Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

This fight is for everything.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The problem people have with Biden’s age is the color of the VPs skin.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: The Sorrows of the Everyday Millionaire

Open Thread: The Sorrows of the Everyday Millionaire

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My Cynical read on the subtext to this Bloomberg article: Cut the crap, Repubs — no matter what your half-dozen addled superdonors and their hordes of think-tank minions believe, you fvck with the New York financial sector, and the *best* outcome is a batch of aggravated aggressive new political funders in swing-state Florida.

Because the people who make a lot of money by living in Manhattan? They do NOT want to live in Miami, whatever the delights of that city. Theoretically you could force them to leave the Big Apple, but all that would accomplish is making enemies of highly motivated individuals who really know how to hold grudges…

… The problem for the Connecticut hedge-fund set — and, more broadly, for a lot of the Wall Street crowd — is that Republican proposals in both the House and Senate would drive up taxes for many high-earners in the New York City area. By eliminating the deduction for most state and local taxes, an individual making a yearly salary of $1,000,000 — a figure not uncommon in the financial industry — would owe the Internal Revenue Service an additional $21,000, according to a preliminary analysis by accounting firm Marcum LLP…

A final bill could still do away with the hike, but so far there are no signs coming out of Washington that will happen. Financially struggling New Jersey had the sixth-highest individual income rate this year, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators. New York ranked eighth and cash-strapped Connecticut 12th. Nine of the 10 states with the highest individual taxes, including Washington, D.C., voted Democratic in the 2016 presidential election.

No one interviewed for this story would talk openly about making plans to move, but Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is estimating that New York City alone could lose as much as 4 percent of its top earners if the bill becomes law. In Florida, where there’s no state income tax, there’s the sense that this is a great opportunity to lure disgruntled tax refugees….

Frustration was high among commuters in the northern New Jersey suburb of Summit early one recent morning. They know there’ll be little sympathy for them across the country and they aren’t necessarily ready to pack up and move, but they’re ticked off.

“Most people in this community don’t need a decrease, but I don’t think it’s right to have more taxes taken out and be told it’s a tax cut,” said Gary Bakalar, head of client relationships at insurer XL Catlin in New York. “I’m a lifelong Republican and this is starting to make me question the wisdom of that.”

I say this as someone who was born in Manhattan, and who got the hell out as soon as was legally possible: Living with NYCers is like living with a mixed pack of pit bulls, border collies, and Jack Russell terriers. Even if you love the individual components, it’s an ongoing, non-stop challenge. Living with a bunch of rich, successful NYCers who don’t want to be living with you is… well, doesn’t the current involuntary migration of pissed-off, desperate Puerto Ricans seem like enough punishment, even for Rick “Lizard Person” Scott?

Reader Interactions

152Comments

  6. 6.

    some guy

    “I’m a lifelong Republican and this is starting to make me question the wisdom of that.”

    of course they voted for the racist, misogynist, short-fingered Vulgarian. He promised to cut their taxes.

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    Hyperbole aside, it’s very true that the wealthy have few places to go

    Gee, Mags, maybe they should have thought of that before they decided to shit where they eat and then wondered why they’re getting mouthfuls of shit.

  10. 10.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    On the few random occasion when I watch Morning Blow, no matter who’s the guess, no matter what’is consuming the news cycle, he invariably brings up his personal tax bracket as a rich Connecticut resident.

    What a hoot that whatever marginal tax cut he receives it will be swamped by the loss of his ability to write off state, local and property taxes – courtesy of the president he worked tirelessly to elect.

  11. 11.

    clay

    Hyperbole aside, it’s very true that the wealthy have few places to go

    Only anywhere they fucking want. That’s what makes them wealthy, Maggie.

  12. 12.

    efgoldman

    These are supposedly smart business people, many with very expensive educations and multiple degrees. Yet they don’t have the common sense that FSM gave a ringworm. They are coming finally to recognize the prion disease.

    Fuckem

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    James D. Schultz, a senior associate White House counsel for President Trump until last week, has returned to the Philadelphia-based law firm Cozen O’Connor as chairman of its government and regulatory practice.

