even more quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a new rolling new york times thread

I print out a copy every morning and then burn it

it is the worst document in human history

you forgot 'just a goddamned piece of paper.'

i'm sure there'll be a const-conv p soon. we can't even raise taxes on richies.

if only there were other countries that had human rights w/o this one magical piece of paper but alas we are the country w/ human rights, and it's all thanks to our magical piece of paper. we really do have the best magical piece of paper, even though it mostly just constrains our government in stupid ways and ensures a horribly nonrepresentative voting system. why don't other countries model their magical piece of paper on our magical piece of paper? it is a mystery.

what is it with you and pieces of paper lately

it is time to embrace the digital age

i don't always shoot paper, but when i do it's the constitution

I agree with iatee to an extent. Right-wingers are not entirely wrong when they argue that judges distort the constitution (in order to give us rights that almost anyone today would agree should never be infringed -- the right to have children, to marry someone of another ethnicity, etc.). They have to do so, because the constitution is not so hot.

the left doesnt have much to gain from romanticizing rules written during a period of v. limited government. constitution should be treated like a vestigial organ not 'the source of our liberties' etc.

god is the source of our liberties

usa has daddy issues

the Soviet Constitution also "guaranteed" Soviet citizens lots of wonderful civil rights and liberties. just sayin'.

yeah what kind of fool would 'romanticize rules' like freedom of speech, assembly, et al.

http://yatf.org/images/EagleCrying.GIF

http://youtu.be/saCtEfDetCw

The sons of a noted former NYT writer profiled in the NYT. Yes of course.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/fashion/nathaniel-and-simon-the-brothers-rich.html

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-txO_g8rU5X0/T87AtwV6FTI/AAAAAAAAAlk/OppdqukN96M/s640/Gladiator.gif

Joaquin should just go around doing that in real life.

Aspiring writers from Peoria might roll their eyes, of course.

Oh, maybe more than just that group are rolling their eyes.

That may explain why “dates” among 20-somethings resemble college hookups, only without the dorms. Lindsay, a 25-year-old online marketing manager in Manhattan, recalled a recent non-date that had all the elegance of a keg stand (her last name is not used here to avoid professional embarrassment).

After an evening when she exchanged flirtatious glances with a bouncer at a Williamsburg nightclub, the bouncer invited her and her friends back to his apartment for whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese. When she agreed, he gamely hoisted her over his shoulders, and, she recalled, “carried me home, my girlfriends and his bros in tow, where we danced around a tiny apartment to some MGMT and Ratatat remixes.”

She spent the night at the apartment, which kicked off a cycle of weekly hookups, invariably preceded by a Thursday night text message from him saying, ‘hey babe, what are you up to this weekend?” (It petered out after four months.)

the end of courtship?

whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese

People who know how to live . . .

I'll bet if you poured whiskey on some mac and cheese powder you could start a really, really big fire with it

"said Anna Goldfarb, 34, an author and blogger in Moorestown, N.J. "

"A fancy dinner? You’re lucky to get a drink."

“Maybe there’s still a sense of a man taking care of a woman, but our ideology is aligning with the reality of our finances,” Ms. Rosin said. As a man, you might “convince yourself that dating is passé, a relic of a paternalistic era, because you can’t afford to take a woman to a restaurant.”

Not sure any of this is quid ag territory. But it's terrible/great nonetheless.

“At 10 p.m., I hadn’t heard from him,” said Ms. Silver, 30, who wore her favorite skinny black jeans.

xpost yeah i knew this thread wasn't perfect for it but wasn't sure where else to post it.

I think perhaps a "millennial culture alert" thread is in order?

I don't know. The part ZS quoted looks about like my GenX, 20s in the 90s hookup/dating life, just with different bands.

hannah rosin never not trolling men

didn't really know where to put this so I'm putting it here

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/nyregion/new-generation-confronts-unaffordable-luxury-of-food.html

“I don’t think about what anything costs,” Emily Gerard, a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a publishing assistant making the requisite salary, told me recently.

Spoken like someone who doesn't pay her own bills ime.

But what solace can it offer to realize that $300 a week put into an S. & P. 500 Index fund over the past five years would have provided an annual rate of return of 10.34 percent and grown to $100,354 today?

hahaha the girl in the article is 23, if only she had started saving $300/week when she was a college freshman and hadn't spent any money on food in the last 5 years she'd have enough for a downpayment on an apartment she couldn't afford.

New Yorkers in their early 20s spend almost all their money on rent and going out, shocking new trend.

kids be eating!

But what solace can it offer to realize that $300 a week put into an S. & P. 500 Index fund over the past five years would have provided an annual rate of return of 10.34 percent and grown to $100,354 today?

hahaha the girl in the article is 23, if only she had started saving $300/week when she was a college freshman and hadn't spent any money on food in the last 5 years she'd have enough for a downpayment on an apartment she couldn't afford.

New Yorkers in their early 20s spend almost all their money on rent and going out, shocking new trend.

― Sadly, 99.99 percent of sheeple will never wake up (I DIED), Monday, January 14, 2013 9:48 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree this is a poor example, but it's still pretty dumb to live like these people do in your 20s and not save any money.

it's pretty dumb to do a lot of things

And I don't think it's true that most people in their 20s in the city always spent most of their money on rent and going out -- certainly not the going out part.

I mean, we are talking about this:

Typically, she told me, she spends about $250 a week eating in good restaurants, which amounts to about $13,000 annually, and this does not include the additional $50 to $100 a week she spends on cooking classes, wine tastings and cheese pairings. Because about half of her salary is given over to food, she works an additional 10 to 15 hours a week tutoring and baby-sitting to supplement it.

What is she supposed to do, not eat?

I would guess the average white 20 something in nyc probably spends more money on food and less money on drugs than his/her equivalent in 1980 but america's foodie-addiction problem is probably not going to destroy a generation because it is mostly imaginary

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/01/14/the-invidious-reach-of-personal-finance-snake-oil/

Yes, I can't imagine why she hasn't been investing 15,000 dollars a year.

yeah if anybody can tell me how to earn 6% on my money please tell me!!!

it doesn't really make sense to save anyway since the economies gonna implode in 10 years. your 15,000 invested at 6% that grows to $20,000 in 5 years is gonna be real useful when hyperinflation sets in and northeast america is sold to JP Morgan and a big mac costs $1500 morgan-loonies

yeah if anybody can tell me how to earn 6% on my money please tell me!!!

put all your money on a short for this stock: 'NYT'

I don't really think poor investment returns are a good justification for spending $1200 a month EXTRA on food (i.e. on top of what it actually costs to feed yourself, presumably well based on this girl's standards) while living on an editorial assistant's salary. I mean forget the starter condo, how about just putting some money aside for emergencies?

do we know she doesnt have any money set aside for emergencies?

A 23-yo production asst at MTV makes 30K after taxes?? I'm in the wrong industry.

that does seem high