It's an amazing and sad story that speaks volumes about today's America.
The poor guy couldn't have helped getting taken by his ex-wife, backed by the power of the state, but these days we know better. However, our reporter, saddled with $4,000 monthly child support and alimony payments - and that is after tax - he went out and did it again, marrying a woman with a minor child.
What shines through in this article is how privileged he and his wife thought themselves to be. They were spending money they didn't have because they believed that anyone in their class, with their education, had a right to, and because life just doesn't seem worthwhile without boatloads of stuff. Moreover, nothing is too good for the kids either.
Now we're all paying for the indulgences of fools like these. Saved and invested prudently all your life? Tough, you and your children and grandchildren now have to do your patriotic duty and pay confiscatory taxes in perpetuity.
You do have to hand this reporter something: writing about what a complete fool you were in the pages of the country's biggest newspaper takes a strange kind of courage.
The woman seemed really awful to me, a complete spendthrift. And if the guy said anything, she seems to get angry.
ReplyDeleteNot that the guy is good at handling money either.
You should check out Megan McCardle's silly take on this article: "Debt: A Writer's Life". Some interesting comments follow.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed (if that's the right word) this article. Entangling. The alimony and child support were the ticking time bombs, but he thought he was about to begin his life anew, and the desire to do so is completely understandable.
ReplyDeleteLife can be treacherous; choose carefully. The second wife was looking for someone to take care of her and got pissed off when she discovered he didn't make enough to render her life worry-free. We've all witnessed this phenomenon countless times.
Good grief, how much does the guy make? Or put another way, how much do you have to make before $4000 a month is "fair"? If I had to cough up $4000 pre-tax every month, I wouldn't be thinking about another mortgage, I'd be sleeping in my car. What is the guy's incentive to work at all?
ReplyDeleteThe reporter made $120-a-year, but paid out 48K in child support/alimony.
ReplyDeleteThat left him with 72K per year in income, but remember that child support and alimony ARE NOT tax deductible, so he still pays taxes as if he made 120 per year.
To be realistic, you might as well "add" about 6K to the 48 and call it 54K a year, leaving him with $66K a year as his "real" income.
The $480K house was the big "oops". That home is not very nice at all. They should have moved out in the sticks and gotten a similar house for $200K and bought a used high-mileage Corolla for him to commute. If you make 66K a year, 480,000$ homes are not for you, 200,000$ homes are. That was his big mistake.
That second wife was looking at his "status" job, and never thought about dollars and cents. He will probably be getting another divorce I'd imagine. miles
The house was definitely an "oops" but I think the bigger cause of this was his first marriage failing. Generally speaking it seems like a normal man in this country and time can just afford a wife and kids and a home. But he can't afford two sets of the above, which is what this fellow was trying to do.
ReplyDeleteImagine that he and his first wife had been a little more mature, a little more realistic, and had worked through their marital problems and found a way to grow up a little and stay together. Their kids would still have both parents, the family would be intact, that first family home would continue to be affordable, the money problems would never have come to pass.
I think this is not so much a story about the mortgage world as it is a story about what happens to people who start families and then can't work through their problems together.
and thease are the people that control what the country thinks about.
ReplyDeleteThe reporter made $120-a-year, but paid out 48K in child support/alimony. No way.
ReplyDeleteI made 128,000 last year and only paid around 12,000 in child support. The order is from California which is probably just as high as New York rates for child support.
DanielJ,
ReplyDeleteThis is what the ARTICLE says about the reporters finances:
"The only problem was money. Having separated from my wife of 21 years, who had physical custody of our sons, I was handing over $4,000 a month in alimony and child-support payments. That left me with take-home pay of $2,777, barely enough to make ends meet in a one-bedroom rental apartment"
This guy got a much more raw deal than you did, I imagine the alimony was high if his wife hadn't worked, etc. Im happy for you thought Daniel..........12K a year is as much child support as a guy should pay for a couple of kids. They are NOT that expensive to raise, despite what feminists groups moan about.
Miles.
What robs me of nearly all sympathy for this guy is his spendthrift ways. It's always seemed to me that you save for a rainy day, be careful with your money, etc., but everything he did seemed to throw caution to the wind. In the old, old days, people didn't get married unless they could afford it by being able to set up their own household. This reporter married the second time when it should have been clear that he needed to be careful. "Overdraft" protection? He just kept writing checks for more money than he had. What a loser.
