Tag: Money

Living on $10,000 a day. Or even an hour.

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

The thought crept upon me the other morning as I was pondering simplicity and frugality.

Yeah, look at the flip side.

I remembered reading a recent New York Times piece on a Long Island boutique that catered to billionaires and noted the owner’s insight that they spent differently. I shrugged it off then but come back to it now.

Suppose your after-tax income came to $3½ million a year? That would be nearly $10,000 a day. (I did miscalculate and put that at $100k a day, a more interesting figure. Still!)

For perspective, the median pay for S&P 500 chiefs was $14.5 million last year, in contrast to an average $56,000 earnings for American workers.

The No. 10 guy on the list, Tim Cook at Apple, came in at $99 million in salary, benefits, and bonuses. More than $240,000 a day. That is, $10,000 an hour.

Ahead of him were the CEOs of companies like Alphabet, Peloton, Live Nation, Sarepta Therapeutics, and CS Disco, plus four I recognized. Please, can somebody tell me what the head of Pinterest is doing to make him pocket $123 million for the year? A tad under $337,000 a day?

As one scion of affluence told me a half century ago, there isn’t much real difference between a $20,000 car (today’s prices) and a $200,000 vehicle, as far as everyday performance goes. Let me add, today’s median family car is far superior to the luxury vehicles back then. Air conditioning? Seat warmers? Cruise control?

As I played with the $100,000-a-day figure, nearly twice the yearly earnings of real workers, I realized how little of that was needed for everyday expenses, even at inflated expectations – how many houses does one need, anyway, or how many hotel suites while traveling? What came into focus was the vanity opportunities: collections of antique cars, paintings, sexual playthings, political hobnobbing. Just name it and claim it.

And that’s where it gets scary, even when you scale back to $10,000 a day.

Conservatives like to quote Lord Acton’s “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” while they pursue the maximization of their personal wealth, which intensifies their power and, thus, corruptedness. Per the logic.

Renting a luxury yacht – $100,000 a week plus expenses, last time I looked – is peanuts in comparison. As is a private jet. They might even be business expenses, paid by the company.

Well, F. Scott Fitzgerald did quip, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”

But I am wondering what he’d make of today’s mutations.

What would you do, given that much at hand?

 

The Maine image versus reality

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

“Life as it should be,” as the billboards proclaim in welcoming visitors aka tourists, is a slick slogan ignoring the economic realities most working adults in the state face.

The recent death of a new high school graduate in our county who was about to enter the prestigious Maine Maritime Academy is a harsh example.

He was out lobstering, solo, and got caught up in his gear and dragged overboard.

More common is the hobbling together of three or more jobs, mostly part-time and/or seasonal and lacking paid benefits.

~*~

Yes, the state’s landscape can be breathtaking, especially in summer. But much of winter is brutal, as are the black flies come late spring, and we do have more than our share of trash weasels.

Just want you to keep your impression in balance.

Wealth and fine housing along Midcoast Maine

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

So much of what you see driving along is picture-perfect New England, reminding me of Cape Cod, if you’ve ever been there. Or maybe looked at a coffee-table photography book or colorful regional wall calendar.

As admirable as I find it, the landscape also stirs up a tinge of depression when I consider all the wealth this represents along the Seacoast well up into Maine these days. No home in neighboring Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for example sells for under a million, no matter how modest. And then there’s all the new construction, too. Even a half-million for a new condo in what looks to me more like fancy tenements. What a leap from the $13,000 waterfront home one friend bought there 35 years ago!

Moreover, as I think about all of the poverty and decay in much of Maine up my own way, I’m stuck wondering:

Who can afford this?

Just what’s their secret to living?

The joy of paying bills online

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Longtime readers of the Red Barn know my identity as a neo-Luddite, someone who resists many technological advances for ethical reasons. You know, let’s keep people employed.

But after some of you encouraged me to move ahead on the banking front, and heeding your advice, I’ve made the leap. And now I’m asking, “When is the last time I wrote a check?”

Actually, it was for cash, only because I’m still resisting the ATM option. I do like face-to-face, especially in a small town, OK? And I believe an awareness of personal spending is important.

That said, among the unanticipated consequences of the shift is the fact I no longer need to keep a separate ledger, except for the checks I actually write, and my wife has instant access to those numbers, too, for our shared expenses covered there. (I won’t get into the details of our domestic bill-paying, but it’s worked for us.)

It’s also led to my using my credit card in many small-transactions instances, much like my younger daughter,  rather than cash. As she does for a cup of coffee.

But now there are new questions, like what am I going to do with all of these commemorative postage stamps I ordered as a bargain online? In response to Donald Trump’s destruction of the U.S. Postal Service?

On the continuing toll of the Internet on the livelihoods of creative souls

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Fellow blogger Gary Hart recently had an eulogy for Outdoor Photography magazine, which prompted this comment from me:

“Your post mortem is one more story of the toll the Internet is taking on the income of many creative individuals. Freelance writers were devastated early on when their secondary markets for republication withered (anyone could already find the piece online). In professional photography, you lost sales to people who found your images posted online and were content with copies they printed out at home.

