She is New York City Council member Tiffany Cabán, who "spends much of her day thinking about how to address New York City’s affordability crisis," and rents a two-and-a-half-bedroom place in Astoria, "where she lives with her rescue dog Ducky."
I'm reading the latest entry in the NYT series "Affording New York," "How a City Council Member Lives on $148,500 in Queens" (gift link, with photos of Cabán place and her dog and her jacket).
It is a nice jacket for a City Council member, and it's nice that she has season tickets to the game ($5,000), and that her salary is going up from $148,500 to $175,500, after she and other council members voted them a raise. Well earned, no? You wouldn't want to try to live in NYC for only $148,500.
The jacket's slogan is "It will Always be New York or Nowhere." You know that wonderful New York feeling: every place else is nowhere. It reminds me of my old saying: Better than nothing is a high standard. But acquiring nothing leaves you intact as a living human being, and you save whatever money you'd have spent on that item that's not better than nothing. But with "New York or Nowhere," it seems you cease to exist if you can't swing life in New York. Life without being in New York is not better than nothing. It's nowhere.
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63 comments:
Sarcasm
Every basic bitch sees "Queens" on a map and then logically thinks "NYC must be the place for me!"
it should be illegal to vote yourself a raise.
Screw democrats.
"Life without being in New York is not better than nothing. It's nowhere. "
Well, that explains why the City Council let in and supported all the illegals. The illegals needed to be in the only place that mattered. Unfortunately, the illegals ruined the New York experience; fortunately, the City Council still thinks NYC is the Big Apple. Or should that be: Unfortunately, the City Council still thinks NYC is the Big Apple? Delusion never works for long.
Great excerpts. I have nothing intelligent to offer, but the quoted words speak for themselves.
Someday, very soon, New York will be even worse. Nothing will work. It'll cost more than ever to buy anything. Restaurants will start to close. Stores that haven't closed or left, will close or leave. City services, which have never been stellar, will continue to degrade until the stench from garbage in the alleys and streets becomes simply part of the day.
What's that? It already is?
Well...not worries. The city government will continue to promise things- free things- to you. All you'll have to do is turn in your paycheck to them. Better yet, they'll just confiscate it from your employer who is now taxed to heavily he/she is actually now a city employee by any other name.
And we'll still see these articles from captured minds in New York on how it's the only place to live.
May they always stay there.
LIife in NYC used to be better than nowhere back in the late 80s early 90s but now, no thanks.
A 2 -1/2 bedroom apartment? What is a half-bedroom?
The deluded self love of New Yorkers is an endless source of comedy. Having done everything possible to assure that ordinary people can't afford to live there, they discover an affordability crisis.
"...a two-and-a-half-bedroom place in Astoria...."
The dog sleeps separately?
NYC, like many other coastal American cities, are effectively neo-feudal societies. The women really don't have a problem with it. For men that "made it" neither do they.
Every princess that maintains her class there only proves to herself that she really was a princess. Every scullery maid that struggles there endures in the hope that she'll be discovered by "Mr. Big". They're surrounded by a huge unwashed mostly brown mass of foreign pets with dubious legal status (which they of course control) to do their bidding for pennies and worship them, boosting their ego essentially for free.
But it all pales in comparison to the juiciness of being able to Lord (or should I say "Lady"...) your mere presence there over all those who are not. It's reminiscent of old British London where merely being present for the "London Season" divided one instantly from icky provincials...they weren't invited to the party.
For princess that's the real juice, to unperson people simply by unmerited geography. If Vlad dropped a megaton on the place I'd probably mix a manhattan.
…New York or nothing works out for the rest of us. Do California next…
…what’s a half bedroom?
i am SO PROUD that as an American tax payer, i PERSONALLY helped pay this lady's more than $200,000 in student loans.
This is the sort of thing that MY tax dollars are FOR.
i scrimped and saved, working part time while in college, and got a degree without a single penny of debt (or ANY government assistance). in my Entire life, i NEVER made more than $100k, and currently live on made 401k and $20k/yr social security.. both of which are taxed to pay for this lady's bills
people in flyover country Need to Realize, that They EXIST to support the people that live off the goverment and live in NYC
I like NYC and I wouldn't mind living there, if where I am wasn't so much better. But what it the NYC that outsiders want to live in? Its Manhattan. and maybe parts of Brooklyn.
If you're living in Queens, you're basically living in Long Island. You might as well move to Jersey.
What is it you do here
I’m guessing that the 1/2 bedroom doesn’t have a closet, and maybe is smaller?
Its like Paris. The Paris everyone loves is the central area near the Seine. Nobody moves to Paris to live in the Suburbs with the Muslims and the migrants. Or moves to SoCal to live in Watts or the Valley. They want to live in Malibu or Beverly Hills.
