich, but just as likely they’re teabaggers, etc.
How about we just have a straight up article that points out that the ‘mainstream’ challenges that many Americans are complaining about are challenges that most Americans would be desperately happy to have? Why the need to sneer? Because the Times is too big a pussy to actually lay it out that cleanly?
AhabTRuler
Oh, and erm, I should add:
[/sotto voce]
gopher2b
I would have divorced the &^$# too.
Punchy
I hope Markos triples his servers’ power before Obama officially drops the gov’t option in his reform bill, cuz otherwise I’m certain his site will simply esspload.
Just O’s hints today has caused collective apoplexy not seen in this universe since….well….Mike Jackson kicked.
aimai
OK, I’m odd woman out. I have a sneaking feeling of sympathy for this woman because part of her “problem” is that she is trapped in the lifestyle of two wealthy people and she can’t maintain it securely on her income, or move out of it (as she sees it) without losing her minimal social support network–her church, her friends, the kids school. The smart thing to do would have been to have forced the husband to buy the house, or for both of them to accept a massive loss on the house just to get out from under it. But its very hard for people going through a divorce to be so ruthlessly practical. As for the nanny thing I think its shocking how little she pays that woman and its very clear from the juxtaposition of the text that her purchase of a 30 dollar bracelet for a friend is seen as the cause of her underpayment of the nanny’s dental care.
This woman is no different from the rest of the country. She is a corporate drone, a cog in a machine that if it spits her out will leave her with nothing. She is living on credit and feeling deprived because she’s not willing to accept a life of mere security in a little house with no pool, in a middle class suburb. And now she’s trapped by the crashed market and her inability to trade down to make herself feel more secure.
The nanny isn’t optional–with three children the cost of daycare of afterschool care more than comes to the cost of a dedicated baby sitter. She either needs a nanny or she needs a wife.
aimai
kommrade reproductive vigor
@low-tech cyclist: Yeah, I saw that this morning and decided the powers that be at the Post obviously didn’t want me to buy the damn paper. Some things man was not meant to cope with before coffee.
If they’d stuck it in the Style section (where it belongs, if one must give column inches to pity the poor rich stories) I would have been suitably fortified by the time I got there.
Notorious P.A.T.
“hoekstroika” haha I had forgotten about that )
jeffreyw
Kinda OT, but this is news you can use.
I’m afraid that BJ’s Google rating is gonna take a hit.
Chuck
The lady featured in the article has done nothing wrong. Least not as far as I can tell. She has her own problems, they are petty compared to “real” problems, but she’s a human being human. My scorn and disdain is reserved solely for the paper that ran this story with the sole intent of stoking class-based resentment and hostility.
It’s almost like they’d rather have us fighting each other in a class war rather than run anything, yunno, “controversial” like pointing out real problems.
Notorious P.A.T.
@aimai:
I see what you mean. But is where she lives now the only place she has a support network? I know a guy who, when he was a little kid, his mom couldn’t afford to live where they lived so she moved to smaller house down the street from her parents. That worked out alright.
And it’s hard to be practical during a divorce, but on the other hand a divorce is also a pretty good time to make a change like moving to a smaller home.
Surabaya Stew
While my personal knowledge of the Westchester upper class is limited, my 4.5 years of working in high-end residential architecture in New Jersey and family horrors living in Long Island has provided me with enough information to state that the story rings true on a number of different levels.
In fact, the “heroine” of the WaPo article is even more adept and likable than the spoiled ladies of Short Hills (NJ) and Melville (LI) due to the fact that she actually holds a job! (I would estimate that up to 90% of women in her town don’t work, and these are all women who went to college and usually grad school. When they marry other rich people, they become overqualified housewives.)
Unusually, she is divorced and has no family living nearby. Under those circumstances, hiring a nanny actually makes sense.
(Speaking of the Nanny, she is also unusual in hiring an American citizen for the job. She could easily get somebody undocumented for the position who would work for less and work harder, yet she chooses otherwise.)
Frankly, there are many people in her town (and in Short Hills and Melville) worthy of scorn; my feeling is that she is not one of them!
Chris Johnson
I want to smack these people who go out and COSPLAY as ME at parties.
There is definitely an element of ‘how DARE they’ in there somewhere.
arguingwithsignposts
That’s about $25,000 more than the U.S. median income.
I appreciate the difficulty, but really.
Mike D.
People with very little to lose will hoard it like misers and protect it like a momma bear protects her young. That’s where we are in Summer 2009 in the USA. The Haves are short-sighted but secure, the delusionals are volatile but tactically irrelevant, and the Have-Nots are hunkering down and buying small arms, thoughtfully doing a bit of research, and/or trying to fill sandbags with a teaspoon as water swirls around their ankles.
