Results tagged “rich”

Much like Halley's Comet, a playboy that spends as much money as mysterious Malaysian man Taek Jho Low only "comes around once in a lifetime," according to Manhattan nightclub owners. The city's club owners have been fighting to woo the Wharton Business School alum, who has spent tens of thousands of dollars purchasing more than 100 bottles of Cristal champagne in a single night, according to Page Six. Little is known about the 28-year-old other than his big spending habits, his address at the ritzy the Park Imperial, and his celebrity pals — and sources say he'd like to keep it that way. A friend, who described Low as a "dealmaker with interests in the Mideast and Asia in construction, oil and gas," told the paper: "He's not an arms dealer. And he doesn't want all this publicity."

With its latest list of the 400 richest Americans, Forbes finds that Mayor Bloomberg is holding steady at as NYC's richest rich person. He's number 8 on the list between a Walton (of Wal-Mart) and Charles Koch.

Don’t feel so smug if you belong to that tiny percentage of Americans who earn $400,000 a year (or more); to astonishingly wealthy plutocrats like Mayor Bloomberg, you’re still just small potatoes. Asked about the manufactured Republican outcry over Barack Obama’s allegedly extravagant date night in New York, Bloomberg defended the First Couple’s getaway, telling reporters, “The president does not get paid that much. He is on a budget, too.” Well, from Bloomberg’s rarefied perch atop Mount Moneypiles, we probably all look like Dickensian waifs struggling to sell our hair to the wig maker for halfpence, but to the average American, Obama’s hardly “on a budget.” City Room breaks down Obama’s current income: $400,000 a year salary, a $50,000 expense account, a $100,000 nontaxable travel account and a $19,000 entertainment budget. His total compensation package, $569,000 a year, is 11 times the median household income in the U.S., which is around $50,000. Of course, when you've got two private jets; homes in Bermuda, Florida, Colorado and London; and $16 billion in walking around money, you must wonder how poor souls like the President make do on half a million.

That NYC cab driver turned billionaire has pleaded guilty to charges that he violated the Endangered Species Act by attempting to import 29 rare dead animals into the US aboard his yacht. You may recall Tamir Sapir as the Georgian man who rose from immigrant hack to Russian oil and real estate tycoon, ultimately buying the city's most expensive townhouse across from the Metropolitan Museum for $40 million in 2006. But Florida Customs officers who peered inside his yacht in 2007 know him better as a dealer in dead endangered wildlife.

'Eek, don't raise taxes on the rich!' Bloomberg and other plutocrats warn, or else they'll defiantly tie their sweaters around their necks and move somewhere else, where the lower orders have a better appreciation for trickle-down economics. But according to a pretty thorough article in today's Times, there's actually scant evidence that an income tax hike on the wealthy will engender a Park Avenue strewn with tumbleweed. In fact, after 9/11, the state and the city imposed a temporary surcharge on incomes of more than $100,000, and a comptroller study suggests it had little impact on those who make over $250K.

Mayor Bloomberg repeated a familiar refrain during his radio show on WOR yesterday: Why taxing the rich isn't a great idea. He said, "We can tax the rich, except that, if you haven't looked at the stock market lately, they aren't making any money."

Time to break out the world's smallest violin again: With President Obama's proposed $500,000 cap on executive compensation—at firms receiving federal bailout money—the plight of the rarefied rich is examined in the NY Times. Today, the Times gives us details like this: "Private school: $32,000 a year per student. Mortgage: $96,000 a year. Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year. Nanny: $45,000 a year. We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet." Then there's the personal trainer, the gowns for the galas, children's private tutors, four-star vacations... OMFG, Houston is looking pretty good! Holly Peterson, who wrote The Manny and whose dad Peter founded the Blackstone group, puts it dramatically: "Five hundred thousand dollars means taking their kids out of private school and selling their home in a fire sale.” A few days ago, the Times asked some people to remember back when they made $500,000.

In his $6.6 million divorce settlement two years ago, big shot real-estate lawyer Steven Simkin (pictured) paid his ex-wife Laura Blank $2.7 million to buy out her half of their Madoff investment, which he thought was worth $5.4 million. Now, according to his attorneys, the "account" is worthless, "literally not worth the paper on which the parties' valuation rested." So Simkin wants some of that money back, because "Laura has been unjustly enriched, having received millions of dollars based on an illusory and exaggerated value attributed to the 'account.'" Blank, who works for CUNY, tells the Post she isn't really feeling Simkin's pain: "What he's doing is outrageous. He made a poor investment choice and it's his problem." Just as every bum's lot in life is his own responsibility, regardless of who he chooses to blame!