I always assumed 2 1/2 bedroom meant 2 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. Aka a full bathroom and a 1/2 bathroom (no shower/tub). could be wrong. Houses used to be 3 1/2.
For all of these stories, part of a series, I always just get stuck on how much personal, detailed info people share about their finances.
I’m my mother’s child—not as paranoid as she was on the topic, but still pretty guarded about details. I just marvel and then stuck on pondering about why people do this.
BTW, i wonder how she got a $200,000 gift. Who qualifies for this program, liberal democrats? Minorities? And who has to pay up?
You live in Queens or The Bronx and you have a chip on your shoulder. You are living in "the Greatest City in the World" but it really doesn't feel like it, so you have something to prove and are ready to take on the world.
I don't see how she "qualified for loan forgiveness" though. She's earning a decent salary. Make her pay off the loans.
Anyway, you can be damn sure she's a socialist. I wonder how many in NYC work for the City state Government, in education, or for NGOs and medical establishments who get GOvernment money. They all pay taxes, but how much is basically a reduction in their Government check.
My suspicion is that NYC in like DC. It produces nothing for the rest of the country and just lives off tax money. Directly or indirectly.
“Affordability crisis.” Democrats are morons. When was NYC not expensive?
In a world of finitely available and accessible resources, promises of everything to everyone, and the lunatic is queen. #NoKings
Are we grateful we were able to help her pay off her student loans?
We need more Mosques!
As Bill Whittle noted during a recent interview by Mike Rowe, if this socialist isn’t taking in as many comrades to provide to them what she provides for herself, she doesn’t believe in the socialism she claims.
You have 3.3 million households in NYC. 1 million or about 30 percent get government cash assistance. Another 300 thousand work for the City. 740 thousand medical and health care workers live there too.
NYC now is better than the early 90s. You had 2000 murders a year under Dinkins. Yet, Gulliani barely won his first election. You have to wonder where NYC would be today, if he had lost.
RC Ocean said:
"If you're living in Queens, you're basically living in Long Island. You might as well move to Jersey."
ON Long Island, not IN Long Island. And Nassau and Suffolk are neither Queens nor New Jersey. The Sound to the north, Ocean to the South, Peconic Bay between the North Fork and the Hamptons. Paradise other than the property taxes.
How the Upper Half Lives (with apologies to Jacob Riis)
"One thing I did is I gifted myself an extra loan payment for whatever my heart desired"
""He had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children."
I think I see today's theme.
Im sure part of long island are "paradise". See "The Hamptons". But if you want the big city experience of living in NYC - that's not what you're getting. You're getting a suburb.
You wouldn't want to try to live in NYC for only $148,500.
No I wouldn't want to try to live in NYC period.
I favor a Ruger Mark III Target with a 5.5 inch bull barrel to a High Standard any day, although those old High Standards have pretty good collector value. Oh. You weren't talking about guns?
Can't afford means you have a better use for the money, not that you don't have the money. If coffee is $50 a pound and somebody hands you $50, you still don't buy coffee. You can't afford it at $50 a pound. Yet you have the money!
It's hard to see what it is about NYC that makes living there so compelling. $175k will provide a decent standard of living in most of America but its more like a "working poor" situation in NYC and yet some people do it anyway. I have no idea why. It is like "good will" on a balance sheet. It is a real thing but it cant be explained.
"What is it you do here"
Stealing from you while criticizing those you'd vote for who are attempting to stop it all the while assuming a highly artificial and elevated sense of self-importance for virtually zero productivity.
"It's hard to see what it is about NYC that makes living there so compelling."
Status. Instagram points. Reputation. It was on TV. You know, the important things.
We see the jacket. What other grifting corruption don't we get to see? I'm guessing more dollar value than a $400 jacket.
My youngest just graduated as a baby mechanical engineer in May. He got a good engineering job in Austin and moved there last month, renting a one-bedroom apartment for around 20% of his base salary (he actually gets overtime, and in his first month on the job probably made about 20% more than base because of it).
He graduated without debt and has a great paycheck - he could indulge his heart's desire if he wished. Yet he's sleeping on an Amazon mattress on the floor, with a folding chair and a tv his only living room furniture, while he builds up some capital - and is maxing out his 401(k) contributions. He's 22 and shows more fiscal responsibility than this woman.
“You know that wonderful New York feeling: every place else is nowhere.”
We’ve all seen the “New Yorker” cover.
Back in the day I sometimes had to take business trips to New York. I hated every second I was there. New Yorkers are the worst people in America.
I really have no desire at all to go to NYC. I'd like to see the Chrysler building and maybe a couple of other art deco buildings, but when someone says they live in NYC my first thought is "Oh, I'm so sorry."
