A Recipe for Humble Pie

While some Senators congratulated themselves for trimming Food Stamps and Teachers' salaries from the federal stimulus package, the New York Times style section published the heartbreaking and tragic story of New York banking execs now forced to live on $500,000 a year. What does a pay cut mean for these poor souls? Cover your child's eyes, close the curtains and prepare yourself for something dreadful. As the writer warns, "The cold hard math can be cruel." Bwwwahhh!

Firstly, taxes are a bitch:

Like those taxes. If a person is married with two children, the weekly deductions on a $500,000 salary are: federal taxes, $2,645; Social Security, $596; Medicare, $139; state taxes, $682; and city, $372, bringing the weekly take-home to $5,180, or about $269,000 a year, said Martin Cohen, a Manhattan accountant.

Parents will have to help their children with their homework:

Not every bank executive has school-age children, but for those who do, offspring can be expensive. In addition to paying tuition, “You’re not going to get through private school without tutoring a kid,” said Sandy Bass, the editor of Private School Insider, a newsletter that covers private schools in the New York City area. One hour of tutoring once a week is $125. “That’s the low end,” she said. “The higher end is 150, 175.” SAT tutors are about $250 an hour. Total cost for 30 weeks of regular tutoring: $3,750.

Like California's Furloughed State workers, these execs will learn the art of "Staycations":

Barbara Corcoran, a real estate executive, said that most well-to-do families take at least two vacations a year, a winter trip to the sun and a spring trip to the ski slopes.

Total minimum cost: $16,000.

The personal trainer has to be fired:

A personal trainer at $80 an hour three times a week comes to about $12,000 a year.

GASP! Some women will be forced to wear the same $15,000 cocktail dress, twice:

The work in the gym pays off when one must don a formal gown for a charity gala. “Going to those parties,” said David Patrick Columbia, who is the editor of the New York Social Diary (newyorksocialdiary.com), “a woman can spend $10,000 or $15,000 on a dress. If she goes to three or four of those a year, she’s not going to wear the same dress.”

Meanwhile, here's a list of things some other rich people thought were too wasteful to include in the Federal Stimulus package:

• $98 million for school nutrition (school lunch programs - for those pesky poor kids)

• $1 billion for Head Start/Early Start (for those pesky poor pre-schoolers)

• $5.8 billion for Health Prevention Activity (nutrition and exercise programs for low-income kids and families who can't afford personal trainers)

• $600 million for Title I (Provides funding to low income schools so they can hire teachers to teach kids who can't afford tutors to get them into college)

• $16 billion for school construction (For those pesky schools in poor neighorhoods that are falling down/poisoning their students)

• $3.5 billion for higher education construction (For those pesky state schools churning out the future of America)

So, rather than engage in the uncouth practice of class warfare, I'll do my part to help the poor banking execs in New York get through this very "difficult" time. I offer this recipe::

Out-of-Touch Elitist Humble Pie

Ingredients:

4 Eggs - $.80 (@$2.50/dozen)
4 Medium Potatoes, thinly sliced -$1 (@ $3.69/5 lb bag
1 Onion, diced - $.66
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper or Red Pepper Flakes to Taste

Total Cost: $2.46

In a frying pan, cook onions in a few tablespoon olive oil until clear. Add sliced potatoes, salt and pepper, lower heat and cover until potatoes are soft. Scramble Eggs and pour over potatoes. Stir just enough to make sure egg has thoroughly infiltrated the potatoes. Cook uncovered like an omlet until the eggs are fluffy. No need to flip. Serve with shredded cheese, if you can afford it .

p.s. I also find it hilarious that the author of the NYTimes article cites a $45,000 Nanny as a legitimate expense when the whole premise of the article is that these families can barely survive on only the husband's lonely $500,000 income. Even full time stay-at-homes like Daddycrat need a break from the kids, but a full-time nanny? Please! Hilarious, and yet, infuriating.