    Schultz, 45, a former general counsel of the commonwealth, was appointed a special assistant to Trump shortly after the inauguration in January. His portfolio in the counsel’s office included compliance with ethics regulations — making sure presidential appointees across the government reported their financial holdings, divested themselves when required, and avoided conflicts of interest. a href=”http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/james-schultz-trump-counsel-pa-cozen-oconnor-20171127.html”>Source

    “I see nothing!“

  19. 19.

    clay

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    What a hoot that whatever marginal tax cut he receives it will be swamped by the loss of his ability to write off state, local and property taxes – courtesy of the president he worked tirelessly to elect.

    Oh come now. He’s not Sean Hannity. He and his cadre were plenty critical of Trump during the election, often in very harsh terms.

    MJ’s main sin was both-sider-ism, but they weren’t any guiltier of that than anyone else on cable news. I mean, Chuck Todd is way worse.

  20. 20.

    randy khan

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    No, Morning Joe actually can take advantage of the pass-through provision to lower his taxes – he creates “Joe Scar, LLC” and has MSNBC sign a contract with that company, so the money goes through the company and qualifies for the pass-through rate. That more than compensates for the state and local tax hit.

  21. 21.

    Chet Murthy

    @clay: MJ went back-and-forth. There was a nontrivial period when Scar was Littledick’s biggest fan on TV. And then, yeah, Scar got scared at what he’d wrought. But I don’t watch him enough to remember if that stuck. Not that it matters: There was only one morally upright position: “get thee behind me, Trump”. And Scar & Co couldn’t manage that one. So no, they can go get fucked.

  22. 22.

    Steeplejack

    By eliminating the deduction for most state and local taxes, an individual making a yearly salary of $1,000,000—a figure not uncommon in the financial industry—would owe the Internal Revenue Service an additional $21,000, according to a preliminary analysis by accounting firm Marcum LLP.

    Puh-leeze. To put it in perspective, that $21,000 is the equivalent of $1,050 for someone whose salary is $50,000, or $87.50 a month. Yeah, nobody likes paying more, and it’s not a drop in the bucket. But it’s not “Honey, pack your bags—we’re moving to Smallville!” territory. Tell the trophy wife to dial it back a skosh at Hermès.

    Maybe a few of the hedge-fund guys making $1 billion a year would think about relocating, but the $1 million “little people” aren’t going anywhere. But it’s good that the New York Times is looking out for us little people.

  25. 25.

    Yutsano

    @Mike J: But I like my sanitary phone!

    Besides, they all bought their way on the A Ark. Then again they actually got eaten by the goat so…

  26. 26.

    Doug G

    Haberman hasn’t heard of my new shuttle service, now providing one-way express delivery to the sun. (We go at night to avoid the heat.)

    God, she is so comically unable to tweet that there should be a telethon.

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Exactly. These folks won’t go to flyover country. And if they do it will be to the large urban areas within it that are most like New York and Boston and Northern Virginia and the DC suburbs of Maryland and Philadelphia, etc. So basically Denver and Chicago. And Chicago will win out because it has good rapid transit. They’re not going to places that offer no services. Or where they can’t easily get the comforts they like. More likely they’d try to maintain their American citizenship while fleeing abroad and try to work out a way to negate their taxes both in the US and where they’d move to like London or Dublin or Sydney or Wellington (so they don’t have to learn/speak something other than English).

  28. 28.

    jl

    Handy comparison of House and Senate tax scams, might come in useful for people contacting Congress, to needle them on where the sore points and conflicts are most acute.
    I heard a news report that reconciling these to policy garbage bags will be difficult, and might draw things out longer than expected. I don’t know how true that is. I hope it’s true.

    How the House and Senate Tax Bills Stack Up
    https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-senate-vs-house-tax-bills/

    Edit: that might be in AL’s link, but I forget whether I clicked thru to another story before I saw it.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: My parents moved from that part of CT to central WI, but it was for a rare combination of dad’s expertise, the location, and timing. IOW, stuff that happened in 1978 is unlikely to happen now.

  31. 31.

    Steeplejack

    Also, those Wall Street jobs are called “Wall Street jobs” because they’re specific to Wall Street. It’s not like Smallville—or even Miami, probably—has a bunch of slots open for $1M-a-year bond traders.

  32. 32.

    Eric U.

    People who make $1million in the finance industry are still working for the man. They will live where their jobs are.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Tracking. I know people from New York that were offered lucrative positions in similar locales, where the matching/slightly better offer would go much farther than in the five boroughs or Long Island. And in almost every case they refused to go. Some because they didn’t want to give up the multiculturalism and arts and everything they love about New York. In other because they didn’t want to give up the creature comforts they felt they wouldn’t be able to get and they also didn’t want to live among a bunch of white people they considered to be bumpkins. The former were the liberals. The latter were the conservatives.