I was the guy rooting for Bane in the Dark Knight Rises. The only thing that could've been better than bringing Manhattan's transportation infrastructure down to starve the freeloaders would've been Bruce saying eff it all and setting the bomb down on top of 620 8th Ave so that The Gray Lady would forevermore be referred to as "The Gray Crater".
“Life without being in New York is not better than nothing.”
It’s better than living in New York, and jacket girl is one reason why.
I lived in NoWhere once, and it was OK, they had a nice lake... oh wait, that was North Weare, New Hampshire.
“You wouldn't want to try to live in NYC for only $148,500.”
Why not? Using 25 year old data, $148.5k in NYC has the purchasing power of $67.5k in Cincinnati. Looking at an inflation calculator, that is the equivalent of $36k 25 years ago. That bought a middle class lifestyle back then. I knew a programmer who was supporting a wife and 5 kids on $32k back then.
(We had discussions about how much money it would take to get us to take a job in other cities around the US)
Deep State Reformer said...
“It's hard to see what it is about NYC that makes living there so compelling. $175k will provide a decent standard of living in most of America but its more like a "working poor" situation in NYC and yet some people do it anyway.”
Nationally, middle class starts at c$57k and upper middle class starts at $133k. Stats for individual cities vary, but I found a stat for NYC that upper middle class is $133k - $171k.
Read this:
"After Ms. Cabán’s student loan payments were forgiven, she treated herself to a New York Liberty jacket."
Loan forgiveness is already BIG FUCKING TREAT.
I loathe these people.
RCOCEAN II said...
“BTW, i wonder how she got a $200,000 gift. Who qualifies for this program, liberal democrats? Minorities? And who has to pay up?”
Having made 120 months of payments in a qualified field - basically public service: https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service/public-service-loan-forgiveness-application
Considering that one thinks of public service employees as typically being women and/or minorities, this program is an example of systemic racism (tm).
New York City sort of was the Capital of the World in 1950. Maybe as late as the 1980s or 1990s. Is it still? Plenty of cities match its famed and once unique "diversity." The First World cities so important in the 19th century are dwarfed by Third World megacities. And now that so many people and businesses are fleeing NYC what will be left in 2030, 2050, 2070?
mikee said...
“We see the jacket.”
I wonder if Nick Gillespie is jealous.
What will be left is a dystopian hellhole as the locusts that can fly land upon your field to eat your seed corn. New Yawkers...coming to vote at a grainary near you.
"It's hard to see what it is about NYC that makes living there so compelling"
If there is a "center," people will want to live there.
If there is no "center," that can be terrifying.
I started advocating for dissolving the union about 20 years ago. Or at least creating a clear, achievable means for states to succeed. All of the Professor's post today illustrate the wisdom of my position.
Anyone who is paying attention should notice that the infrastructure required for a split is rapidly being created. For example, stock markets and banking HQed in Texas and Florida. Business courts founded in Texas.
The net result would be that blue states end up being demographic twins of countries declining economically with weak resource bases. While red states end up being a resource rich country with the best or one of the best demographic profiles in the developed world, rich and with a healthy GDP growth.
...Don't forget many of those states instantly becoming independent nuclear powers rivaling the big 5 almost instantly (Vandenburg, CA doesn't count, they only test-fire, but New Mexico could be a problem...Kirtland AFB & KUMMSC). I like the idea of Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Louisiana, and Texas (Pantex) creating their own SIOPs that put Washington, NY, CA, IL, MN and DC on target lists.
They wouldn't even need to raise the militia.
RSM said...
"..RideSpaceMountain said...
...Don't forget many of those states instantly becoming independent nuclear powers.."
this raises complications..
such as: Who gets the USS Wyoming (SSBN-742)?
she (and her 20 Trident II ICBMs) is stationed at Kings Bay Ga.
so, does she go with Georgia? or Wyoming?
It's "fun" to talk about this; but the taking of US installations in the south were the MAJOR cause of trouble the last time this was tried
Just like British SSBN commander's "Letters of Last Resort", official state communiques could be sent to US SSBN commanders giving them and their boomers "asylum" in the Free States of America.
This is all fun of course. All the nukes are equipped with PALs and require NCA codes to function anyway...but, the material is extremely valuable. Given time to dismantle them (Pantex would be a logical location, it's what they do) there's enough smart people in those states that could easily redesign and reconstruct them under new ownership.
I like the idea of an new Ohio Class USS Texas based in Galveston.
LIke i said, i can undertand someone wanting to live in Manhattan. But Queens?
Probably the best way to live in NYC would be to quit your job, and move all your assets overseas. Then move to NYC and claim you're homeless. Free medical/SNAP, and subsidized housing awaits.
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