What do people do for a living?

theres more to the world than you and the h bombs. what do you think ur the only people that make money? keep on guessing

For lack of a better place to put this thought -- I know some people in 30s/40s who do ok but aren't in finance and feel so unable to buy nyc re that it almost seems to be having the perverse impact of making them save less. They just have this fatalistic view that it's expensive,and don't bother to choose a cheaper restaurant, or whatever, because they'll never save enough to have a chance of buying. (I know they should be thinking of retirement, and they do some, but housing seems to be something that reall focuses the mind of some people).

Okay havvvard. Dude. Let me teach you what I learned in grammar school in hells' kitchen.
1) a family of 5 can live very well in NYC if you own 1/2 of cab medallian and are in immigrant and work 12 hours aday driving a cab AND a decent rs apt (back in the days); oh and you don't need to spend $2000/suit,
2) 90% of NYC never traded hands in the bubble of 2001-2007, so most of the borkers you are so jealous of could never have afforded it, they just got in bf the bubble. I'm talking $300psf.,
3) if this was a meritocracy, id agree with you, but then there'd be no $250mm baseball players,
4) this one always gets me. When you could get financing for 95% ie you needed 5% down, your broker could come up with that with one sale in a certain price point. Let's say a borker sold a $5mm unit (sale/buy side). Poof!!!!! Magically that borker now had the capital to go a $5mm herself. Think about that. It's not you haaaaarrrrvvvvvvard dude. Put your smoking jacket on, go play some squash, drink some tea with your pinky up, Biff, cause only lemmings look at these prices and think it's 'their' own lack of success that has priced them out of NYC.

Me I see it for what it is, a deflating bubble of epic porportions. That's from a family with 20 yrs in ivy education...

First, I'd agree that Manhattan real estate remains way overpriced (relative to rents, in particular).

That said, in many other parts of the country the price-to-rent ratio is much lower than in Manhattan and you can make a very good case for owning rather than renting.

Regardless of your beliefs on current pricing, though, when you pay your mortgage, part goes to pay your interest and part goes to pay down your loan. I consider the loan pay-down as savings.

pandaboy- your question is timely and I have been puzzled about the market myself. I see the price for decent 2bdr and above creeping above $1100 psqf (Including $2000 and $3000 offering psqf). Private school's tuition is up and I do not know how many professionals can or will be able to afford Manhattan. So why are prices up, inventory for large size apartments down and who is buying in Manhattan? What happened to the old supply and demand curve? ( Tribaca's prices stabilized) it feels like bubble again.(Soho's loft 1800 sqf at $2.7 mill- in contract) Even the bankrupted new condos are still unaffordable to young professionals. How many old rich people will buy or live here? Totally confusing reality.

Topper is a f'n fool. Havvvvard dude. If you took her advice 2 yrs ago, you'd be worse off than a cab driver from lic rigt now.

Topper ' when you take drugs, a part of you is really happy and anothejr part of you is dying'

Topper 'when you have unrpotected sex, a part of you is worried about pregnancy and another part of you worried about stds!'

Topper ' when you drive drunk, a part of th joy is feeling invincible, right bf you roll the car 14x!'

Wow, didn't we take our nice pills today!

http://www.millersamuel.com/charts/gallery-view.php?ViewNode=1249522147RFeuS&Record=1

Topper 'when you got to a 3rd rate college, A benefit is going to college at all the counter is you couldve saved all that time and got a borker license in 2 wks!'

67...good mornin'...good points

- is that true that 90% didnt change hands during them bubble years? (i take the general point, but that sounds kinda high..but i have no clue)

- i am NOT a believer that nyc is fundamentally insulated from reality in some way, but i wonder , is there some element of that .....in your travels, have your eyes ever looked at the london market and does it make sense to you?..prices there are nuts too, i think, but people think the supply of arab gazillionaires and russians and movie stars etc. insulates them

Delighted to hear that you think I went to college!

jim, one of the many factors that has affected our market is what you speak of. the redistribution of wealth ever upwards has created a class of owners who are content to spend excessive amounts for numerous properties worldwide. that said, NYC isn't as convenient as London, and that doesn't even begin to explain the appreciation in Yorkville, Harlem, and yes, Williamsburg.

cheap and easy credit. people settling for far less. young couples buying a $500k studio to "get in the game" when 5-10 years earlier at the same age they would have got a $500k two/two. there's a reason so many of the middle of the road inventory consists of resales of units bought 2004 on. people spent too much for what they received, and now it isn't working for them, either financially or in terms of needs.

