A rare inside look at the TOOS
Must-read NY Times article about twenty-something TOOS.
24-year-old Toby Milstein, despite being an heiress of a billionaire family, has a regular job in “business development” for a tech startup. This demonstrates, once again, how the topmost elite aspire to self-actualize by having careers, even though they have no need to earn money. Toby’s eventual inheritance may actually be more than the entire value of the company she’s working for.
And check out her Instagram.
The article also demonstrates a lot of other stuff I’ve written about the TOOS.
1. They are Democrats. Notice the Instagram post from DC where she mentions how “uplifting” it was when Obama was inaugurated the second time, and how she implies that the inauguration of Trump is the opposite. In fact, the article calls her a “social justice warrior princess.” Why do Republicans insist on trying to lower the estate tax so that these rich brats who support the other party can inherit even more money? All of the evidence is that NONE of those rich brats care enough about their inheritance being taxed to ever vote for a Republican.
2. They go to the best schools. Yale and Barnard are mentioned in the article.
3. They’re main hobby is philanthropy. “The Milstein siblings have been cutting a dash on the city’s junior philanthropy circuit recently, making sizable donations to institutions like the NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, and serving as Young Fellows of the Frick Collection.”
4. These days, the TOOS aren’t so much out of sight as they are hiding in plain sight. Probably, the people who work at the tech startup are mostly unaware that Toby is TOOS. They just wonder how she managed to already be a “Director” at the age of 24.
And the unexpected:
1. They live with their parents. The ultimate goal for the less wealthy is to show they have “made it” by not living with their parents. But not for the TOOS.
2. They believe in the supernatural and hold séances at their apartment in The Dakota.
* * *
A commenter asked, “what’s TOOS?”
That’s the top-out-of-sight class described in Paul Fussell’s book. Here I wrote a good post about that class.
Lion of the Blogosphere 
I also work at a tech start up with the daughter of a NYC billionaire. She writes code just like the rest of us.
Ben S
June 25, 2017 at 9:54 AM
is she hot?
Otis the Sweaty
June 25, 2017 at 10:04 AM
She writes code. Question answered.
Panther of the Blogocube
June 25, 2017 at 11:29 AM
question not answered. I’ve gone to coding schools with some seriously hot fellow students whom I presume are all now working writing code somewhere.
Otis the Sweaty
June 25, 2017 at 12:25 PM
The hot girls very quickly move into non-coding jobs like project or product management.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 12:26 PM
>>The hot girls very quickly move into non-coding jobs like project or product management.
This is almost always true, and the not so hot girls too. I worked an an IT headhunter for 20 years. We placed a few women who were programmers, invariably they were ) Older Russian emigres who took up programming to get a decent job. They only programmed Cobol. 2) DBAs. Some women will do this work, not that much coding. Scripting really. 3) As you said, an attractive young lady who when you called back a few years had moved on to management.
I had one exception. A young lady from Bronx Science. Spoke very well. BS Carnegie Mello Comp Scie, Ph.D program at U Mass Amherst Comp Scie. I sent her in to a very competitive hedge fund who needed good programmers and tested them with several mini-projects in C. Got a call back 2 hours later that they made her a very good offer on the spot and she accepted. I told her to come by my office, so that we could celebrate with some drinks. When she showed up, boy was I shocked. She was a dumpy looking black lady, the type you see working at McDonalds saying, “Can I helf you?”. I felt deep shame at that moment because if I had seen her before the interview I probably wouldn’t have sent the resume in, all do to my prejudice. I vowed to change myself. Take peoples qualifications as legitimate. Apparently she was an ace C programmer. Feedback was that she did very well on the challenging mini-projects. She told me that they were no big deal, she breezed right through them.
Daniel
June 27, 2017 at 10:43 PM
Her brother is gay! Damn! Crazy Jews! Holding seances is a Biblical prohibition. Sounds like these people are seriously off. So what happened at the seance? Dead people came around? The article leaves you in suspense as if something could come out of this meaningless activity. It’s a stupid article that doesn’t realy tell you very much. A waste of time. Don’t read it mates.
Lion, where did say that they live with their parents? It’s a 3 bedroom apartment, who’s gonna share this with a brother and two parents? The brother has a boyfriend and she has nobody? What a waste. Avoid the article and the paper.
Яков
June 25, 2017 at 10:01 AM
Yakov, why did you start spelling your name in Cyrillic?
CamelCaseRob
June 25, 2017 at 10:49 AM
He’s deassimilating. I think commenting here has thrown into sharp relief that he really has no place in mainstream american society.
Magnavox
June 25, 2017 at 11:12 AM
No rational reason, I did it on a whim. In America only American flag should be flown and only English should be officially used, but info space has no national borders and I can play.
יעקב
June 25, 2017 at 11:14 AM
Magna, American society needs me. I control the comfort and they eat out of my hand. I’m very powerful, but I don’t throw my weight around. When I was in IT, I controlled portfolio accounting, margin requirements, foreign currency trading among many other important system. They needed me then and they need me now, mate. My job always had meaning and power associated with it, or at least it had it for me. Obviously no one is indispensable.
