Posted on 07/26/2007 9:30:56 PM PDT by gpapa
So we are agreed. We are living in the second great Gilded Age, a time of startling personal wealth. In the West, the mansion after mansion with broad and rolling grounds; in the East, the apartments with foyers in which bowling teams could play. Or, on another level, the week's vacation in Disneyland or Dublin with the entire family--this in a nation in which, well within human memory, people with a week off stayed home and fixed things in the garage, or drove to the beach for a day and sat on a blanket from one of the kid's beds and thought: This is the life.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit 14000. The wealthy live better than kings. There isn't a billionaire in East Hampton who wouldn't look down on tatty old Windsor Castle. We have a potential presidential candidate who noted to a friend that if he won the presidency the quality of his life would go down, not up.
The gap between rich and poor is great, and there is plenty of want, and also confusion. What the superrich do for a living now often seems utterly incomprehensible, and has for at least a generation. There is no word for it, only an image. There's a big pile of coins on a table. The rich shove their hands in, raise them, and as the coins sift through their fingers it makes . . . a bigger pile of coins. Then they sift through it again and the pile gets bigger again.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Her columns are really starting to get on my nerves.
An Andy Rooney wannabe?
I don’t know. Maybe she’s a bore maybe she isn’t, but I am with her on this one
Why doesn't this wench to a hit piece on Oprah? If there is anyone who sticks her fingers into piles of coins and ends up making bigger piles, it's her.
She's learned how lucrative setting up charities can be. All it takes is a little seed money.
Now she's throwing her hand into politics, throwing Osama Obama a fund raiser. Politically stupid people with lots of money can be very dangerous.
I have always thought she is an airhead, but this makes me laugh. I first went to NYC from friendly Kansas when I was 18. No one spoke to anyone. It is a joke to confuse manners with indifference in a sea of anonymity. Lots of them here in S Florida walking around in their own self-absorbed cocoons and honking at every driver on the road.
I first went to NYC from friendly Kansas when I was 18. No one spoke to anyone.
How did they order food at restaurants?
how come the F it’s only a gilded age or decade of greed when a GOP is in power?
the 90s internet boom saw more market rise than Bush has seen proportionately yet the MSM never called it by a negative description
the same MSM that refuses to give Bush any credit for a strong economy
they are just waiting to blame him for a down housing cycle that is sure to occur....like it’s his fault
The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting richer. Those in between are doing well if they use their brains, and not well if they don’t.
That pattern has been constant for a long time in America.
Quit whining Noonan, you’ve gotten as tiresome as a rude waiter.
The rich would like nothing better than for you and I to be wealthy, too! It is not a zero-sum game, the pie is getting bigger every day! http://www.millionaireblueprints.com
They spoke... but no one responded. My first and only visit to NY was like this. You weren't sure the waitress took your order or not until the food arrived. I've never been in the midst of so many rude, snarly people in my entire life. You couldn't pay me to go there again.
Well, I call it home.
Peggy Noonan hits it dead-on here.
Are you a rude snarly people?
Seriously, in such a huge city is there not some variation in the local cultures - say Queens, Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and their respective neighborhoods - or is it all one big multicultural porridge of monotonous diversity? I would assume the former, based on my experience with other cities like Seattle and San Francisco - China Town, the Wharf, etc. And would local mores differ widely between areas, or is everyone in NYC generally rude at the anonymous level? Given the wide potential for who that stranger might be, I can understand a little of the rudeness. Conversely, I've heard New Yorkers (NYC) are among the warmest friends - but that I heard from a politician so don't know how much credence to give.
Never been to NYC, but actually getting pressure from family to go as a relative lives there and is getting married. Should be fun.
I didn’t say it in my first post, but I didn’t have an issue with anyone being rude in NYC.
You have my sympathy,
NYC is comprised of 10,000 different neighborhoods. You may not know the names, but you know the faces. Last week I was in my local deli and came up short a few bucks and the guy said, “pay me tomorrow.” That kind of thing happens all the time.
In regards to multiculturalism. It exists for the simple fact that people are in a confined space and have to get along to do business. And then there are distinct neighborhoods with distinct cultural flavors.
What most people take as rude is actually a form of honest efficiency.
However, the two main points that not many outside of NYC realize are these:
A)NYers live a great deal of their lives in public. The home is usually not the center for entertaining or being entertained. Even folks with large apartments entertain outside their home since friends are scattered throughout the city and it’s convenient to meet in a central location.
B)NY is about commerce. It’s the most capitalistic city on the planet. All of the liberal stuff is strictly for show.
Sorry, Peggy, Silas Marner has already been written. Maybe you could try writing a murder mystery: Godzilla Eats Moore at the Border Fence or vice-versa.
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