You've got time on your side, pandaboy.

We had crazy pricing in 1987 and people felt similar frustration to what you've expressed. (1987 pricing was actually more reasonable than today's pricing.) Real prices thereafter tumbled and didn't start to move up again until about 1997.

I own in Connecticut where price-to-rent ratios seem reasonable to me. I rent a weekend pied-a-terre in Manhattan where price-to-rent ratios simply seem crazy.

It's cool to wait. It's cool not to (ostensibly) keep up with the Jones.

Good day Jimmy/ar.

Topper, did you even look at that chart? 18.6 was average rent/buy ratio over th last 10 yrs. I.e. Greatest bubble in NYC history. You understand high numbers pull up acerages? Second that ratio looks like it's gonna get rocked. Just note how much rents have and continue to fall, and FYI if you didn't go to college.. Just ask your mama what happens in a ratio when deno shrinks? What happens when this second ratio of buy/rent goes from 23 to 9 and with a high likelihood of overshooting down past 9 in 1999?

No no no,,, life is simpler if you just focus on the proportion of savings that is part of your mortgage. And I don't know if you dada taught you but the 'savings' in the first 10 yrs of mortgage is like $2. Flmao. 'brokers of the world unite'. Reminds me of that morissey song.

"have your eyes ever looked at the london market and does it make sense to you?..prices there are nuts too, i think, but people think the supply of arab gazillionaires and russians and movie stars etc. insulates them "

Only part of it. A small part, actually. The two big drivers of london real estate are:
1) A macro-factor, that is, that the price of EVERYTHING -- and therefore the standard of living in the UK in general -- is much higher. Hotels are 1.5X what they are in NY, restaurant entries 1.5-2X depending on the exchange rate, etc. And this is true throughout the UK, not just London. So why is the standard of living lower in the UK than the US? One word: Taxes. The social safety net. Socialism. They have all the free health care anyone could ever want (you know, the thing we are fussing over but have never provided), available to one and all, citizens, illegal immigrants, even visitors! Single mums get tons of "maternity leave" from jobs they never even held! Etc Etc. Who do you think PAYS for all of this?? That's right. The working citizens of the UK. It drives prices up across the board, and that includes real estate.
2) There's also a micro-economic factor at play, a localized event: Ask any developer why it takes so long to build anything in London, and why there is so much less construction than in New York, Moscow, etc, and he'll tell you that EVERY square meter of the place is zoned to prevent development. This is historical, that is commercial, etc. You can't build a freaking tent in London without spending a decade fighting (and, mostly losing) against building limitatons. So very, very little gets built, even in boom times.

"both of us have no idea how people afford Manhattan real estate ... Our guess was that either most people save almost nothing (if they are in their early 30s) or they are older (being late 30s or early 40s). Thoughts?"

I had these same thoughts as you (as did most of my friends, as we gathered every Sunday for brunch in Chelsea, marveling at the new towers going up on Sixth Avenue, wondering who the hell could afford all this, and why the hell wasn't it us). It wasn't until I started studying for my real estate license that I learned the secret: leverage, and exotic financing.

I was under the naive assumption that everyone was putting at least 20% down (even more in some co-ops) and taking out 30-year fixed mortgages, buying homes that were, as was the general rule of housing affordability, roughly three times their household income.

What a silly boy I was! 30-year fixed-rate mortgages? Out with the rotary-dial telephones! Three times your income? How quaint, but you could do much better than that!

Welcome to the era of the elastic mortgage that could stretch you into a home that cost TEN TIMES your annual household income!

THAT is how people have been doing it.

