And you are here why?

This, and I swear this is true, is definitely not from The Onion .  Veronica Dagher writing in the WSJ (and with an accompanying oh-so-helpful video ) explains how you can be broke on $400K/year.  In Chicago. (emphasis below is all mine) They live comfortably, travel frequently and pay the mortgage on a home worth more than $1 million . They send their two teenagers to public school and put away about $12,000 a year for retirement and $10,000 for college tuition ... The couple's annual take-home income is $273,000 after setting aside money for retirement and college and after paying U.S. and Illinois income taxes... They spend   $87,000 a year on their mortgage , $24,000 on property taxes, $25,000 on home maintenance and $15,000 on utilities, cellphones and other household bills...Groceries for the family of four cost $575 a week, or $30,000 a year. The family buys a new car every four years, which amounts to $15,000 a year on average, and spends $9,000 annua...

From the Style  section of the New York Times , an article about the new HanleyMellon  clothing line (which, lets just say, is not for the proletariat). So, who exactly are Hanley  and Mellon ? They are not exactly starting from the gutter. Mr. Mellon, who comes from the Mellon and Drexel families of Bank of New York Mellon and Drexel Burnham Lambert, grew up in New York City, Palm Beach and Northeast Harbor, Me., and went to the University of Pennsylvania. The walls of the pad he and Ms. Hanley Mellon share at the Pierre are lined with paintings by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Peter Beard and, Mr. Mellon said, “Taylor Swift.”  And the clothing line?  It consists, apparently, of a very limited selection - 10 items - "staples of the jet-set lifestyle", each "inspired by a different place in the world". So far so priveleged, but the pièce-de-résistance  is “I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for i...

Submitted from the LA Times A Sig Alert on the 210 Freeway was extended until 10 a.m. Monday after a big rig carrying 35,000 pounds of grapes crashed across the center divider in Monrovia. Talk about a sticky situation. The wreck, which blocked two eastbound lanes and three westbound lanes near Myrtle Avenue, proved anything but fruitful for commuters looking for an easy drive to begin the work week.