  36. 36.

    clay

    @Duane: It’s worthwhile to view the comments on her tweet. They are as brutal as one would expect. (One called her the Cillizza of the NYT.)

    And she attempted a follow-up that (of course) immediately made it worse for herself.

  37. 37.

    Steve in the ATL

    Minneapolis juicers: meet up at the Marquette Hotel is about to end. I have an arbitration in the morning.

  38. 38.

    Adam L Silverman

  39. 39.

    Amir Khalid

    The rich have more places to go than the rest of us. There are even places that will welcome their money with open arms no matter how obnoxious they themselves are. That’s one benefit of being rich. If a place is not to their liking they can afford to remake it however they want. That’s another benefit of being rich. Maggie Haberman sees plenty of rich people. How can she not know this?

    Oh, and US$21k is not even pocket change to the really rich people who reside in Manhattan. It’s more or less what they spend to have the limo parked somewhere convenient.

  41. 41.

    James E. Powell

    Apparently Haberman believes her job is to troll the people who voted for Hillary. I’m for ignoring her.

  42. 42.

    B.B.A.

    Speaking as someone rich enough to benefit from a typical “tax cut for the rich”, but who’d rather pay his fair share of taxes to support our common good, being asked to pay higher taxes in order to cut the taxes of people even richer than me earns a colossal FUCK YOU.

  46. 46.

    some guy

    @Mike J: @Amir Khalid:

    when I was an undergrad at NYU one of my friends and dormies had her Dad pay for a parking spot for her beloved Beetle.the parking space cost more per year than I was paying for my room at the grand and glorious Weinstein Hall, but getting to ride in a 1978 Super Beetle cabrio was worth it. to her dad. I guess.

  49. 49.

    romeo24

    @Adam L Silverman: Not sure how they’d like Wellington. We have 15% GST (goods & services tax) levied on basically everything, and a top income tax rate of 33% for those earning over $NZ70,000 per annum. On the other hand, public hospitals are free (but the rich people would have private health insurance and go to swish private hospitals, so that’s probably not a particular attraction). The other issue with Wellington is of course the weather. City motto: “It’s great, on a good day.”

  51. 51.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Clyde Haberman‏ @ClydeHaberman

    Am dismayed by the misguided venom from people attacking @nytimes for supposedly “normalizing” a Nazi-embracing Ohio man in a profile on him this weekend. It does no such thing…. /2

    1:32 PM – 26 Nov 2017

    Trump spokesperson Maggie Haberman’s dad has a sad.

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: No one actually knows. The bill was written in secret. It hasn’t even really been debated in the committee because Hatch has been operating under the same playbook they used for ACA repeal. Apparently a number of GOP senators want different things fixed. Senator Collins doesn’t want ACA mandate repeal. Others, like Johnson, want something changed because of the deficit (I think). Regardless, Hatch has now claimed he’ll be rolling out the fixes on the Senate floor the day after this thing gets out of committee. If it gets out of committee. Of course there won’t be any actual debate on the Senate floor either as McConnell is going to run this the same way he ran ACA repeal. But if Johnson votes no tomorrow, this thing is dead in committee.

  53. 53.

    SFAW

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’ll believe Johnson votes No when I read about it in the WaPo ex post facto. Didn’t he make similar noises during the O-care attempted repeal? He’s no different than the rest of them: all talk, no action.

    Fuckem.

  54. 54.

    Adam L Silverman

    Who did NAZI this coming?

    Yet Fausset spent so much time staring at Hovater eating a turkey sandwich, he didn’t get around to shining much light on the particular corner his subject occupies. The Times managed to miss or gloss over a whole batch of facts and questions that might have lent both context and color to what purported to be a definitive profile of a white nationalist “foot soldier.” Here are a few of them:

    He’s not really named “Tony Hovater.”

    Like many neo-Nazis and white supremacists, Hovater uses a modified version of his legal name in his racist activities. His real name is William Anthony Hovater, which is the name he’s registered to vote under and which appears on other public records associated with him.

    It’s unusual for any newspaper, let alone the Times, not to say when their subject isn’t using their real name. A paper that insists on noting Snoop Dogg’s legal name can probably do the same for a Nazi, no?