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of surprised by the response here, because usually you guys are like, oh my god, women are so awful.
ReplyDeleteThe second wife is not a good woman. She is a spendthrift. She seems to be the one who's driving the ludicrous spending.
Not that's he fabulous on this matter, but he simply does not seem to be able to rein in her spendthrift ways.
---
He says that he and his wife didn't feel romantic when they were in high school. But my impression is that *she* did not feel romantic about him. And finally, when she reached her late forties and was divorced with children, she dropped down to his league and he was able to get her.
He says he didn't know anything about his spendthrift ways until after they married. My guess is that he was just grateful and overjoyed to be married to her and didn't do due diligence.
He and his 2nd wife are Argentinians.
ReplyDeleteNo need to say more.
You guys are being way too cynical. Dig this:
ReplyDelete“You lied to me,” she told me as I got coffee. “You said that what I saw on the outside was pretty much what you were. But you’re completely different. If I had known what you were really like, I would never have come out here.”Sounds like she's head-over-heels in love to me. Sounds like she's in for the long haul.
Back to reality, look at the two pictures provided in the article. They tell the story of this marriage all by themselves. She's several rungs above his league, but she made a lot of mistakes with a lot of men, and he is her emergency landing: not ideal by any means, but better than crashing into the treeline. He is highly malleable, utterly without dignity, and makes six-figures. The ideal provider for the modern woman.
This guy got a much more raw deal than you did, I imagine the alimony was high if his wife hadn't worked, etc. Im happy for you thought Daniel..........12K a year is as much child support as a guy should pay for a couple of kids. They are NOT that expensive to raise, despite what feminists groups moan about.Mine is for one kid and there is no alimony involved.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to factor that in to his totals.
My ex is remarried and working so I imagine I pay for her day care or half their rent and I think that is pretty fair.
Imagine that he and his first wife had been a little more mature, a little more realistic, and had worked through their marital problems and found a way to grow up a little and stay together. Their kids would still have both parents, the family would be intact, that first family home would continue to be affordable, the money problems would never have come to pass.What is her incentive to "work through the problem" if she can have the government make him give her $48K, and there's not a thing he can do about it? She doesn't have money problems, he does, and I bet she doesn't give a damn about his money problems.
ReplyDeleteAnon @6:38am is right, the second wife is dreadful. Could she possibly have been unaware of his money problems when she married him? She certainly didn't adjust her lifestyle or expectations accordingly.
Back to reality, look at the two pictures provided in the article. They tell the story of this marriage all by themselves. She's several rungs above his league ..
ReplyDeleteYou can tell that by looking at a picture? I have to admit, I don't see it.
They were both students at an American high school in Argentina. I suspect, particularly based on the last names, that she is Argentinian, and he an American whose father was either a businessman or a diplomat in Buenos Aires.
ReplyDeleteHe describes her as "brainy, regal, sexy, fiery and eclectic."
She has been brainy enough to keep him on the hook for years, and to reel him in when she felt he was needed. I think regal can best be translated as "haughty, bitchy, and overbearing." As for fiery, this is not, in my opinion, an attractive attribute in a woman, certainly not in a woman one would ever consider marrying. It may be fun to clash from time to time in a torrid fling, then have some angry, animalistic make-up sex; it won't be quite that way with someone you have to deal with everyday, share a house with, finaces with, etc. I don't think marital sex can be, or even should be, particularly torrid at the age of 50. Which brings us to sexy (yeah, I know I've gotten out of order). There is no such thing as a sexy 50 year old woman. No, I'm not trying to echo roissy, whom I'm sure will chime in on his own eventually. A genetically fortunate and very well maintained 50 year old can be attractive for her age, which, however, is just not the same thing as sexy, for a host of biological reasons that don't need to be detailed here. Looking at the photograph, I can believe that she may have once been sexy, but that was then, and this is now. Arguably, she's doing pretty well for her age. Finally, there's eclectic; I guess he means that she has a lot of interests (finance, saving for the future, and approaching monetary issues in a rational way not among them).
There's an old saying, grow up, or don't grow old. For this disaster to be contained, both of them are going to have to grow up fast. Which isn't particularly likely. He should have looked for a 40 year old teacher or nurse. Much better companionship prospect.