I just had drinks with an old HS buddy. He did not graduate college but he became a trader and cleared 2 million last year. He is 34 years old and rents a sick place in SOHO for 8 thousand a month.

The 3br+ co-op market up on the UWS (based on closings in the last 5+ years) consist of:
1) People who bought in the late 90s and traded up
2) People with family $
3) People who made 1m for 2 years and bought a C6 or larger

To your point, yes, 2 Biglaw associates without family $ have not been able to buy a family sized apt on the UWS or in much of Manhattan w/o going for 5% down or some crazy financing deal.

The big question up here is: when is the slumping market and abundance of rentals going to impact the rent/buy ratio of nice old prewar apts in prime location so that we go back to the late 90s.

As for London, I'm very familiar with the prices in SW London (Fulham, Chelsea, Barnes, Mortlake, Chiswick, etc.) and rent-buy ratio has been out of whack there for over 10 years. Definitely more of a home-owner mentality there, and a willingness (anecdotally) to cut back and live cheaply in other ways, and be okay with a huge mtge. There is no 30-year fixed rate there. The longest you can go fixed for is something like 5 years. Parents will scrimp to give their kids downpayments. There is no RS/RC system in London, there is council housing (mostly privatized in above-mentioned areas).

What an interesting juxtaposition between NYCMatt and samadams's comments: who's buying vs. who's renting.

Here's the thing: There are over 8 million people living in New York City. There are over 16 million people living in the New York Metropolitan Area. A very tiny percentage of those people, say 2.5% of the 16 million, live in prime areas of Manhattan.

Prime Manhattan is not simply the most coveted area of a 16 million person region. It is also the most coveted area of the largest and most important city in the richest and most powerful nation in the world.

In any given year, only a tiny percentage of prime Manhattan real estate changes hands. There are people like my parents who have lived in their apartment for thirty years and will probably live in it for thirty more. There are units tied up in rent regulation.

So, who is it that can afford to move into a fabulous apartment in a prime Manhattan neighborhood? A lot of people who work at the high levels of finance, people who are super-successful in a variety of other professions (movie stars, art dealers, CEOs, professional athletes, partners at Cravath, fashion designers, starchitects), and heirs and heiresses.

If you are simply a successful dual income couple, both high-achieving lawyers in your early thirties, making a combined 500k, you can live a great life in manhattan, but you will not live in a dream apartment overlooking central park west or a townhouse in the west village. That's the trade-off you make to live in one of the three or four most coveted areas on the entire planet. But I have to ask: why are you surprised by this?

If you want to be a big fish, move to a small pond.

I don't see it as a "juxtaposition".

Samadams makes a good point -- there are plenty of $2M earners in this city. Not enough, however, to support the entire real estate market in New York, however.

Also, you can't compare London to NYC. London is not only the financial and cultural capital of the U.K., it is THE capital city. There is nowhere comparable within the UK for people to relocate to for jobs or culture. Ditto Paris for France.

I'm not sure how NYC is viewed by the rest of the U.S. - full disclosure: I have never lived anywhere in the U.S. other than NYC.

"There is nowhere comparable within the UK for people to relocate to for jobs or culture.

Leeds?

happyrenter: something is missing from your analysis. 15 years ago, if you were in your early 30s, a BigLaw couple w/o student loans (a big headstart there), you could easily have afforded a C6 on the UWS. 30 years ago, a couple in that position could have bought a brownstone in prime UWS.

NYCMatt: don't be ridiculous. Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, yes, even Bristol with its gorgeous geography and intact Regency townhouses on the Crescent (truly to die for when you peer in one of these and they happen to have both sets of windows uncovered) in no way compares to London. London is the cultural, political & financial capital of the U.K.