    His wife is not really named “Maria Hovater.”

    Maria Harrison, Hovater’s wife, hasn’t changed her last name. Again, it’s odd for the Times to refer to a person by anything other than their actual, legal name.

    Maria Harrison holds extremist views of her own

    In the two brief paragraphs the story devoted to Harrison’s own outlook, she told Fausset she and her husband are “pretty lined up” politically. Though Fausset spent very little time on what Hovater’s young wife believes, she clearly has more to say.

    More at the link.

  55. 55.

    Peale

    @Major Major Major Major: it’s like they’re coal miners in West Virginia who’d leave, but someone needs to take care of mamma. someone sober needs to make sure she takes her heart medication and no one else in the family isn’t strung out on painkillers, so you’re stuck working at the Home Depot even though you went to community college and hoped to move away. Maybe someday. Something like that, only with a house on Martha’s Vineyard and a six car garage.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: Here’s some more

  62. 62.

    Adam L Silverman

    @romeo24: I’m aware. I was privileged to have two Kiwi officers as students in my seminar at USAWC. One of whom is one of your newer brigadiers. Both really great people. And a third and his wife signed up for my aikido class just before my assignment at USAWC ended, so I had them in class three times.

    I basically put it in to be inclusive of nice, English speaking places one could relocate to. If you all need a national security strategist, I would happily relocate.

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @some guy: You have never understood anyone outside of your purity circle. Liberal internationalism is valid. Do you really still think that doing nothing in in Bosnia and Rwanda was cool?

  66. 66.

    danielx

    Hyperbole aside, it’s very true that the wealthy have few places to go

    Upon what planet does Haberman live? It’s not the planet I live on, upon which the wealthy can go anyplace they want. Not that every place can meet their needs, but I hear Dubai is always nice. Don’t let the door of the Learjet close on your ass on the way out….

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    @some guy: I know the polling in AZ is not good on this either. This may pass, I’d put nothing past the GOP majority caucus in the Senate to do something this politically stupid and policy bad, but at the same time these guys are really, really bad at actually governing. So…

  70. 70.

    Amir Khalid

    @Adam L Silverman:

    They’re not waiting for an official, nonpartisan score. Now they’re keeping big changes secret until just hours before a vote.

    I remember how well this strategy worked with the Obamacare repeal.

  71. 71.

    No Drought No More

    “If I can’t make it
    there
    I can’t make it
    anywhere
    It’s up to you
    New York, New York..”.

    Bizzaro World Frank Sinatra

  76. 76.

    Adam L Silverman

    @some guy: You want to dial this back a wee bit? I deployed as the cultural advisor to a tanker brigade and even I’m offended by some of this.

    If that reference doesn’t make sense, just imagine every other word used by everybody was fuck.

  77. 77.

    some guy

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Flake seems to have staked out his spot, and Johnson is trying his “I’m with Jeff” schtick. the rats are fleeing, but until the WHAT ABOUT THE DEFICIT???? GOP weighs in this is still kauki, easily walked back for that Daily Caller profile

  78. 78.

    Xenos

    @danielx: a person who had made their fortune can live anywhere. People, even the already wealthy, who want to make more, and who want their kids to be sharp, too, are not about to move to the wilderness to save 2% of their gross in taxes.

  79. 79.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @some guy:

    Bosnia? your pal Mladic? he just won the Lottery . suck off another dog, collaborationist.

    Fuck you. Pony up and find anything I ever said in favor of him. I offered to rescind my resignation as an army officer if I could go to Bosnia. You did what?

  80. 80.

    romeo24

    @Adam L Silverman: It IS nice. I’ve just returned after 20+ years in Japan, and I’m pleasantly surprised how nice it is (compared to my childhood/young adult memories). Just bloody expensive to live…

  81. 81.

    some guy

    Rich white liberal lawyer OO
    don’t give 2 fucks about.

    offended by my potty mouth? who fucking cares.

  82. 82.

    danielx

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’ve been pulling for that tax provision allowing the writeoff of expenses related to the ownership of the following auto manufacturers’ vehicles: Bentley, Aston Martin, Mclaren, Ferrari, Rolls, Lamborghini,and a few others I can’t recall. Hope they’ve got that in there somewhere.

    Oh wait, they already have that covered….