Black Sea: Good observations. I couldn't help but notice that in the photos they are wearing his and her (almost) khaki trousers, and it makes at least one of them (him) look stupid and, dare I say, beta. They also have their hands in their pockets in both photos, making them look slovenly; in the old days, one cared about one's appearance before the world, but to my mind their slovenliness in dress is all of a piece with slovenliness in financial matters.
ReplyDeleteShe is also as tall or taller than he, which lends some evidence to her "settling" for him. The fact that he's wearing not only nearly identical khakis as his wife, but also wearing the tired blue shirt-khaki combo marks him as one afraid to present a masculine image, perhaps a reflection of his true personality as a hopeless beta. A man with any balls would have taken their financial situation in hand long before it got that bad, regardless of what his shrewish wife thought about it.
How pathetic that the guy paid $460K for a totally unremarkable looking home like that!
ReplyDeleteUnremarkable-looking but extremely expensive house, unremarkable-looking but extremely expensive wife... damn you chose poorly, dude.
I bet this guy subscribes to this magazine:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.anvari.org/fun/Gender/Whipped_Magazine_for_Men.html
Dennis, I've softened on Roissy somewhat since that discussion here a few months ago, but with all due respect, I think you're reading too much Roissy. Do you really think it's possible to tell so much about a person's mind by looking at two pictures of him on the internet? How did you know he didn't choose khakis first, then his wife followed suit? And what is wrong with a blue shirt and khakis anyway?
ReplyDeleteThe fact that he didn't take charge of his finances, as you point out, is much more damning of his masculinity than wearing a typical business casual outfit.
I think you're reading too much Roissy.Guilty as charged.
ReplyDeleteDo you really think it's possible to tell so much about a person's mind by looking at two pictures of him on the internet?In short, yes. The way a man presents himself to the world says a lot about who he is and what he thinks.
And what is wrong with a blue shirt and khakis anyway?I'm hardly a man of the world, so I'm open to correction here, but I doubt that that's been business casual for about ten years. In any case, the stylishness of that look is long gone, and to my eyes looks dowdy and un-masculine.
"And what is wrong with a blue shirt and khakis anyway?I'm hardly a man of the world, so I'm open to correction here, but I doubt that that's been business casual for about ten years. In any case, the stylishness of that look is long gone, and to my eyes looks dowdy and un-masculine."I don't think that look was ever about stylishness. I think it's about conformity and safety. A lot of men are clueless about fashion, and absent the structure of having to wear a suit, business casual might be a little bit of a minefield for them. I think I know why unconsciously this look might seem beta to you: most alpha types in the corporate world (e.g., salesmen, senior executives) wear suits, while tech, ops, and other back-office guys wear this.
ReplyDeleteDepends on the workplace, I guess, but the blue shirt/khaki pants look is still nearly ubiquitous in the NYC area -- so much so that I joked to my girlfriend that someone ought to wear a khaki shirt and blue pants just to be different. Would you consider a guy who wore a khaki shirt and blue pants more alpha?
Would you consider a guy who wore a khaki shirt and blue pants more alpha?Yes. As long as his wife wasn't wearing the same thing while standing next to him. I think you gave a good explanation of what the khakis and blue shirt are about and why it means what it does. If I were an economics reporter for the NYT, I wouldn't wear that combo for a photo shoot.
ReplyDeleteThat guy is a victim of emotional blackmail by his second wife. Women who spend more than they make are to be avoided by like the plague.
ReplyDeleteDennis-
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think he should be wearing? Suit pants? Jeans?
Gosh, I'm no fashion plate, but something a little more masculine and less frumpy.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, over on the Clusterstock thread on this topic (http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-how-i-became-a-subprime-borrower-and-blew-myself-up-2009-5)
a commenter claimed that he knew this guy and that he was the one who left his first marriage, apparently because he just had to have this spendthrift he's now married to.
There's also one practical aspect of khakis, for engineer types who work on construction sites: khaki is the same color as dirt, and matches the sort of rugged shoes you might wear on a work site. But I agree that the guy didn't need to drone it up for the photo shoot, particularly since he doesn't even dress that way for work (I'm sure he wears suits when covering the Federal Reserve). Unless that's the way he usually dresses on his days off.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I hope there's some way that Chase can sue him for his book royalties.
Dennis, I've softened on Roissy somewhat since that discussion here a few months ago, but with all due respect, I think you're reading too much Roissy.
ReplyDeleteI'll take that as sufficent cue to note that there was an interesting discussion at Austers recently about "the nature of women", for lack of a better description. One of the Roissyians there was making the usual Roissyian points - women want to be beaten. Our hapless writers woman seems not to have gotten the memo.