You are right in a way, though. There is only so much that I fit, but it is what it is.
יעקב
June 25, 2017 at 11:48 AM
“Magna, American society needs me. I control the comfort and they eat out of my hand. I’m very powerful, but I don’t throw my weight around. ”
Yakov the ubermensch! Thus spake Zarathustra.
Curle
June 25, 2017 at 12:34 PM
I’m inspired to start writing my name in Sanskrit.
Roli
June 25, 2017 at 2:30 PM
the fact that its a biblical prohibition is probably what makes it so appealing in the first place. a big part of swpl behavior has to do with triggering proles who clings to their guns and religion
GM
June 25, 2017 at 4:18 PM
Her brother is gay! Damn! Crazy Jews! Holding seances is a Biblical prohibition. Sounds like these people are seriously off. So what happened at the seance?
Seances are Liberal WASP religious practices – Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, etc.
Secular Jews like her have been WASPs in practice since the New Deal.
The Undiscovered Jew
June 25, 2017 at 4:27 PM
The rich heirs of this country are all left wing.
This 2014 NYT article explains it all:
“White House Hosts ‘Next Generation’ Young and Rich”
“On a crisp morning in late March, an elite group of 100 young philanthropists and heirs to billionaire family fortunes filed into a cozy auditorium at the White House.”
Jimi
June 25, 2017 at 10:24 AM
Historically, people who first made their family’s fortune were conservatives. Only later did their descendants become liberals. Being sheltered and insulated from hardships makes one a lefty. I’ve gone out of my way to ensure that doesn’t happen to my kids. And so far it appears to have worked great.
destructure
June 25, 2017 at 11:15 AM
Agree completely.
I sometimes wonder how my life trajectory would have differed if a federal judge hadn’t decided to bus me and my cohort of 9 year old suburban whites to an inner city ghetto school. It took a full year for my parents to get us out of that school district, but it left a lasting impression; an impression that later, after moving across the country, always separated me from my peers. I believe that experience predisposed me to be very suspicious of the claims of social engineers.
Curle
June 25, 2017 at 2:01 PM
That’s what I had in mind. I had a similar experience.
destructure
June 25, 2017 at 8:23 PM
And in the old days, predatory assholes like Porfirio Rubirosa swindled these bleeding heart imbeciles out of all their money. Now there is no check and balance because these worthless disgraces to the human race have conservative surrogate fathers to make sure they don’t blow all their money/get into any kind of a legal bind. They are also some of the stingiest greediest people around.
They know what they are doing when it comes to their inheritance.
OldTimer
June 25, 2017 at 12:38 PM
Her Instagram is nauseating.
The “spirit cooking” conspiracy theorists are really going to love the supernatural stuff.
The piece is an elaborate homage to Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic,” which will surely go over the Milsteins’ heads. It was quite cruel, but necessary, for the NYT writer to include Toby Milstein’s unironic tribute to Leonard Bernstein’s patronage of the, uh, “Pink Panthers”.
“To Lenny!”
Richard
June 25, 2017 at 10:26 AM
in all fairness 7000 instagram followers aint really “outta sight”. she’s a low level internet celebrity for basically a nobody rich person.
james n.s.w
June 25, 2017 at 10:39 AM
Nobody with a billion dollars is a nobody.
Some Guy
June 25, 2017 at 11:53 AM
The girl who used to live in my apartment has nearly a million Instagram followers. 7,000 is nothing, and some of those followers are new followers who read the NY Times article.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 1:55 PM
I’m confused. The prior occupant has her own NYT article? Is she part of this one?
Curle
June 25, 2017 at 2:13 PM
The prior occupant of my apartment is semi-famous (but has never been the subject of a NY Times article, although her fiancee has). Toby Milstein, who has never lived in my apartment, is not famous and only has 7,000 Instagram followers.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 2:21 PM
i wish some of these TOOS would give their money to me instead. i could use it.
james n.s.w
June 25, 2017 at 10:41 AM
You are most likely to become an SJW if you have an upbringing in which you are sheltered from economic problems.
CamelCaseRob
June 25, 2017 at 10:50 AM
The average Jewish person is wealthier than the average gentile. There’s your answer.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 11:23 AM
I bet the average SJW has more pro poor economic positions than the average non SJW. They may not be a priority but they’re there.
Magnavox
June 25, 2017 at 11:37 AM
Increasing welfare payments while importing more immigrants to push them out of a job isn’t very “pro poor”. Nor is jacking up housing costs because you’re against development for environmental and antiquarian reasons.
Richard
June 25, 2017 at 11:57 AM
From her Instagram.
“An hour before this photo was taken on Weds, I was bedridden and sobbing, @laurence_ross told me to get out of bed, keep on living and fighting. #newyork #elections2016 #imstillwithher”
The best thing about Trump winning is how it drives these people crazy.