People with NOTHING to lose are impossible to control and, while poorly organized, by definition tend to overwhelm the Haves and their running dogs by pure numbers. And thanks to Gitmo and 70 years of Holocaust propaganda, entirely the wrong demographic has come to the realization that if They are going to do the very worst They can do, no matter how or when They snatch you off the streets, it’s not only emotionally satisfying but entirely rational to hit first and hit hard.
About the only things holding the boat together here in August ’09 are a) the contrived division between latte-sipping Have-Nots and beer-and-taters Have-Nots, and b) the failure to bring home hundreds of thousands of Have-Nots with deep grudges, intimate familiarity with urban warfare and irreparable, reality-based “mental divergences.” (Obama CAN’T bring the troops home; he’d go down in history as gOrbamachev.)
So, speaking of sparkling objects — this discredited rag of a party organ, it had an article about kids with cell phones? Do tell! That really grinds my gears! Have you heard about the gay Sims? The country’s goin’ to Hell, I tell ya!
different church-lady
@John Hamilton Farr:
Well, when you get right down to it, almost all human activity in the USA is, strictly speaking, also unnecessary…
Warren Terra
@ Aimai, #49
Much as I despise the entitled wealthy, I have no criticism at all for her employing the nanny – she’s responsible for two kids as a single mother with a career, and it’s clear from the start of the article where Mom gets to come down and find breakfast on the table that she gets a lot of value from employing the nanny. And $40k may well be a fair wage – it’s over the national median, although maybe not as competitive locally, and I would be profoundly surprised if the nanny’s workload was even close to fitting within the forty hour week workers supposedly won about a century ago. The nanny’s lack of benefits is an issue, but in an ideal world that would be solved at a federal level.
But $500 a month for a gardener? How much can even a dozen hours of mowing and raking and maybe using a hose every week cost? And a twelve-year old can probably water plants and maybe rake leaves, even if you decide they’re too young to mow.
This woman makes $300 k a year. After taxes and the nanny she’s got maybe $150k to house, feed, clothe, and school herself and her kids. Sounds doable, without the whining.
vacuumslayer
I think everyone in this thread is a heartless bastard. She’s going without highlights, people! Jesus! Have some fucking compassion.
Radon Chong
@aimai: Whatever sympathy you may feel for this Steins woman, and your points are well taken, can we agree at least that Anne Hull, the writer of the piece, and, of course, the Washington Post deserve our unending scorn? I mean, for fuck’s sake, this:
WTF? The underclass? And the entire article is a paen to the trappings of the upperclass. It’s disgusting.
malta
I really dislike articles that I have to click through 5 pages to read. I doubly dislike reading about people who live on incomes larger than mine by a factor of a bazillion whining about what they have to do without. I’m playin’ the world’s tiniest violin here…..
Notorious P.A.T.
“Whatever fantasies the underclass may have of the good life—of small dogs in purses and Dolce and Gabbana—are not on display here. The rugs are worn. Milk is spilled.”
What’s a Gabbana?
Elizabelle
Anne Hull was the co-author with Dana Priest on the WaPost’s exceptional Walter Reed series.
arguingwithsignposts
@Elizabelle:
I wonder who she pissed off to get this particular assignment?
seriously, from the WR series to this is a long fall.
Radon Chong
@Elizabelle: Stopped clocks and all that? Or maybe I’m wrong about them. Maybe they called me underclass to make me mad at the overclass, so this revolution could get started already, I don’t know.
aschup
I was ready to be unsympathetic but neutral about the plight of Steins and those of her ilk, and then I read page 4 of this story:
The Steeds are big community volunteers. They’re also known for their zany parties. They come up with an idea to get people talking, and soon the invitations are in the mail:
You are invited to a recession party.
Serving: Cheap Wine and Beer with Simple Fare (Costco Deluxe)
Wear: Old Clothes (hand-me down particularly welcome)
These ghouls had a poor-people costume party. Fuck them sideways.
Chris Johnson
Exactly. They COSPLAY as poor people to cheer themselves up. That’s pretty hard to stomach.
malta
@Notorious P.A.T.: A Gabbana’s whatcha got when life is Dolce. or something.
YellowJournalism
I think the entire article is one big sarcasm fest, down to the underclass comment, but for most people, it will ring as truly sympathetic and an example of how the “have-nots” should just shut up about their piddly little problems like affording eye and dental care for their children.
arguingwithsignposts
@aschup:
See, I didn’t even get past page 2 before I quit reading, so I missed that little bit of “f**k you, I’ve got mine” wackiness.
ominira
@aimai:
Don’t we all need a wife? She can have both. I admit I would be a lot more sympathetic to her if she drove the short distance from Westchester to Connecticut, married her nanny, and put said nanny on her health insurance plan.
