Covid

MASKING SAVES LIVES

Monday, April 14, 2008

Despite Tough Times, Ultrarich Keep Spending--NYTimes

Disgusting portion below; whole stinking thing here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/nyregion/14partying.html?hp

Another time when I wish I did believe in hell.

But that still leaves plenty who are consuming away, and one of the things New Yorkers love to consume is real estate. In October, Marc Sperling, the 36-year-old president of an equity-trading company, bought a new condo on the Upper West Side in a building where four-bedroom apartments like his cost more than $4 million. When he moves into the completed building next year, he plans to hold on to his other two apartments in Murray Hill and Miami Beach — each of which he values at about $2.5 million.

Mr. Sperling views the nation’s economic slump as a temporary problem, and is grateful that it has yet to affect him. “I think if you have the means to ride it out, that’s what you do,” he said.

His view of the subprime mortgage crisis seemed to reflect a sort of inverse class resentment.

“I don’t want to sound harsh, but the people who were buying million-dollar houses with a combined household income of $70,000 or $80,000 were the ones who were chasing easy money,” he said.

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