Peterike
June 25, 2017 at 10:56 AM
The reason that Republicans are not TOOS is that they discourage living off of the inherited wealth. The Republican upper class encourages entrepreneurship in their children and grandchildren so that they continue to increase the family wealth and remain upper class. The Forbes and Mellon families are good examples of this. In conservative rich families being a social justice warrior will be called out and frowned upon. They will consider you as a homo and a communist, and rightly so. Also, check out political affiliations and donations of the Top 100 and you will still see that it skew heavily Republican.
The TOOS are families that have cashed out their businesses and are content with surrendering their future position in favor of virtue signalling. They are weak and deserve to die.
B.T.D.T.
June 25, 2017 at 10:57 AM
They will die that much faster with a higher estate tax.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 11:00 AM
They don’t care if their future generation survive. In fact, most of the TOOS don’t even have kids. They have internalized the white guilt and commands of their Marxist professors.
B.T.D.T.
June 25, 2017 at 11:04 AM
Which Republicans are obsessed with getting rid of, completely contradicting BTDT’s absurd point that republicans discourage living off of inherited wealth.
Magnavox
June 25, 2017 at 11:11 AM
The TOOS laugh at the little people who think an estate tax in the USA will take their wealth away. The TOOS have all the greatest experts in legal and financial voodoo to protect them and they know Americans have no stomach for going the full fascist needed in order to put real teeth to a wealth confiscation that would actually affect TOOS.
Now, take away their monopolies, that’s something we have done and it affects future wealth which is more important.
Andrew E.
June 25, 2017 at 11:23 AM
Republicans want to get rid of the estate tax because the Republican mindset (conscientiousness) is one that encourages following “the rules.”
TOOS Leftists don’t care about the estate tax being high because they are content to cheat the tax system with complex legal structures to allow their spawn to inherit their wealth.
Panther of the Blogocube
June 25, 2017 at 11:34 AM
Andrew E: I’ve heard that theory so many times. Is there some intelligent person somewhere that has actually fleshed it out? If you can get them on incomes tax I don’t understand why you can’t get them on estate tax. And then if you really embraced far let wing ideology you would dramatically decrease their pre tax income, which is the smartest way to go for a number of reasons.
Magnavox
June 25, 2017 at 11:34 AM
Republicans want to get rid of the estate tax because the Republican mindset (conscientiousness) is one that encourages following “the rules.”
You don’t actually know any rich Republicans apparently.
Peter Akuleyev
June 25, 2017 at 12:55 PM
Andrew E: I’ve heard that theory so many times. Is there some intelligent person somewhere that has actually fleshed it out?
Anyone who’s taken a financial licensing exam and encountered the chapter on financial trusts and the astounding number of products that have been conjured up to shield wealth knows immediately that a wealth tax, short of full on capital controls and probably a genuine dictatorship, is pointless towards its supposed purpose. This is an instance where the cucky Republican rhetoric is actually true, family-owned farms that can’t go anywhere and are only worth anything as a going concern is what typically gets caught up in these schemes, and they make lawyers rich.
Besides, we’ve had laws on the books for over a century to deal with wealth inequality and a history of both Republicans and Democrats using them. It’s time the Sherman anti-trust act was dusted off again.
Andrew E.
June 25, 2017 at 7:17 PM
>>They don’t care if their future generation survive. In fact, most of the TOOS don’t even have kids. They have internalized the white guilt and commands of their Marxist professors.
It’s my impression that rich people have more kids. Uniformly the kids are more intelligent, better looking, healthier, better athletes and not saddled with mood disorders that cripple so many proles.
There is a reason these families are super successful and it likely comes down to genetics.
Daniel
June 27, 2017 at 8:52 PM
Jewish people are a minority among the Republicans.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 11:14 AM
Lots of prole Jews with Trump lawn signs in Staten Island.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 11:28 AM
Oddly enough, a Jewish majority now votes for the conservative party in both Britain and Canada.
Those parties have a platform which performs better in urban areas than the GOP, which is surely one factor, plus Muslims and anti-Israeli activists are a more potent force in the liberalism of those countries than in America, which is probably another factor, especially in Britain.
Richard
June 25, 2017 at 12:13 PM
Jews in Canada aren’t the Jews in Manhattan, and not even like those in Lion’s upbringing of SI. They are less wealthy, and their history in Canada was more of the value creation realm, aligned with what proles would say that Whites built America and now non-whites are just enjoying the fruits of their labor.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 12:58 PM
Staten Island represents an anomaly when it comes the current Jewish voting patterns and Jewish socioeconomic standing in NYC.
For every SI Jewish person with a Trump sign, there are 10 more Jews on the UWS (and now UES) with an anti-Trump stance.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 12:39 PM
Gentiles on the UWS (and now UES) are also anti-Trump.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 1:29 PM
%wise, there are significantly far fewer Jews supporting Trump.
Among those who are religious, they still favor Clinton over Trump unless the Pew research is wrong:
From this chart, it’s quite astounding that tribalism has caused White gentiles to turn inward and non-progressive. Opposite of what made the West superior over other civilizations. Republicans are just walking dinosaurs. They lack curiosity and they lack any kind of vision for the 21st century.
