06:12 PM
How are bank execs supposed to live on $500,000 a year, with so many expenses?.
While it's true that half of that money is going to go to taxes -- and that living close to work and raising kids in Manhattan is pricey -- this nytimes article is for the most part hilarious. The main point seems to be that an executive can't perform unless he feels like one. It's almost unthinkable that they'd have to do without the summer house, trips to aspen, weekly personal trainers, drivers, etc.:
"Does this money buy a chief executive stockholders might prize, a well-to-do man with a certain sureness of stride, something that might be lost if the executive were crowding onto the PATH train every morning at Journal Square, his newspaper splayed against the back of a stranger’s head?"
...
“People inherently understand that if they are going to get ahead in whatever corporate culture they are involved in, they need to take on the appurtenances of what defines that culture.â€
Is the point here that talent is really secondary? (Perhaps not essential whatsoever?) Maybe it's not who you are, or what you can do, but whatchugot.
(You try to live on $500k in this town, nytimes: Via: Easter Everywhere.)
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10:14 PM
The era of the secret swiss bank account -- dating back to the middle ages -- is over as UBS reveals the names of tax evading Americans to the IRS.
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02:19 PM
Today the NY Post ran an offensive cartoon:
The Post's official statement was:
"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."
They were referring to Sharpton's statement earlier today:
"The cartoon in today's New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that "Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill."
"Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"
While people can get a little too sensitive over cartoons, the Post should really admit that this cartoon is racist and apologize. They have a right to freedom of speech, but comparing black people to monkeys is hate speech. How can they deny the obvious connection when we've spent the last year looking at stuff like this:
Or this:
(Though, I have to say -- racist or not, that last one is pretty adorable.)
Whether intentional or not, the monkey in the Post cartoon above reads as Obama. Why? Because for about 70 years now monkeys and black people have been often interchangeable in cartoons:
To pretend otherwise is foolish.
UPDATE: Something that registered before, that I didn't even really to take into account is the violent nature of this. On top of the subliminal connection of the monkey to our president, you have two dopey white cops shooting the monkey down. Beyond that, they're making light of a tragedy where a loved one flipped out and brutalized a woman.
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