  84. 84.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @some guy: I am not offended by your potty mouth. I just think that that you know fuck all about what other people have done or what they think. Kiss my ass.

  85. 85.

    Peale

    @danielx: well, they can’t go everywhere all that easily sometimes. For example, they rarely go to jail. It’s actually difficult for them to get in. Much easier for the poor.

  94. 94.

    Steve in the ATL

    @B.B.A.:

    Speaking as someone rich enough to benefit from a typical “tax cut for the rich”, but who’d rather pay his fair share of taxes to support our common good, being asked to pay higher taxes in order to cut the taxes of people even richer than me earns a colossal FUCK YOU.

    What he said.

    @danielx:

    I’ve been pulling for that tax provision allowing the writeoff of expenses related to the ownership of the following auto manufacturers’ vehicles: Bentley, Aston Martin, Mclaren, Ferrari, Rolls, Lamborghini,and a few others I can’t recall. Hope they’ve got that in there somewhere.

    So…If i, hypothetically, own one of the cars listed here, I should not admit it, right?

    @danielx:

    Upon what planet does Haberman live? It’s not the planet I live on, upon which the wealthy can go anyplace they want. Not that every place can meet their needs, but I hear Dubai is always nice.

    Dubai sucks, unless you love heat and oppressing women. And the wealthy can go pretty much anywhere they want; problem is they don’t want to move, they want their current location to adapt to their desires.

  98. 98.

    Chet Murthy

    @Steve in the ATL:

    And the wealthy can go pretty much anywhere they want; problem is they don’t want to move

    A-yup A-yup. A Trumpist former friend grew up in CA, then got rich, but hey, high taxes. So he went expat, and when he came back, bought a house in … *Texas*. Complained to me how boooooorrrrring it was. (CA? “No way! Jerry Brown’s killing the place! And the taxes!!”)

  99. 99.

    SFAW

    @Steve in the ATL:

    So…If i, hypothetically, own one of the cars listed here, I should not admit it, right?

    Probably not. But can I (hypothetically) borrow whatever it is you (hypothetically) have (or don’t have)? I haven’t driven a (hypothetical) performance vehicle since mine got stolen, lo these many years ago.

    Asking for a friend.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @romeo24: At times. I was getting fighty with assholes. It may have spilled over to you. Sorry. I do think you would like the Dells though.

  111. 111.

    NotMax

    Just finished watching Obit, a documentary film focusing on the NYT obituary department. It could have benefited from having a more ambitious editor but there are far less entertaining ways to while away 95 minutes. A-minus overall.

    Not a part of the department per se, the fellow who is the (now) lone employee in the Times‘ clipping morgue came across as someone I’d like to spend time conversing with over drinks.

    Free to watch on Amazon Prime.

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @Mary G:
    Because he won’t pie them. Puts them in an exalted place they don’t deserve. They reward him for it by giving him shit.

  125. 125.

    mike in dc

    Best case scenario: Tax bill fails, and Doug Jones gets elected to the Senate, virtually guaranteeing that the legislative agenda of this GOP Congress is dead through 2018. Any developments in the Mueller investigation the rest of this year are just gravy.
    2nd best case scenario: Tax bill passes and is massively unpopular; Alabama elects a child molester to the Senate, and the GOP spends most of 2018 on defense.

  127. 127.

    frosty

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I do think you would like the Dells though.

    OT. We passed through there on a National Lampoon Vacation and it looked like a pretty neat place. Made it back a couple of years later. Take the boat tour!

    The place was carved by glacial meltwater, not quite as violently as the Channeled Scablands in Washington, but still really interesting.

  129. 129.

    frosty

    @Steve in the ATL: DB9? Lucas electrics? Like the Nash Metropolitan I learned to drive in, Bugeye Sprite, TR-3? My brother’s Big Healy and Spit? Or maybe they finally learned.

    My favorite Lucas story: I’m at a Triumph dealer in Dallas (buying parts to get back to Maryland) with a buddy who had a Norton motorcycle. He looks under the hood of a Rolls Royce and hollers out: “Lucas??? Lucas??? You’ve got Lucas electrics in a car that costs this much???”

  130. 130.

    frosty

    @Mnemosyne: The town around the Dells is exactly like the towns around any (well a lot of) National Park. Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge come to mind. People go all that way to go to the same water parks etc, they can get anywhere??