Perhaps Jews are less tribal, even among the religious. This would blow apart the theory that Jews are too ethnocentric. Better yet, perhaps Jews have more financial resources and have played their game too well, which affords them the appetite for liberalism.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 2:33 PM
You’re repeating old stuff. I’m suspicious that polls capture the sentiment of “Haredi” Jews in NYC.
Jews in that poll were more pro-Trump than they were pro-Obama in 2008.
If Republicans REALLY want more non-Christians to vote for them, then they need to stop being the Christian Party and start being the Big Tent party.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 2:37 PM
Hasidim might not be a good measure/comparision for this kind of research, because they are too withdrawn from the everyday concerns of regular folk, who are in constant engagement with the world at large.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 2:43 PM
And this is why Haredim who voted for Trump is not relevant, when you compare them to Catholics and Protestants who voted for Trump, because they live in a world more distant and isolated from the normal affairs of everyday life.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 2:45 PM
“Oddly enough, a Jewish majority now votes for the conservative party in both Britain and Canada.”
Corbyn, Labour leader in UK, views the Jews of Israel as Americans in the NE view southerners; as a morally stained population in need of reformation by their betters. It shouldn’t be surprising that Labour receives the reception it does from British Jews. And, didn’t Trudeau Sr. virtue signal at the expense of Israeli Jews?
Regardless, all people rebel when on the receiving end of a public tongue lashing.
Curle
June 26, 2017 at 12:35 AM
>>Lots of prole Jews with Trump lawn signs in Staten Island.
What attracted so many prole Jews and lower middle class Jews to the Democrat party was the same thing that attracted most proles and lower middle class white people: the New Deal. The New Deal is increasingly less relevant in today’s America, consequently proles see no reason to stick around the Democrats.
Proles of any kind do not give a s**t about gays, transgenders, third world refugees, Black Lives Matter, etc. It was meat and potato issues that brought them into the New Deal and kept them with the Democrats for several generations. Democrats are almost as stupid as the Republicans in not being able to figure this out.
Daniel
June 27, 2017 at 8:57 PM
In this post scarcity society, it’s hard to define “remaining upper class”.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 11:18 AM
And Jews are quite philanthropic and open minded when it comes to uplifting racial minorities, which are not very Republican values.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 11:22 AM
Jews are very unethnocentric.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 11:31 AM
Either that or they see it as in their interest to undermine the position of the white christian majority.
Magnavox
June 25, 2017 at 11:35 AM
And having clients from well off Jewish and White gentile backgrounds, Jews are just wealthier. My clients aren’t from the Carnegie or Rockefeller families.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 11:46 AM
Jews have higher genetic IQ, so they have been able to make more money. They are also from New York so they also make more money because of geography.
There’s no evidence that white Protestant New Yorkers of the same IQ are any poorer than Jews.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 11:55 AM
Doesn’t that genetic ashkenazi IQ not translate over to Israel? Have you ever done a post on that?
Magnavox
June 25, 2017 at 8:02 PM
It more than translates too Israel.
יעקב
June 25, 2017 at 8:54 PM
>> Jews are very unethnocentric.
Generally, half of all Jews, over the past 70 years have been extremely unethnocentric. This mass defection from the pull of the Rabbis, in-group marriage, discarding of traditional customs that set them apart is unprecedented over the past 1800 years (well, late Medieval Spain witnessed significant defections too). The last great defection was the rise of Christianity where many of the early adoptees of the Christian religion were Jewish communities.
Data point: I have Irish Jews in my extended family. Irish Jews? Wrap your head around that one.
Daniel
June 27, 2017 at 9:02 PM
Magnavox says, “Which Republicans are obsessed with getting rid of, completely contradicting BTDT’s absurd point that republicans discourage living off of inherited wealth.”
What i meant was that the conservative upper class discourages drawing down the trusts and living off interest alone. They encourage the creation of new businesses or productive employment so that they can INCREASE the family’s long term wealth. Liberal TOOS types are typically against entrepreneurship and think it is beneath them to work for money or for money’s sake. TOOS has the old school aristocratic attitude that working in business in not genteel.
B.T.D.T.
June 25, 2017 at 11:37 AM
The TOOS don’t pay inheritance taxes, that’s so prole. Rich proles (families who own, say, construction companies) pay the inheritance tax…
Some Guy
June 25, 2017 at 11:50 AM
So why are Republicans so adamant about repealing a tax that no one pays? Because it IS payed and you are just repeating bullshit talking points that aren’t even true.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 11:56 AM
Also, there probably are loop holes. So in addition to raising the rate you get rid of the loopholes.
Magnavox
June 25, 2017 at 12:01 PM
Assimilated Jews are not ethnocentric, but Jews like me are VERY ethnocentric.
Mates like Magna, who can’t figure it out, are either dumb or anti-semitic.
יעקב
June 25, 2017 at 12:15 PM
Republicans are committed to the idea that taxes are evil, always and everywhere, much the way Democrats are committed to the idea that immigration is good, always and everywhere. Life is simpler if you just adopt an absolute ideological position and never question it.
