Manhattan real estate is some of the priciest in the world.
As a comparison, consider this: across the United States, the median rent is $959 per month. In Manhattan, however, the average is more than triple that number at $3,109 per month.
So, what makes New York so special, and why Manhattan in particular? Well, for starters, it’s small, very small. In fact, it only covers 23.7 square miles and is the most densely populated area in NYC. It also has limited parking, which is nearly as rare as unicorns in New York, so people are willing to pay a pretty penny for that convenience. Plus, just about everything is expensive here, including construction costs and property taxes. Landlords and sellers charge a lot for Manhattan real estate to offset these expenses – and because they can.
Many celebrities call Manhattan home. As you can imagine, certain neighborhoods (and even blocks or buildings) attract more A-listers than others. If you want to live next door, you’ll have to pay up. Considering it?
After months of internal squabbling and doubts, House Republicans passed their tax proposal on Thursday, a major step forward for a House GOP that has thus far been unable to deliver on any major piece of President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The House passed the bill 227-205, with 13 Republicans joining every Democrat in opposing the measure, which would lower individual tax brackets, dramatically cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, and nearly double the standard deduction while eliminating a slew of smaller write-offs.
But even as Republicans celebrated the passage of their tax plan, the public perception of the bill is less than stellar. According to the most recent polling, most Americans believe they won’t see a tax cut from the GOP tax plan. In fact, only about 25 percent of Republicans believe they will pay less as a result of the measure, while 47 percent of Americans believe Trump will pay less.
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Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) led Republicans in passing their tax plan Thursday.
George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager and a major Democratic donor, has given $18 billion to his Open Society Foundations, one of the largest transfers of wealth ever made by a private donor to a single foundation.
The gift, made quietly over the past several years but disclosed only on Tuesday, has transformed Open Society into the second-biggest philanthropic organization in the United States, behind the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It will also place Mr. Soros, a lightning rod for conservative critics, squarely in the middle of the social and political debates convulsing the country.
Founded by Mr. Soros more than 30 years ago, Open Society promotes democracy and human rights in more than 120 countries. In recent years, the organization has increased its attention on the United States, investing in programs to protect gays and lesbians and reduce abuses by the police.
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George Soros at the offices of the Open Society Foundations in New York in 2014.Credit Joshua Bright for The New York Times
In a hot, dry field near a place called Humpty Doo in Australia’s Northern Territory, scientists are racing to begin an experiment that could determine the future of the world’s most popular fruit, the lowly banana.
Dodging the occasional crocodile, researchers will soon place into the soil thousands of small plants that they hope will produce standard Cavendish bananas — the nicely curved, yellow variety representing 99 percent of all bananas sold in the United States. But in this case, the plants have been modified with genes from a different banana variety.
An insidious fungus known as fusarium wilt has wiped out tens of thousands of acres of Cavendish plantations in Australia and Southeast Asia over the past decade. And the fungus recently gained a foothold in Africa and the Middle East, hitching a ride on the boots of workers helping to establish new plantations. Scientists say Latin America, the source of virtually all the bananas eaten in the United States, is next.
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The Australian lab of James Dale is trying to develop more-nutritious and disease-resistant bananas. (Mike Kuhn/Queensland University of Technology) (Photographer: Mike Kuhn/Queensland University of Technology)
Britain is rushing to help more than 100,000 travelers get back to the country after it suffered its largest ever airline collapse.
“This is an unprecedented response to an unprecedented situation,” British Transport Minister Chris Grayling said Monday, describing the measures following the sudden bankruptcy of Monarch Airlines as “the country’s biggest ever peacetime repatriation.”
All Monarch flights to and from the U.K. have been canceled. That leaves roughly 110,000 Monarch customers — whom the airline was meant to fly back to the U.K. in the next two weeks — stuck overseas, according to the country’s Civil Aviation Authority.
The agency said it’s organizing replacement flights to bring the travelers home, describing the crisis as “the biggest ever U.K. airline failure.”
The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a “Federal Benefit Payment?” I’ll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it.
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The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.” This isn’t a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.
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If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that’s close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.
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If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you’d have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved!
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This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you’d receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.
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That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration. (Google it – it’s a fact).
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And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you’re 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.
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Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger “Ponzi scheme” than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer.
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But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult to injury, they’re calling it a “benefit”, as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.
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Just because they borrowed the money doesn’t mean that our investments were a charity!
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Let’s take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government.
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Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it.
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Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.
Carrie Fisher’s estate will go to her daughter Billie Lourd, as the late actress’ final assets were revealed.
The 24-year-old will inherit her mother’s estimated $25million fortune, including bank accounts, luxury vehicles, personal items and rights to Fisher’s image.
Lourd will likely receive the profits from the sale of her mother and grandmother’s $18million Beverly Hills estate, court documents revealed Friday.
This is the latest news surrounding Fisher’s sudden death, which occurred in late December.
A recently released autopsy found the 60-year-old had cocaine, heroin and ecstasy in her system when she died following a heart attack.
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Lourd is the only child between Fisher and celebrity talent executive Bryan Lourd. Pictured: Lourd weeks before her mother’s death (top) and the mother and daughter in 2015 (bottom)
The paper tablet for people who prefer paper. Here to replace your notebooks, sketchbooks and printouts. Paper-like reading, writing and sketching with digital powers.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
One57
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Better paper. Better thinking.
James' World 2 