Just read the "Hunt" article in NYT. 30ish couple buys 1.2mish 3br co-op (the Opera). How did they do it? One has his own PR firm, the other works in non-profit. Doesn't look like they brought in the big paychecks post Gore campaign. A little googling reveals that there is family $ on at least the guy's side. Dad's a big-shot lawyer in Seattle.

nyc10023 I completely agree with your description of the role of London in the UK, but I'm not sure it follows necessarily that therefore buy/rent will be out of whack. And London had that role many years ago when its real estate perhaps wasn't so out of whack in terms of buy/rent -- I don't know for sure about that, but old timers talk about how cheap housing was back in the day in some areas of south ken or nottinghill gate (ok..maybe rents were also super low in those days)...

jim: that was not the point I was trying to make. Just that NYC is not necessarily as desirable as London.

Welcome back, happyrenter. Where have you been? Working hard until your bonus gets paid?

I gotta disagree with your "dream apartment for $500K" comment. If you make $500K and take home $300K, you can spend $100-150K on housing if you want. While that won't get you an infinitely kick-ass place, you can still rent a 1500-2000 sq ft place with direct Central Park views, etc. Nothing irks me more than wealthy couples complaining about how they're barely scraping by on 10x the median income of an NYC resident. You can't have Sandy Weill's penthouse in 15 CPW, you can't fly in a private jet, but you can still have a relatively large apartment w/ a view of Central Park, and you can fly business / first class if you want, so shut the f up! Sure, you won't be saving large amounts of money and building up a huge security-cushion, but that's how most people live.

On the "it's so much harder now" comment, nyc10023, I don't know what you are talking about. Rents are down 30% in real terms since 2000. No one said wealth should be equated with an infinite cushion against being able to make poor financial decisions.

my point was more to the original poster. the point was that a lawyer in nyc who went to harvard is very middle class compared to other Manhattanites. I went to NYU law and practice at a big ny firm. I know if I moved to Chicago I could live about 3 times as nice and be king. Not sure why somebody who went to "harvard" cant figure that out

"Just that NYC is not necessarily as desirable as London."

Only in terms of the sheer size of it's home country.

England doesn't have its own version of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Miami, Palm Beach, Seattle, or New Orleans.

"the point was that a lawyer in nyc who went to harvard is very middle class compared to other Manhattanites."

Manhattan isn't "Middle Class" to begin with. That's the problem with all this whining.

Missing from the comparison to London is the fact that London property taxes are far, far lower than NYC's, making it easier to stretch on the purchase price. If your mortgage is paid off in the UK, you can get by on part time bar-work (no tips), as your property has very little ongoing costs and your health is covered by the govt. You can't do the same here
I don't think London is more desirable than NYC, but it is easier to get a visa to live there if you are a foreign gangster (and they will let you classify as non-dom to avoid income taxes)

That's just like saying Donald Trump is very "middle class" compared to Bill Gates.

Also, seriously Leeds as a substitute for London? "Don't talk to me about culture, I've been to Leeds"

True, prop. taxes are lower. Crap state education for the most part. Half of Oxbridge (state school!) comes from public schools (by that I mean private).

Inonada: I'm addressing the original Q - which was an "owning" question. You cannot deny that it is much harder for a BigLaw couple now to buy an apt now than it was 15+ years ago. Rent, yes, for some types of places, we're not that far from '00 prices.

My point about London was that, one can easily make the argument that RE-wise, rent or buy, it is more stable than NYC. The whole social structure, land owning structure is very different in Central London as well as differential wages between the working class, middle class, "upper" class leading to very different outcomes in the housing markets.

"They just have this fatalistic view that it's expensive,and don't bother to choose a cheaper restaurant, or whatever, because they'll never save enough to have a chance of buying."

to me, as somebody in my 30s, it's an incentive to not work hard. after bills are paid, and money put apart for college+retirement, why bother for more? we are saving to be labor mkt free and be able to change countries if we eventually want to. but that's it.

I think London is the same as NYC school-wise, if you live in an area zoned well you are ok, otherwise look out. What proportion of Ivy League students went to private school? I have yet to meet a Harvard grad that didn't go to private school.
The whole class system is no more prevalent there than here. Over there people are obsessed with it, here people pretend it doesn't exist. The answer is in the middle (Bermuda)

" I have yet to meet a Harvard grad that didn't go to private school."

You must live a very sheltered life.