  135. 135.

    frosty

    @Steve in the ATL: I know. I forgot to mention my brother also had a Lotus Elan. Famous Lotus story (paraphrased)

    Q: (Engineer to Colin Chapman), we can make this part with this thickness, or for a little less cost, we can pare it down a bit.
    A: How long is the warranty on that?

    They were all a gas to drive, when they ran. Now, in 1989, my wife runs across an article about the Detroit Auto Show where Mazda is making a 2-seat rear-wheel-drive ragtop. A rice-burning roadster! I bought a Miata from the dealer’s third shipment and drove it for 24 years until it got totaled (sob!)

  138. 138.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    Just finished watching Obit, a documentary film focusing on the NYT obituary department. It could have benefited from having a more ambitious editor but there are far less entertaining ways to while away 95 minutes. A-minus overall.

    Thanks for the review. I will check this out. Years ago, during a summer job, I would make copies of some of the material in the LA Times clipping files. Some amazing, and sad at times, material.

  139. 139.

    prostratedragon

    They oughtta do the movie:

    “The true story of the fake US embassy in Ghana “

    As it can take weeks or months for an embassy to check whether a document submitted by a visa applicant is real, most embassies do not attempt to verify everything. Instead, everyone puts on a show. Embassies overzealously scrutinise a handful of applications. Ghana’s police shut down what scams they can. Reporters file sensational pieces. Foreign governments, facing increasing pressure to limit immigration, add ever higher hurdles for legitimate applicants to clear. Everyone gets to say they’re doing something.

    I’m curious about the US end of the story.

  144. 144.

    lowtechcyclist

    Haberman:

    Hyperbole aside, it’s very true that the wealthy have few places to go

    @Amir Khalid:

    The rich have more places to go than the rest of us. There are even places that will welcome their money with open arms no matter how obnoxious they themselves are. That’s one benefit of being rich. If a place is not to their liking they can afford to remake it however they want. That’s another benefit of being rich. Maggie Haberman sees plenty of rich people. How can she not know this?

    This. So totally this. If you’re rich, you can buy several hundred acres of Montana with just enough flat space for your airstrip for your private plane. Or any of dozens of other options.

    Rich people who live in Manhattan live there because they like being there. And they’ll stay if the taxes go up.

    Oh, and US$21k is not even pocket change to the really rich people who reside in Manhattan. It’s more or less what they spend to have the limo parked somewhere convenient.

    This too. If it’s even that cheap. (Comparing to $10K for a convenient space for a regular car in Georgetown 20-25 years ago – knew someone who was paying that – $21K for a place for a limo in Manhattan today sounds like a steal.)

  146. 146.

    SFAW

    @frosty:

    “Lucas??? Lucas??? You’ve got Lucas electrics in a car that costs this much???”

    Well, it’s not as if the Brits were picky about where they stuck that shit.

  148. 148.

    TerryC

    Not rich, but content and comfortable in retirement at age 70. And I’m not going anywhere because my money is all in my 20 acres of land disc golf course/permaculture nut and fruit farm on a dirt road five miles from the Umich campus.

  150. 150.

    sam

    @B.B.A.: I’m basically in the same boat as B.B.A.

    Live in NYC, comfortable salary that affords me, for NYC, a middle to upper-middle class life (that would be considered rich anywhere else). I’m facing a tax hike under the proposals at issue (according to the calculator at marketwatch, under the house bill, I breakeven initially, because I currently get hit with the AMT so I already don’t get the full benefit of SALT deductions, but then I lose money when they phase out that personal $300 credit. Under the Senate bill I’m immediately in the hole an additional $4,000/year).

    I’ve been saying over and over again that I have zero issue paying more taxes to do things like shore up the social safety net/provide healthcare to everyone/provide for the common good/[insert your social good here]. What galls me to no end, however, is that I’m going to be paying more taxes SO THAT SOMEONE WHO HAS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE THAN ME CAN HAVE EVEN MORE. And that makes me vomitously angry.

  152. 152.

    Neil Blumengarten

    Thus spaketh the prophet Billy Joel:

    “You know those lights were bright on Broadway
    That was so many years ago
    Before we all lived here in Florida
    Before the Mafia took over Mexico
    There are not many who remember
    They say a handful still survive
    To tell the world about
    The way the lights went out
    And keep the memory alive”. -“Miami 2017”

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