Kilkee
@Elizabelle: Re: the nearly identical sequential Mrs. Steins….Wasn’t THAT a shock! really, does Mr. Steins not hear everyone laughing behind his back? “Oh my God, she looks exactly like her!”
ominira
OT. This story about a 104 year old woman who took care of her younger sister with Alzheimer’s for 20 years after both were widowed moved me.
Leelee for Obama
@vacuumslayer: If this sort of snark continues (please), I’m gonna have the cleanest monitor on the Space Coast of Florida.
TEL
Anyone else notice that the main reason for her situation was divorce, and not the lousy economy (though her bonus was a bit smaller)? The friggin’ story wasn’t even relevant to what it claimed to be about.
JWW
Tim,
You are right about the article. But what does it take to make it into the printed or veiwed media and then more importantly what keeps real news out. There is a simple formula:
In: If you have money, your in. Out: If you have no money, so to speak.
In: If you are well known, i.e. (an actor/actress, millionaire/billionaire, major sports figure, political figure) you are in. Out: If you have been just the average wage earner raising a family.
In: Any politician with a family problem, legal problem or a mouth full of lies.
In: Any person who wants to say they were disciminated against. Out: The person or persons being accused of discrimination.
In: Any young blonde 36-26-36. Out: Anyone overweight and ugly.
In: President Obama no matter what he has to say. Out: Anyone who doesn’t like what President Obama has to say.
Your only a story if, you already are a story.
Cliff
But she’s months overdue for a visit to her colorist, a telltale sign of economic distress for a woman such as Steins.
what the fuck is this shit
Xenos
TEL – this i not unusual. In nearly every divorce I have been involved in the wife has made keeping the house the primary strategic goal. Since this is usually not affordable, the divorces get nasty as both sides struggle for an outsized portion of the marital estate.
She would have been far, far better off to have sold the house in 2006 and taken the cash and her family to a town they could afford. It almost always happens eventually, but that is just not what people can accept.
Xenos
I am trying to think of historical antecedents for this sort of writing. All I can think of are the sad stories of exiled white Russian aristocrats getting free meals in certain status conscious but cheap restaurants in Paris in the 1920s… was that Nabakov? Maybe I just need to check some 1934 issues of The New Yorker. Regular journalists at that time did not have such posh connections.
Luddite
“I think everyone in this thread is a heartless bastard. She’s going without highlights, people! Jesus! Have some fucking compassion”.
Win! Thank God you posted this! I know I was not the only BJ regular who read this line and quietly started weeping. I had to put my cup of coffee down as my tears were getting mixed into my morning cup of Joe. It just SO sad!
vacuumslayer
@Leelee for Obama: Ah! This microphone is on. Thank you, madam!
vacuumslayer
@Luddite: Well, you know…attention must be paid. Upper upper middle class women walking about with stripey hair…that’s just not right.
Mark
Needed context: This story is only one of a week’s worth of Post stories about people across the country affected by the recession. They’ve all run on the front page, and this is the first one that wasn’t about a poor person.
In my opinion all of the stories have been excellent, including this one. I also recommend the one about the woman who moves to North Dakota for a job and the one about the family forced to move in with the father’s mother.
mai naem
I am surprised that nobody has mentioned this yet on the thread – I am willing to bet that Miz Steins doesn’t pay social security taxes for the nanny and in fact probably gets away with saying she’s an independent contractor. But really she’s not an indy contractor because she’s living with them and using their products to do her job and its not a high paying job. This ofcourse screws the rest of us who get to pay for the nannies medicare and minimal ss when she gets to the age because the nanny won’t have contributed enough to pay for it and of course we don’t get anything out of her labor and only Miz Steins does but she probably isn’t paying her portion of the nanny’s ss. Ofcourse if you did report her she would just cut the nannie’s pay to pay for the ss. Ultimate irony picture – nanny goes to low cost dental clinic while they show her waiting for richkid at the kind of orthodont’s office where they have those self playing grand pianos and huge wall sized lat fish aquariums.
Surabaya Stew
While 95% of people like Ms. Steins do “neglect” to pay SSI for their nanny, I’ll bet she actually does pay it. The WaPo may be slipping in the editorial department, but I’m reasonably sure they picked a subject for this (long and planned well in advance) article that played by the rules. Also, Ms. Steins knows a thing or 2 about PR (having scored a major article on her person), and it would be extremely short-sighted to have that publicity turn to crap if in fact she didn’t pay the tax.
I’m not at all fond of people of her ilk, but she certainly comes across as a sympathetic character, highlights be damned!