Peter Akuleyev
June 25, 2017 at 12:58 PM
It is true. Small, capital intensive, family businesses like farming and machine shops and so forth get hit by these inheritance taxes. Billionaires are better positioned to sneak money through foundations and charities.
bobbybobbob
June 25, 2017 at 3:27 PM
“Republicans are committed to the idea that taxes are evil, always and everywhere”
That is absolutely not true. Very few Republicans think that, I’d even go further and say very few libertarians think that. Most conservatives think taxes are fine for national defense, law enforcement, fire department, infrastructure, utilities, etc. And if you look up surveys you’ll see most support public schools, social security and medicare. Most don’t mind helping people in genuine need. In fact, conservatives donate much more to charity than liberals do. What they object to is wealth redistribution as well as subsidizing irresponsible behavior and welfare abuse.
destructure
June 25, 2017 at 3:52 PM
Republicans always complain about how rich people pay all the taxes. But then when people star to talk about raising their taxes anyway all of a sudden they’re actually impossible to tax.
Magnavox
June 25, 2017 at 7:42 PM
Rich people do pay most of the taxes. Not only do they have more to tax but it’s taxed at a higher rate. Having said that, it is difficult to tax rich people because they control the politicians. Even if you raised their rates and got rid of the loopholes the Laffer Curve would kick in. Not to mention, some of them would just hide the money overseas or even move overseas. To put it bluntly, you can’t raise taxes past the point at which it’s worth the trouble to avoid them.
destructure
June 26, 2017 at 10:35 AM
Speaking of construction work, I enjoy watching the PBS series “This Old House”. Although construction work is prole, to renovate a home and discuss it in a very presentable manner, almost in an intellectual realm, the show comes cross as SWPL friendly. And the main hosts of the show don’t look like your average prole. Furthermore, the homes being presented are in upper income neighborhoods. They once featured a project in Park Slope renovating one of those brownstones.
This reminds me of the hipster types who do design and construction work for SWPL businesses, where it’s both fun and lucrative.
They have a completely different mindset from Yakov, who engage in hands on work for a living in a very non-creative, non-artistic, rote manner, similar to what East Asians do in science and technology.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 12:28 PM
Mate, do you have any idea what installing or reparing an AC system involves? No, you don’t. When I was doing installation, we called our work ‘obre de arte’ and nothing else will do for me. Mate, you are a waste. Take a pause from posting and get real.
יעקב
June 25, 2017 at 2:50 PM
I have installed a home system and it wasn’t hard. I learned how to braze but even that was unnecessary because this system allowed you to solder the coolant lines. One thing you may not realize is that things like HVAC are now much easier for every day people to learn thanks to the internet, especially youtube.
Magnavox
June 25, 2017 at 8:07 PM
Magna, don’t make me laugh now. I’ve taken over plenty of DIY projects from hapless homeowners. That having been said, a handy person can install his own single zone system under favorable conditions. Post a link to the the system you had installed. I wanna see what you are talking about.
יעקב
June 25, 2017 at 8:58 PM
‘One thing you may not realize is that things like HVAC are now much easier for every day people to learn thanks to the internet, especially youtube.’
ROFL! Magna, this is my trade, try to process this. I know what’s on the market and what’s on youtube. Why you and JS have to poke your fingers into everything? Why don’t you just stick to the stuff you know? Stop assuming, because when you do, you know what happens?
I’m not sure I would even touch a butchered up DIY job anymore. Too much hassle for too little money. It’s like some surgeons who don’t take a patient after they had been to someone else because they don’t want to be iresponsible for what the other guy did. In general, the trade hates DIY guys. Most suppliers only sell to trade and for a very good reason too.
Check out this story, it’s a riot. I go for an estimate to these guys and they are a family of Jewish lawyers. Yes, the husband and the wife are lawyers. They want a dual zone LG system. No problem, the system is $2,500. Total cost of installation $4,800. Well, they say it’s too much of course. They want their plumber to install it. They have known him for 20 years blah-blah-blah. How much will I charge to just bring them the units. This was like 7 years ago so I say $200. No problem, they say. So I get my money and they get their units. Now, I’d warned them a few times that it would not work and that LG wouldn’t deal with them because they don’t have a licensed installer, which I’m. Don’t worry, blah-blah-blah. Guess what? The plumber installs it and it doesn’t work! Lolz! So the woman calls me up and wants me to come service it or get her a new unit because this one is defective. No way! Not gonna touch that one! She goes bananas, starts cursing, eff this and eff that. She calls the credit card company and disputes the payment. I’m this and I’m that and my husband is blah-blah-blah. Gonna sue blah-blah-blah. I fought the disputed claim and I won, naturally. The money was paid duely to my supplier. Now comes the real riot. Her 88 year old father calls me up. He is begging me to come and fix the system, he is willing to give me $800 cash up front from his own pocket because his daughter is losing her mind! He had never seen her in such a state. Obviously, I would not touch that unit for no money in the world. Blah-blah-blah.
The moral of the story is, Magna, don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. Less blah-blah-blah and more common sense. Blah-blah-blah. Lolz.
I have a bunch of these stories, they are a riot. So funny!