“Magazines faced a double whammy as content moved to the Web. Not only were sales and subscriptions shrinking, so was advertising, which paid most of the bills. In the case of photography, the products themselves were being rendered obsolete. Film, chemicals, papers, enlargers, darkrooms, and so on became ancient history and then, for the most part, so have cameras. What I’m getting with my cell phone, for instance, is unbelievable (though I know its imperfections, too).  As a parallel, you can discuss what happened to the professional wedding photographer.

“Finally, as much as I love paper, I’m using far less of it as either a writer or a reader. Downsizing is one reason but not the only one.”

It’s been a slow season for tourism, and even the summer rentals are down

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

From the start of our travel season, things here have felt slow. I haven’t seen as many cars as I have in the past or as many states represented in their license plates, for one thing. While there are people on the streets, they’re not crowds.

Even down on Cape Cod, summer homes are available rather than reserved long in advance.

Somehow, we’re hearing that retail sales have been holding up, but we’re also seeing more vacancies in the Airbnb options, too. (The latter hits us as good news, considering how the investment buyers have been skewering the home market away from working families we desperately need.)

Still, visitors are the key to retail businesses in our part of Maine – our version of Black Friday has already passed or soon will, unlike the day after Thanksgiving push elsewhere. Maybe the visits by cruise ships in the foliage season will provide a much needed boost.

Could much of this reflect the reality that inflation is finally pinching family budgets?

Sitting down to do our annual donations

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Rather than making most of our charitable contributions ad lib during the year, we’ve adapted a new strategy since moving Way Downeast.

This is the time of the year when we decide what we’re supporting and then make those payments.

The process means deciding between giving smaller amounts to a wider range of organizations or instead sending somewhat larger amounts focused on a few recipients.

Mailing those checks off always feels good, though we also wish we were sending more.

Regarding the median age of tradesmen

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As a passerby noted while observing renovation work in town, the median age of tradesmen in the U.S. is 57. It’s no doubt higher here in Maine and Sunrise County, especially.

There’s a lot of work needing to be done, too: carpentry, plumbing, roofing, masonry, insulating, windows … We have a long list ourselves and are still looking for help.

Forget the “Go west, young man,” advice of yore. Many youths would be well-advised to go into the construction trades, pronto. Financially, they’d be way ahead of those with a college degree but heavily in debt. They could even live wherever they want.

Hey, kids, if you love to hunt and fish or sail and camp, Sunrise County would fill your dreams. You’d definitely be welcome.

On a more personal note, send me your references and let’s talk.

 

Our feisty orchestra has played its last concert

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Last weekend the Passamaquoddy Bay Symphony Orchestra ended its run on a wild note. Our 30-some member ensemble tackled Hector Berlioz’ sprawling, opium-inspired Symphonie Fantastique in a program that also included a world premiere and a Mozart piano concerto.

It was, as usual, a daring combination.

Our sprawling county has a tad over 30,000 residents, many of them seniors, mirrored by a similar demographic in neighboring Canada. And you’re going to draw sufficient skilled musicians from that as well as a supportive audience?

Yet that’s basically what happened.

The amateur band, augmented by professional freelance “ringers,” has largely been an extension of Norwegian virtuoso violinist Trond Saevurud, its highly-charged conductor. What we’ve enjoyed are bracingly refreshing performances where impulsiveness and driving passion overcome any shortcomings in perfection or “the” definitive interpretation. It’s vibrant music-making and thrilling.

But now, after a dozen years at the helm and as the orchestra’s godfather, he’s stepping down to spend more time back home in Scandinavia.

Add to that the lingering impact of Covid, which has impaired all the performing arts. Here, the border closing cut off players and supporters on the Canadian side of the line. So much for the slogan “two countries, one orchestra.” Some musicians refused to be vaccinated and instead declined rehearsals and performances. Some concertgoers avoided live events in the intimate spaces the ensemble called home. It hurt.

A resurgence of local virus outbreaks canceled two of the three performances of a recent set of concerts, and that undoubtedly hit the finances hard. (I really was looking forward to Tchaikovsky’s first symphony, which I’ve never heard live, unlike a dozen or so renditions of his last, but I couldn’t make the remaining slot.)

That leads the PBSO to a crisis. Officially, the full ensemble is going into hiatus. Perhaps the organization can regroup, rebuild, attract a new music director, perhaps redefine itself and its mission. More likely, it will dissolve.

Locally, it’s also emblematic of how fragile our communities are. Sunrise County has high poverty levels. We’re don’t have deep pockets, either, the kind based on global conglomerate headquarters or old money. Fewer people are available for public service, especially as volunteers on city councils, school committees, town select boards, or the like.

Churches, too, are stretched thin.

You can no doubt think of many other civic interactions where you live, too.

So that’s the score for now.