4) this one always gets me. When you could get financing for 95% ie you needed 5% down, your broker could come up with that with one sale in a certain price point. Let's say a borker sold a $5mm unit (sale/buy side). Poof!!!!! Magically that borker now had the capital to go a $5mm herself. Think about that. It's not you haaaaarrrrvvvvvvard dude. Put your smoking jacket on, go play some squash, drink some tea with your pinky up, Biff, cause only lemmings look at these prices and think it's 'their' own lack of success that has priced them out of NYC.

Me I see it for what it is, a deflating bubble of epic porportions.

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wow w67, i'm lucky you are in this blog!

"That's just like saying Donald Trump is very "middle class" compared to Bill Gates."

I think it's fair to say that Trump is low-class compared to Bill Gates.

On the one hand we've got Trump. First, take your daddy's money. Then, piss it away for 25 years by barely managing to keep up with inflation. Meanwhile, a simple bond investment would've returned 15x your money during that same period. Then, continue the nepotism with your own children. Meanwhile, act like a pompous greedy ass, playing role-model to, I dunno, construction workers from Queens with a chip on their shoulder.

On the other hand we've got Gates, who's self-amassed a fortune of $50B from more or less nothing. How much do the kids get? A $10M trust each. The rest goes towards world health.

"Don't talk to me about culture, I've been to Leeds"

Hilarious. "I've been to West Staines."

"You cannot deny that it is much harder for a BigLaw couple now to buy an apt now than it was 15+ years ago."

I cannnot deny that. But you cannot deny that it's much easier to rent an apt now than it was a decade ago. It's also much easier to invest in the markets at great historical valuations. Trust me, that same Haaaavard BigLaw couple placed 15+ years ago would've been pissing and moaning about some crap or other, sure as the sun comes up.

60% of manhattan rent...it's will always be that way.

i'm a chef, childcare provider, personal escort (in so many ways) and milkmaid. this thread depresses me :(

As far as I know there is no constitutional right to ownership of a $1M property at age 32. Is that what the Harvard brochure said?

"1) a family of 5 can live very well in NYC if you own 1/2 of cab medallian"

i didn't know about the medallion system.

"The value of a medallion reached $760,000 in September 2009, an increase of 179% over the previous decade. [21]"

but wow, buying 1/2 would cost more than a house in the cheapest areas of nyc. how much net incomes does the average medallion bring to make it profitable? i guess the medallion buyer can finance the purchase, right?

If it's anything like housing, it probably nets 2%, or $1250 a month.

"i'm a chef, childcare provider, personal escort (in so many ways) and milkmaid. this thread depresses me :("

Aren't you living in some $1-2M place on the UWS?

Join the over-educated housewife club. I prefer the term "yummy mummy" myself.

Medallion - w67 said "back in the day"

well inonada, that 2% if not enough to make a nice living like w67 says it does. but you could inherit half a medallion with your sibling if daddy passed and owned an entire one. but guess that will bring us back to the "$ in the family".

for what i've found, taxi drivers lease the cars from investment companies that bought the leases (bet that with financing), as during the last 10 years the cost of the license sky rocketed. what's next? taxi cabs REOs?

ino - yes, it would probably go for that. but we rent :)
ar - sorry, i owe you mail (i owe many people lots of things these days). looking forward to chatting.

The food in London is terrible . The chics are busted and the tube sucks. I will say that the people are very polite. Even the homeless are nice

marco..m...The polite refined brits a la alistair cooke are like 2.7% of the population. In central London they are dwarfed by the belligerent drunks the likes of which we really don't see too much in nyc. The social problem of belligerent drunks, free floating hostility, stabbings, muggings in bad hoods, the in-your-face chav culture is a much commented issue in London today.

"ino - yes, it would probably go for that. but we rent :)"

Rich and smart. If you are indeed a "yummy mummy" as nyc10023 suggests, we might have a trifecta. WTF is there to be depressed about. Now, go have a glass of wine or two, and the whole family will magically turn happy (well, at least two of you anyways).

more like tired and worn, but definitely happy! i don't drink ;)

Medallion - w67 said "back in the day"
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sure, i didn't mean to correct w67, i'd nominate him for more insightful blogger here hands down.