יעקב
June 25, 2017 at 10:18 PM
Folks like Yakov in HVAC or plumbing, or however he’s spelling his name now, are like cardiologists or surgeons. If it works with efficiency, it’s good & a success.
Design and architecture are a certain degree function & efficiency but with an awful lot of voodoo Emperor’s New Clothes making up the added value. Substance but even more taste and style… which is what probably makes it cool in our eyes… and worthy of Bo-Bo bougie-porn on HGTV.
Thin-Skinned Masta-Beta
June 26, 2017 at 3:00 AM
“Jews are very unethocentric.”
Only very recently, and it will prove to be a liability. Jewish success over generations has been largely built on in group loyalty.
B.T.D.T.
June 25, 2017 at 12:03 PM
Jews have historically been poor and unsuccessful, living in their own communities separated from the rest of white civilization (with a lot of that separation enforced by anti-Semitic gentiles). Jewish success a very recent thing. And successful Jews are in the process of completely assimilating into the non-Jewish great community and completely losing their Jewish identity.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 12:19 PM
Although there were obviously significant numbers of poor Jews that Jews were almost always wealthier than the surrounding gentile community even when they faced large discrimination. The Jews in Eastern Europe were like the Chinese in Southeast Asia who are also often victimized by pogroms. For example, my great great grandfather ran a nobleman’s estate in Ukraine (my grandmother grew up on the estate). After Jews were banned from the land he opened a successful factory and sent significant money to his children who he bankrolled to move to America (he was a smart man!-he was presumably murdered during the civil war). This story was not that unusual.
Larry, San Francisco
June 25, 2017 at 2:22 PM
I don’t think things are quite so clear cut. It is also true that a lot of gentile/Jewish marriages result in the gentile converting to Judaism. A cousin of mine did this, and her two children are being raised Jewish.
Stealth
June 25, 2017 at 7:57 PM
“Jews are in the process of completely assimilating into the non-Jewish great community and completely losing their Jewish identity.”
This would be more believable if the Paleo Right where more Jewish and the Neo-Cons less so. Paul Gottfried says the Holocaust is increasingly the centerpiece of American Jewish identity. How does such a development translate into greater identification with the larger white culture?
Curle
June 26, 2017 at 7:20 AM
The Paleo Right is explicitly Christian, which turns off non-Christians.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 26, 2017 at 8:06 AM
The 613 commandments cannot be fulfilled by any individual alone – only by a Jewish Nation as a whole living in The Land of Israel. This is the proper basis of the Jewish ethnocentricity, not the unity in the face of adversity, which would disintegrate in a free country like America..
יעקב
June 25, 2017 at 12:26 PM
Yes, I’ve made this comment. Lion gets it now.
The Rockefellers weren’t nice people in the beginning, but their heirs are nice people who engage in philanthropy.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 12:30 PM
There are still large communities of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews who are extremely ethnocentric. I suspect there will still be millions of sucessful Jews in the year 3000, and they will be descended from those groups, not from the Toby Milsteins of the world.
Peter Akuleyev
June 25, 2017 at 1:01 PM
Toby is gay so especially not him.
JW Bell
June 25, 2017 at 2:28 PM
“Only very recently, and it will prove to be a liability. Jewish success over generations has been largely built on in group loyalty.”
The same goes for the Irish who assimilated Anglo values at the expense of blacks, and the Italians at the lower realm with organized crime. However, IAs never got the accolades as being a dominant ethnic group among the Anglo WASP establishment, because they were very different, and they were reluctant to embrace cerebral endeavors like the Jews.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 1:07 PM
‘they were reluctant to embrace cerebral endeavors like the Jews.’
Gotta have the brain cells to do it. ‘Reluctant’! My foot!
יעקב
June 25, 2017 at 2:27 PM
Certain groups value education more than others.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 2:49 PM
Irish who assimilated Anglo values at the expense of blacks,
What Anglo values were the Irish previously dispossessed of and how did they negatively effect blacks?
Curle
June 26, 2017 at 7:27 AM
The Irish basically ensured blacks would not rise or stay in the middle class, by competing with them, and then denying them of middle class jobs.
Now that the Irish have assimilated, swarms of Latinos and hordes of East Asians are doing their part since gentrification of the major urban areas have seen a significant drop of blacks and many low skilled work are increasingly taken up by Hispanics. The post office is steadily becoming Hispanic.
JS
June 26, 2017 at 10:01 AM
Only very recently,
According to who?
Reform Judaism was founded in the 19th century as “Lutheranized” Judaism.
Secular Jews have been assimilated for almost 200 years, if you don’t like Secular Jewish politics then you need to get better non-Liberal gentile elites for us to copy.
The Undiscovered Jew
June 25, 2017 at 4:25 PM
I’m concerned if you’ll hit the right people with an inheritance tax. These people would probably avoid it if it was written by certain people.. While hitting actually productive wealthy.
Own a large stake in a public company? Well you’re fucked.
Have billions scattered around funds via offshore accounts going back generations? You can maneuver around it.
Kaz
June 25, 2017 at 12:34 PM
> Toby’s eventual inheritance may actually be more than the entire value of the company she’s working for.
