NY Times Does SnobberyDespite all its faux support for the little guy on the editorial pages, the NY Times
still represents old money as compared to new. This article might charitably be summarized as "old rich good, new rich bad".
Nina Chandler Murray, an 85-year-old relative of the Poor family from Standard & Poor's, the investment credit rating firm, is convinced that the world of the elite was more genteel in the old days.
"Coming from a New England background, you had a honed discipline of what was expected," Dr. Murray, a psychologist, said over iced tea and chocolate chip cookies on the porch of her hillside home above the harbor. "Showing off money was a sin. It was not that status was not important, but marriage was very closely controlled and predetermined, and everyone knew where everyone else fit."Over time, some say, the new money will not prove much different. "Ultimately, the new money becomes as insular as the old money because it gains the power to exclude," said Michael Thomas, a novelist who, like his father, was a partner at Lehman Brothers and whose mother came from an old New England family. "Once you have the power to exclude, you have what people have been seeking in old money."Of course, if the Times really prefers old money to new, there's a simple way they could show it--by supporting the elimination of the estate tax, so that all this new money floating around gets a little older.
Oh, and check out this proposed solution to the high prices on the island:
To try to stem the outflow of workers the Nantucket Housing Office, a private nonprofit group, has proposed a one-time "McMansion" tax of $8 per square foot on any construction space exceeding 3,000 square feet.
The bill has several more hurdles, but if it is approved, the proceeds would be used to build housing for families making $120,825 a year or less.Only on Nantucket could families making 120 thou qualify for affordable housing.