Subotai
The Blue Oxford Shirt and Khaki pants seems to be the uniform of a lot of middle management. That look also abounds in academia and a lot of technical and supposedly technical organizations, like NASA.
ReplyDeleteNothing says "P-whipped half-a-shell-of-a-man whose life is already over" quite like those Dockers duds.
I'd also note that It also used to be the uniform for these up-and-coming young professionals:
http://www.zuguide.com/index.php#Escape-from-Alcatraz
They even had that top-button Duran-Duran look going.
For my own part I wish we could go back to suits, Fedoras, and Homburgs.
I had no idea khakis were making women detest me. Guess I'm going to need a new wardrobe.
ReplyDeleteIf khakis are unmasculine, and suits, fedoras, and homburgs are currently seen as overdressing, what is a guy supposed to wear?
As I noted at Steve Sailer's, in the Times pictures Andrews looks like one of the Doofus Dads of television commercial infamy. It's not just what he's wearing, it's also his whip-me-again-Master hangdog expression. Also, while he's not fat, he looks soft, totally unmuscular.
ReplyDeletePeter
"what is a guy supposed to wear?"
ReplyDeleteMy own advice is to avoid compromise. For a wedding, adopt morning coat and topper; for dinner, white tie and tails; for the great outdoors, a kilt in winter, shorts in summer; for gardening, any old togs to hand.
For work, you may have to adopt whatever the uniform is, even if it is that abomination the "business suit". Naturally when you get home you will escape it immediately, donning, let us say, a smoking jacket. A smoking cap would add a stylish touch.
I had no idea khakis were making women detest me. Despise or scorn more than detest.
ReplyDeleteWoman don't want to be beaten, but they like perceiving it as within the realm of possibility as a response to extreme misbehavior on their part.
what is a guy supposed to wear?Jeans and t-shirts.
If you work in techland, than I would suggest black slacks, and an entirely unbuttoned dress shirt rolled up to your elbows if the work dress code permits it.
I rather doubt that he left his first wife for this woman.
ReplyDeleteThe reason being, his children seem to have a relationship with him. Had he left their mother, would they? I certainly wouldn't.
He also mentions that the step children seem to get along well (though he doesn't mention whether his children get along with his second wife). Again, I doubt this would be the case if he had left his first wife for his second.
I read the sad story with sympathy, anger and amusement. Last September I suffered a pulmonary embolism, heart attack and kidney cancer. Given the choice, I prefer my lot. I'll probably recover more quickly.
ReplyDeleteOff Topic
ReplyDelete'Youth Magnet' Cities Hit Midlife Crisis
Few Jobs in Places Like Portland and Austin, but the Hipsters Just Keep on Coming
The Venus statue...I notice she has no head. Those guys knew the score.
Maybe the obesity is a metaphor for her fertility?
David
Maybe the obesity is a metaphor for her fertility?Doesn't obesity have the opposite effect on fertility?
ReplyDeleteI'm hardly a man of the world, so I'm open to correction here, but I doubt that that's been business casual for about ten years. In any case, the stylishness of that look is long gone, and to my eyes looks dowdy and un-masculine.It's a look that's been popular among "alpha" fraternity boys for decades. The ensemble itself is neutral. If you're "alpha", you'll look "alpha" in it. If you're not, you'll look like the dweeb we're talking about.
ReplyDeletewhat is a guy supposed to wear?Jeans and t-shirts.
If you work in techland, than I would suggest black slacks, and an entirely unbuttoned dress shirt rolled up to your elbows if the work dress code permits it.
Maybe in "techland" that's okay, but elsewhere, it screams "trying too hard".
You want "beta"? That would be wearing your cellphone clipped to your khakis.
what is a guy supposed to wear? Jeans and t-shirts.
ReplyDeleteA guy is his mid-50s should NOT be wearing jeans and a tee shirt, least of all for a picture he knows is going to be seen by thousands of people, including coworkers and peers. The khaki / blue shirt ensemble at least projects an aura of adult dignity that jeans and a t-shirt do not.
Megan McArdle (do you read her blog) has read the book, and her summary is devastating.
ReplyDelete"Busted"
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/05/busted.php#comments
Her first post on this subject was ridiculously self-pitying.
"Debt: A Writer's Life"
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/05/debt_a_writers_life.php