Her inheritance might be dependent on her working.
Scarlet Number
June 25, 2017 at 12:41 PM
“This demonstrates, once again, how the topmost elite aspire to self-actualize by having careers”
I find it unlikely that she’s “self-actualizing” through career. Self-actualization requires depth. And I just don’t see how someone who hires a publicist to advertise her philanthropy and holds chic seances has a lot of depth.
“Why do Republicans insist on trying to lower the estate tax so that these rich brats who support the other party can inherit even more money? “
Because the big donors that GOP politicians depend on DO care about taxes. There’s also a difference in values among their respective bases. Dems support wealth redistirubution because they think wealth inequality is unfair regardless of how honestly it’s earned. Whereas Republicans think it’s unfair to take something that someone else has earned. Personally, I’d like to tax the hell out of billionaires because most of them are leftists. Even the Koch bros are liberals except taxes and regulations.
“They’re main hobby is philanthropy.”
Philanthropy releases chemicals in the brain that make people feel good. Since they have so much money giving a little bit of it away has become their drug of choice. But don’t be fooled. Rich liberals give most of their money to museums, ritzy schools and sociopolitical causes. Though I’ll give her props for the children’s hospital.
“They live with their parents.”
That’s fine. Families should live together. A lot of children want to get out on their own so they can go out drinking and clubbing and get up to no good. I see her living with her parents as one of her more redeeming qualities.
“They believe in the supernatural and hold séances”
Rich people have always done silly things like that.
destructure
June 25, 2017 at 1:05 PM
Whether or not it’s self-actualization, the true point is that the TOOS have something that looks like a real job even though they don’t need any money. Not having a job is for the lower classes.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 1:45 PM
“Philanthropy releases chemicals in the brain that make people feel good. Since they have so much money giving a little bit of it away has become their drug of choice. But don’t be fooled. Rich liberals give most of their money to museums, ritzy schools and sociopolitical causes. Though I’ll give her props for the children’s hospital”.
Self actualization causes endorphins to be released into the system which works with the brain to give a person a euphoric sensation of happiness and runner’s high – on top of the world feeling.
Humans are delusional and love seeking delusions to feel good. Philanthropy and the processes behind it can be an intoxicating experience for those who have a lot of money, where they just give it away, which produces this runner’s high sensation.
Proles like the SI types who aren’t blessed with money and status, get into opioid addiction as a substitute. There might be a genetic predisposal to this type of behavior, since Whites are more narcissistic than let’s say East Asians, and have use this often negative trait as a positive, for example to create what is the West – which is currently the apex of human civilization. And Whites by far have more drug addiction problems than Mongoloids.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 10:12 PM
“Self actualization causes endorphins to be released into the system”
There’s a lot more to self-actualization than a hit of endorphins. A lot of people have a distorted view of what it means to be self-actualized. I dated a girl at university who was obsessed with becoming a rich and famous actress. Even if she had been successful she still wouldn’t have been self-actualized. She would have just been rich, famous and shallow.
destructure
June 26, 2017 at 9:44 AM
You must know that “director” is the lowest appellation in business these days, akin to “assistant vice-president in a bank in 1990. A 30-year old Wharton grad would be a “managing director,” and those with more
experience are “senior managing director.”
Completely OT, I just saw Tom Selleck on a reverse mortgage commercial. Boy, does he look bad. Bloated, dyed hair and eyebrows, like he hasn’t walked a half-mile since his show went off the air.
Mort
June 25, 2017 at 1:31 PM
It goes manager, then senior manager, then director, then senior director, then vice president. (In most non-financial companies. “Managing director” is an investment bank title, and it’s a very very high paying job. I should be so lucky.)
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 1:37 PM
I’m new to Lion of the Blogosphere. What does “TOOS” mean?
g2-bb2c535d4a90f56b013e3d282fdc1ebb
June 25, 2017 at 1:32 PM
Top out of sight, from Paul Fussell’s book.
https://lionoftheblogosphere.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/another-post-about-the-top-out-of-sight/
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 1:39 PM
24-year-old Toby Milstein, despite being an heiress of a billionaire family, has a regular job in “business development” for a tech startup.
Which entails strolling into her spacious private office, maybe, four days a week at 10:30 and networking at some nice restaurant at lunch two hours later.
E. Rekshun
June 25, 2017 at 3:13 PM
They believe in the supernatural and hold séances at their apartment in The Dakota.
she’s 4 generations in. it was great grand dad milstein who founded the flooring company.
regression to the mean.
if only beautiful women were smart this wouldn’t happen.
sad!
Beverly Hills Ninja
June 25, 2017 at 5:25 PM
“A gentleman’s name should appear in the newspaper only three times: When he’s born, when he marries, and when he dies. And we are, first and foremost, gentlemen.” – Harry Hart (Colin Firth) Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014 film)
Njguy73
June 25, 2017 at 5:42 PM
I may have watched far too many ghost TV programs…a finely curated man…Mr. Milstein’s boyfriend and a Yale classmate…Have you guys seen ‘Hollywood Medium’?…
enough. i’m feeling sick. the deep lesson of this article is…
1. the heritability of IQ is a fraud.