The taxi medallion system illustrates in a small way the pitfalls of a capitalist system. I assume that it is not a rigged auction (all the biggies getting together). What might have been a way for a hard-working family to build wealth 20+ years ago is now only possible for someone with access to easy capital (sound familiar?)

None of us here have the right to be depressed. These are high-class problems we have.

thanks w67th again for introducing the medallion topic again, i had no idea how it worked.
sorry nyc10023, but imho it is ok and normal for uwsmom (and anybody else) to feel depress from time to time.

uwsmom...i love the personal excort that was very cool.

I'm just rich.

wonderbra! long time no see (well, i'm sure you are one of the usual suspects with multiple personalities)

I know a guy who owns his taxi medallion and he works his ass off 7 days a week (except major holidays), 14 hours a day, just to crack $80K.

No thanks.

Pandaboy: I think you have proved your own point that common sense beats the over educated all day.

p09, i'm not sure i get that.

uwsmom, no worries. when and if you have the time.

10023, a bit of a generalization, i'd think. i'm certain there are at least a few amongst us who have grounds for depression (although as a biological condition, i'm not sure grounds are needed). long-term unemployment, etc.

I know a guy who owns his taxi medallion and he works his ass off 7 days a week (except major holidays), 14 hours a day, just to crack $80K.
No thanks.
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interesting matt. from what i've saw, the average full time driver that leases takes home $30k (not sure with or without tips). when did your you started? that will make a huge difference (same with the harvard lawyers from this discussion), as the financing costs of buying the credit fueled over inflated medallion are not there.

10023, a bit of a generalization, i'd think.
AR, a bit of an understatement. it took me back to the days i had to go to mass... sounded very much like catholic-speak... ending as always with me asking "and who the h*ll are you to tell us how to behave, feel and think again?"

lol. REPENT!
At least i don't have to live in this thread.

"at least i don't have to live in this thread."

that kind of reminded me of the movie Brazil.

As always, people on this board are being a bit nasty. I don't think pandaboy was trying to be arrogant - just asking an honest question.

My view is something in the middle - this city is very, very desirable and is always going to be very expensive, but real estate is still probably too expensive. I don't see us going back to '90s pricing. The city is more desirable than it was in the mid 90s, and families are staying here. Public schools have gotten better. People are saying "I'd rather cram my family into a 2BR/small 3BR that costs the same amount as a huge house in the suburbs - but it's worth it to me to be in a city, not have to commute, I don't need a car, etc." Of course, a lot of people in this city make tons of money, even more so then 15 years ago, due to the finance boom. A lot of this has been shaken out/will be shaken out, but not all of it.

That said - leverage is a part of the reason. My husband works in commercial real estate, and recentely he was speaking on a panel with a top NYC residential broker. On the panel, the guy said something telling. He said the average buyer of $3-4mm apartment was making $500-$600k in 2005.

So, my view is - we're not going back to 1996 pricing. But 2005+ prices aren't right either. My guess is we end up somewhere in the middle - 2002-2003 pricing. If I had to put a number, I'd say rennovated apartment in the very best parts of Manhattan (UES west of Lex, Gold Coast in the West Village) etc. will trade at $1000psf. "Off prime" neighbhorhoods with decent schools - like Yorkville and Murray Hill- will end up in the $600-$700psf range. This is just a guess, of course - who knows?

> He said the average buyer of $3-4mm apartment was making $500-$600k in 2005.

wow, that's more than 6 times income. guess that if those that bought on the range $1-3 million were that over-leveraged too we would be seeing more walking aways, more people underwater and more defaults.

kspeak..I kinda buy your logic/view. What about condo prices, dividing roughly betw/ 1) ultraglam, 2) luxury new, and 3) getting old run of the mill.

kspeak, why don't you see us going back to 90's pricing? i do. everything is pointing down. with inflation i think we are at the 2004ish level, finally, for many properties. yes, the wealthy have been feeling saucy again recently (closed sales), but one wonder how much sauce there is left there.

and your husband is in cre?