As he grapples with a $15.4 billion budget deficit for this year and next, Governor Paterson voiced his opposition to taxing the rich. According to the Post, Paterson explained, "What I'm saying is if you tax the rich right now, while the economy is disintegrating, you're going to lose jobs and you're also going to lose from the tax base as people leave the state. In my opinion, you're [compounding] the problem, not eradicating it. I don't think that taxing the rich is the best way to go right now." (That's also a refrain Mayor Bloomberg has made.) On the other hand, Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver is all for taxing upper income brackets: In remarks to the United Teachers Federation, Silver said, "Clearly, as a state, we need to ask ourselves if the best way to balance the budget is to make deep cuts in our classrooms or to ask the wealthiest New Yorkers to contribute a little bit more?" Which makes the Legislature's and Paterson's apparent agreement on a budget (press conference happening in Albany now) more interesting!

Federal Magistrate Ronald Ellis's decision to allow scammer Bernard Madoff to remain out on bail means that his neighbors at 133 East 64th Street must endure more, most likely, unwelcome attention to their rarefied Upper East Side co-op. The NY Times' Susan Dominus revealed that Madof sent them a note ("printed out on simple white paper, with letterhead formatted by word processor") a few weeks ago:

Dear neighbors,

Continue reading "More Semi-Free Range Madoff"

Meet Mathias Guerrand-Hermes: Polo player, heir to the French fashion house Hermès, petulant crotch-grabber. The 36-year-old socialite is in the papers today after being arraigned in Brooklyn federal court over a nasty incident aboard an Air France flight from Paris to JFK on Tuesday. Prosecutors say it all started when Guerrand-Hermes—loaded on booze and the pain medication Propofan—began pestering a female passenger in first class. When her husband told him to step off, Guerrand-Hermes, who was perched on the lady's armrest, simply moved in closer.

There's an entire Flickr set of photos designed to make you boil over with envy on this fine summer day, it's called: Rich People Rooftops NYC. While they are all lacking a Ronald McDonald--gardens, hot tubs, patio furniture and multi-level luxury are all present and accounted for in the rooftop wonderlands. Too bad there's not an aerial shot of the roof house on 13th and 3rd, but these images will probably stir up enough jealousy for one day. [via Curbed]

Millionaire Richie Randazzo, the lotto-winning Park Avenue doorman who wanted to keep it real by keeping his job at the luxury condo, has been fired at last, the Post reports. Last week Randazzo told the tabloids that the management had been threatening to terminate him because he was "spending too much time outside the building." It continues to be a rough week for the blue collar playboy; on Monday news broke that his new bombshell girlfriend is charged with “promoting prostitution” at a Jersey strip club. But despite rumors that the strippers/hookers hated her, one dancer at the club defends Randazzo’s special lady friend: “They're just mad because she got the $5 million doorman. That's what they all dream about.”

Despite winning $5 million with the "Set for Life" scratch-off game last May, Park Avenue doorman Richie Randazzo is determined to keep his job, where he earns $40,000 a year plus tips. But his attempt to move into the building was stymied, and now he says the management is trying to fire him “for spending too much time outside the building and wearing short-sleeve shirts.” Randazzo tells the Post, "They are jealous. They're running [the apartment building] like the Gestapo. You're required to stand all the time. They want you to look like a soldier." Other unreasonable demands include opening doors and signing for deliveries.

The Federal Reserve Board may be sending distress signals about a “prolonged and severe economic downturn,” but ultrarich individuals like hedge fund manager Lee Tachman aren’t sweating it; the 38-year-old Tachman just spent $50,000 on a four day vacation to Miami with three of his bros. According to a ‘Happy Monday’ article in the Times, Tachman’s crew rolled with a “private jet, helicopter, Hummer limousine, Ferraris and Lamborghinis; stayed in V.I.P. rooms at Casa Casuarina, the South Beach hotel that was formerly Gianni Versace’s mansion; and played 'extreme adventure paintball' with former agents of the DEA.”

Taxes Paid: $33,783,507Clinton campaign spokesman Jay Carson's statement also says, "The Clintons have now made public thirty years of tax returns, a record matched by few people in public service. None of Hillary Clinton's presidential opponents have revealed anything close to this amount of personal financial information. " As Politico's Ben Smith points out, there's still $18 million of the Clintons' income that's not accounted for.

Yesterday Forbes magazine, in their annual ranking of the rich, declared New York City is no longer the billionaire capital of the world. Where have all the dollar signs gone? To Moscow, of course, who beat us out by 3 billionaires (they have 74 to our 71).

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released data showing Manhattan as the country's highest paid place. Thanks to financial executives' salaries, the average weekly salary for a Manhattanite is $2,821. The next highest weekly salary in the country is Fairfield, Connecticut - $1,979. The figure reflect the heady first quarter of 2007. The rest of New York City residents make more modest amounts. Queens residents make an average of $831/week, followed by $788 made in...