2. the rich are, if anything, worse than you and me.
3. the poor whites who worship rich people and vote GOP are stupid.
4. and if they aren’t, someday they will wake up, and the tumbrils will roll again.
Beverly Hills Ninja
June 25, 2017 at 6:57 PM
This is the sub-text of 90% of NYT society / cultural interest articles:
To make it’s ordinary struggling middle / upper-middle class readership feel superior to and more righteous than the people they’ve otherwise been envying.
If philanthropy is like a drug to the brain, this kind of media content that NYT deals in too.
It’s designed to make the ordinary all-too-human feel a little bit more noble in their trivial everyday personal trials and suffering. It’s a narcotic balm to the pains of status envy and the wounds of frustration in zero-sum social & status competition.
Thin-Skinned Masta-Beta
June 26, 2017 at 3:10 AM
Prole whites are much more likely to have authentic interaction with NAMS in their school, workplace, church, gym, or neighborhood.
How much interaction does Toby Milstein have with NAMS outside of structured gay fundraisers?
Liberals love humanity but hate people.
McFly
June 25, 2017 at 9:18 PM
Apparently, Toby Milstein is an alumna of the famed Morning Side Heights Ivy League, better known as Barnyard College for women.
https://barnard.edu/news/toby-milstein-14-designer-and-activist
I’m sure she had plenty of NAM classmates, perhaps even a roommate of the sort, thanks to affirmative action.
By the way, she reminds me of Ricki Lake, except in better shape.
JS
June 25, 2017 at 11:42 PM
The first time I heard Barnard called “The Barn Yard” was in 1986.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 25, 2017 at 11:53 PM
It is a chicken coop given the fact there is only one alpha rooster who rules the roost, according to its college profile:
https://barnard.edu/news/toby-milstein-14-designer-and-activist
Undergraduate Students: 2,548 Women: 2,547 (100.0%)
Graduate Students: Not reported Men: 1 (0.0%)
JS
June 26, 2017 at 12:14 AM
It is a chicken coop given the fact there is only one alpha rooster who rules the roost, according to its college profile:
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=119
Undergraduate Students: 2,548 Women: 2,547 (100.0%)
Graduate Students: Not reported Men: 1 (0.0%)
JS
June 26, 2017 at 12:16 AM
She sounds like an airhead.
There’s a giant new building at Barnard called The Milstein Center. I wonder if that’s her family:
https://barnard.edu/about/teaching-learning-center
Tom
June 26, 2017 at 1:59 AM
Yes, that’s her family.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 26, 2017 at 6:45 AM
People claim that there’s a reversion to the mean in terms of intelligence because rich successful guys can’t help falling for beautiful but dull ladies.
Looks like the Millstein patriarchs might have been underperforming in both their calling to breed with either brains or beauty…
Nothing extraordinary inside or out.
Not unpleasant looking, but do keep in mind that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men have been summoned and deployed with no effort spared to make the most of her appearance.
Thin-Skinned Masta-Beta
June 26, 2017 at 3:15 AM
“People claim that there’s a reversion to the mean in terms of intelligence because rich successful guys can’t help falling for beautiful but dull ladies.”
That’s probably less the case now, because, believe it or not, gold-digging is dying. Women want to marry good-looking alphas, not rich betas. Most gold-diggers are from foreign countries. Even Donald Trump could only find a foreign gold digger. Most Ivy-educated rich men would be turned off by a Melania type.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 26, 2017 at 6:48 AM
There are pictures of her taken by Patrick McMullan which means she’s a NY socialite.
NY elite circles which are mostly for White women with makeup and a lot of skin, rarely includes any single men who are beta. You’ll find quite a number of black men, a few latino men, barely any White nerds, and Asian men are definitely a no no. The male attendance gives you a glimpse of the hierarchy when it comes to SMV in Manhattan’s upper crust, which really is the same when it comes to the prole world.
JS
June 26, 2017 at 9:50 AM
Isn’t gold digging an evolutionary development? No way it can die. I see them digging everywhere. It’s the way I’d life.
יעקב
June 26, 2017 at 6:57 AM
Alpha-digging is evolutionary. Considering any man with a lot of money to be desirable, in other words alpha, is a societal thing.
Lion of the Blogosphere
June 26, 2017 at 7:03 AM
O/T – but related. In this post scarcity world, the wealthy Meriproles want to drop their proleness and distance themselves from other proles by avoiding petty consumption. It’s called inconspicuous spending as a way to status signal. No more keeping up with the Joneses with glut smut, but with acquiring intangible things like education and cultural capital. Wealthy Meriproles are doing what Montrealers are doing in French Speaking Canada without a price tag.
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170614-the-new-subtle-ways-the-rich-signal-their-wealth
Sad, sad, sad…I think I should import the local Maple Syrup and sell them in NYC for a markup.
The writer must be reading your blog and my comments. In our post scarcity world, frivolous consumption is available to anyone. But not with expensive real estate in places like Manhattan.
JS
June 26, 2017 at 1:30 PM