Even My Psychic Is Beaten Down By This Godforsaken Place

Welcome to New York Fuckin’ City*, where even our psychics are crotchety old coots who should have decamped to the interior years ago:

Will New York be prosperous in 2007? Will it be a year of unrest? Metro asked some of the city’s astrologers and psychics for their predictions . . .

. . .

“I think New York City in 2007 is going to be a repeat of the ’70s,” said psychic Jackie Barrett. “Fortunately for us in the working-class, [the real estate market] is going to come to a crashing halt, and I believe there will be more developments where landlords thought they would profit that will crash in on them.”

She predicted many New Yorkers will move away and those who stay will find themselves in a class clash.

“There will be a fight for all those beautiful buildings going up in places like Williamsburg,” Barrett said, “where lower-income people will be fighting for space. If millionaires want to stay, they’ll have to share with the common folk.”

*And I believe that appellation has been trademarked by certain novelty T-shirt makers.

Who Do You Think You Are, The Pope?

This year’s conspicuous consumption, now with added Mickey Rourke:

OK, so you had a pretty good year, if not a Goldman Sachs $100 million–bonus good year. You can afford to gorge yourself like the overpaid, all-conquering hunter-gatherer you are. A number of pricier-than-thou steakhouses are stocking up on Wagyu “Kobe” beef flown in from Japan, not the knockoff American hybrids raised on ranches in Texas or Colorado. At Nello, on Madison Avenue, fourteen-ounce Wagyu sirloins have been selling for $750 a pop. That’s hardly an exorbitant markup, owner Nello Balan says, considering that after his chefs finally strip away the meat’s blubbery blanket of fat he is paying about $400 per pound. He also offers Wagyu dusted with white truffles. That goes for $1,050 (which would get you about three years’ worth of Lipitor).

“It’s really fucking good,” says Mickey Rourke, the actor and proud carnivore. He ordered one sirloin at Nello, and the buttery, foie gras–like beef was so exquisite he came back the next day, this time with a Romanian model in tow, for more. (“It didn’t even taste like steak,” he says.) Levent Piskiner, who owns the Fifth Avenue jewelry store Gilan, didn’t mind that his bill came to over $800. “It’s a miracle,” he says of the Wagyu, named after a noble strain of cattle from the Kobe region of Japan.

Massive Wall Street Bonuses Trickle Down To Area Steakhouses

The Daily News does its best to reassure everyone that those obscenely large Wall Street bonuses will trickle down to a diverse collection of steak purveyors and golf retailers:

The extraordinarily huge bonuses being paid across Wall Street won’t just benefit top investment bankers and traders — the entire city will enjoy a payday.

A day after Goldman Sachs revealed it would be paying their staff $16.5 billion in bonuses, the Daily News visited businesses across the city to gauge the effect of the spend, spend, spend mentality.

“The only time I saw something like [this] was in the 1980s, when the world was insane,” said BMW of Manhattan President Jeff Falk.

. . .

“You can feel it when things are going well down here,” said Sean O’Sullivan, who sells golf equipment in lower Manhattan at The World of Golf. “Guys are traveling and playing a lot of golf.”

While customers can get a full set of clubs for as little as $300, O’Sullivan, 41, of Manhattan, has customers willing to pay $3,500 for top of the line clubs from Callaway, Ping or TaylorMade.

. . .

Mona Vijolan, 27, of Glendale, Queens, tends bar at Nebraska Beef, a Stone St. steakhouse in the shadow of the Goldman Sachs building. Lately, brokers haven’t blinked at the $63 price when ordering “The Stockbroker,” a hunk of aged prime rib served with a half-pound lobster tail.

“This is the month for bonuses and when the market’s been good, our customers are even more generous than usual,” said Vijolan, who’s married and has a 4-year-old daughter. “This year has been great,” she said, adding that $100 tips are commonplace.

(What, no Scores angle?)

Why Mr. Charlie Doesn’t Rent To Black People

Real estate veteran Brian Carter discusses the new segregation:

I never thought of New York as a segregated city — it didn’t dawn on me until I became a real estate agent. My own experience as a rental agent in Manhattan isn’t a terrible place to begin. In four years of renting apartments all over Manhattan, I have rented exactly one apartment to an African-American. It doesn’t appear to be an industry oversight as the rental business is far too competitive to be discriminatory. In other words, if you have the money and need a place, most agents will be glad to charge you for their services, regardless of race or ethnicity. Of the three rental agents with whom I spoke, this was one issue that they all agreed on. If you can pay the rent and the fee, we’re happy to do business.

My next-door neighbor “Todd” left real estate a few months ago and had a similar experience. When asked how many African Americans he rented to in his time in the business he answered, “none.” He had rented to one Latino. When I asked him for some explanation, he said, “I worked primarily in Manhattan. Most people who can afford an apartment below 96th Street tend to be rich and white. I don’t think the reasons are very complicated. Race and class are often related. I noticed it, and it bothered me.”

One agent, when asked about experiences renting to minorities, said he was personally insulted by the question. More than a few people declined to participate at all, and had no interest in talking about the subject. “Charlie,” retired agent, said he didn’t see the problem either. When asked how many minorities he rented to over the years, he answered, “As many as walked into my office and needed a place.” But that was sort of what I was getting at; almost all of the people, whether renters or buyers, who have walked into my office over the years were white.

Score(s)!

Now we understand what real estate agents were all jazzed about. “Gigantic bags” of money in some of the largest Wall Street Christmas bonuses ever:

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is set to throw gigantic bags of money at its bankers, traders and stockbrokers this year — lavishing them with more than $16.5 billion in bonus loot, the most ever doled out by a Wall Street firm.

Most of the Wall Street trading houses had a great year — but Goldman’s was spectacular, and its blockbuster numbers generated blockbuster bonuses for the fat cats.

Between regular salary and bonuses, the average pay of Goldman employees will be a mind-numbing $622,000 this year – and that includes all the low-end workers.

At the top end of the pay scale, it has been reported that Goldman was likely to pay a “golden 25” managers, bankers and traders at least a cool $25 million each.

But a source close to the firm told The Post that some of the top performers may actually get four times that.

The $100 million bonus babies are in charge of making big bets with Goldman’s money on the direction of the prices of commodities, including oil and natural gas. And this year, they won big.

. . .

Goldman’s profits this year — after the bonuses — climbed 70 percent to $9.5 billion, up from $5.6 billion last year.

This prompted its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, to leave a voice-mail message for employees cautioning them not to be “irrational or arrogant” to ensure no damage to the firm’s reputation.

Blankfein might be tempted to be a bit “irrational” himself, with Goldman sources telling The Post that he is likely to rake in at least $50 million in bonus cash.

Last year, his predecessor, current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, get a measly $40 million.

The bonus money the firm will dispense is going to prime the city’s economy as lucky recipients buy fast cars, big apartments and luxury goods.

In October, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi said Wall Street’s wealthy workers earned an average of $289,664, or about 5 times as much as other employees in New York City last year.

Irrational and arrogant? Nah . . .

(Alternate post title: “Jesus Fucking Christ That’s A Lot Of Money”.)

From the Assignment Desk: Small sidebar piece on how much more traffic the Goldman Sachs careers page got today.