2 posts tagged “economics”

More financial bloodshed in the yuppie market: seems there is no taste for overpriced gourmet oddities like mango chili vinegar or chocolate covered goji berries--even if they are tasty.
 
Balducci's Makes a Quiet Exit From Manhatten

“Do you really need chipotle raspberry finishing sauce? What is finishing sauce?” asked Barbara Colasanti, a 45-year-old teacher who lives in the West Village, as she perused the scanty pickings at Balducci’s vaulted, marble-walled and echoingly empty Chelsea store at Eighth Avenue and West 14th Street. “People don’t need all this stuff. It’s a lesson.”

The closing of Balducci’s, the World War II-era gourmet market that was once the foremost pit stop for New York foodies, elicited myriad reactions from its customers, who met news of its last days in the city with surprise, sadness and, in the case of Ms. Colasanti, shrugs. Some viewed the closing as tragic, others as a necessary corrective in these newly pared-back times.

“They priced themselves out of the market, it was hubris,” said Ms. Colasanti, who was a devotee of the flagship Balducci’s at Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, which closed in 2003 and is now the site of a Citarella.

While I still maintain that those stupid bowl bathroom sinks will remain the most iconic symbol of the excess, I suppose the $5 chocolate bar can't be that far behind.

Apparently for McCain, making under $5 million a year means you are middle class.  In yet another instance illustrating how completely out of touch he is when it comes to his fat wallet, he had this to say when asked to define what it means to be "rich" in the US.  From the LA Times:

McCain took a far more discursive approach to answering the question but ultimately settled on a dramatically higher figure: "I think if you're just talking about income, how about $5 million?"

$5 million!?!  Are you serious?  Although to be fair, this is a man who is so out of touch with the cost of living and what it means to work for your living that he told an incredulous crowd that Americans wouldn't pick lettuce for $50 an hour. 

Yet the $5-million level, Smith said, includes "almost nobody." Experts said that of all the households in the nation, fewer than one-tenth of 1% had an annual income of $5 million or more.

Ken Goldstein, an economist for the Conference Board, a business-research group based in New York, said he would define rich as income about $500,000 or more. "If you set the bar at half a million, you're talking about the top 1% of taxpayers. If you think about the last eight years, those are the folks who have benefited the most."

God only knows what McCain would define as poor, but it seems clear this disconnect is the reason he is able to dismiss the very real economic problems facing every day Americans.