You do? Aboutready, you do? You are an unemployed woman with a bachelors in psychology. No real estate background. No finance background. No legal background. And you can't even take care of your own home.

I have to say, I can't get over the fact that. the 600sf apartment I rented in 2000 for 2850 or so, literally now rents for about the same thing. The price rose from 380 (which would be about 475, adjusted for inflation), to 760 or so, and now maybe would fetch 600k.

In real terms in a prime area rents are down say 25% (im using the cpi calculator).

down vs 10 years ago i meant to say

hi sweets! so nice of you to show. did you have something substantive to add? no? you can't? you dont' know how? i'm sorry.

> kspeak, why don't you see us going back to 90's pricing? i do.

me too, in real terms. but how fast depends on the length of the recession/stagnation, jobs, credit cost and availability and on what happens with underwater over leveraged homeowners. i'm just beginning to see short sales in manhattan. shocked it took so long!

AR, how is law doing in terms of hiring/salaries? is it improving?

> No finance background.

that's a plus when it comes to dealing with bubbles (i'm impaired by a finance background myself)

Why are you on this thread aboutready? It was about what people did for a living.

You do nothing for a living.

Since I do something for a living, I belong here before you do.

Ironic, ain't it?

Irregardless.

by the way, was this the best you could come up with?: "hi sweets! so nice of you to show. did you have something substantive to add? no? you can't? you dont' know how? i'm sorry."

who is vesi?....i dont recall that poster...sounds vaguely italian...planning a vacation?

notadmin, the layoffs have largely subsided in the firms. but the hiring for the new classes is really anemic. many firms have delayed start dates so long in the hopes that future employees will get the message and find another job.

when my husband was a summer associate at one of the top firms in the city, the partner joked, only half jokingly, that 45 summer associates were an extreme number, and he didn't think he'd see those numbers again ever. this wasn't THAT long ago.

vesi sounds like a nick name of the other guy hs...

vesi..use of the phrase "by the way" is meant to be reserved for parenthetical asides to a thematic, substantive discussion, which presupposes that such preceded use of that phrase.....

just a tip.....

aboutready should not be allowed to comment on threads involving employment or careers. she should stick to comps, toilets, plungers, woe-is-me discussions, complaints about judges, entitlements, and seeking pity because he mother died or her daughter got sick temporarily - because no one else has a mother who died or child who has gotten sick

go away and come back when you're only half warped

vesi, you do something for a living? wow. you've revealed something. what, pray tell?

is that the best you can do?

yes.

notadmin, the layoffs have largely subsided in the firms. but the hiring for the new classes is really anemic. many firms have delayed start dates so long in the hopes that future employees will get the message and find another job.

when my husband was a summer associate at one of the top firms in the city, the partner joked, only half jokingly, that 45 summer associates were an extreme number, and he didn't think he'd see those numbers again ever. this wasn't THAT long ago.
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but those delayed guys get some $ meanwhile, right? didn't get the extreme #, too low? or too high? (have absolutely no clue what's normal hiring levels at the avg big law firm)... the peak in hiring happened from 2004-2007?

remember that at columbia law school they expected no decrease in applications due to the lack of hiring. i'm very skeptical about this if it continues. it's just too much risky debt to take on.

I'm so rich.

vesicomm1
3 minutes ago
is that the best you can do?

aboutready
1 minute ago
yes.

fair enough, explains a lot: why you can't work and why you want everyone else to cover for you.

My dream is to buy one of those beautiful mansions on the Upper East Side owned by like the Russian Government, for instance.

I need at least $80M. For now, I'll settle with a sub-$20M apartment.

wonderboy

and frothy

vesi
have fun

thanks wonderboy. how many toilets will be in your $20 million apartment? how many in the $80 million apartment? do you need an acerbic celtic whore to hang around and complain all day?

(aboutready, if wonderboy says yes, we might have found you a job)

and vesi, we may have found you a job as well! i can't imagine anyone with any real purpose going after this, so good on you!