T A B L E__T A L K What's it worth to make a buck? Tell your horror stories and read those of others in Table Talk   Search for business, personal finance and more at barnesandnoble.com Search by:  Keyword Title Author   R E C E N T L Y Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome ... the Grateful Capitalists! By Larry Kanter Taking their cue from counterculture success stories like the Grateful Dead, radical marketers are building brand loyalty from the ground up (02/26/99) Epidemic of extravagance By Heather Chaplin Economist Robert H. Frank has written a painstakingly researched new book offering a cure to our destructive love of luxury, but will anybody listen? (02/19/98) Van Gogh Inc. By Larry Kanter You've seen the paintings. Now buy the lunch box (02/12/99) House flash By Heather Chaplin If you're struck with the biological urge to own a home, consider first whether it's a good time to buy (02/05/98) The Jordan Effect: What's race got to do with it? By Leon Wynter The colorblind world depicted by Madison Avenue isn't our racial reality yet -- but it's a step in the right direction (01/29/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Reluctant Capitalist archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon Columnists		BIG APPLE PICKPOCKET | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - I am backed up, at least in part, by the facts. Currently, the most expensive metropolitan area in the country is San Jose, followed by San Francisco, according to newly released data from Runzheimer International, a management consulting firm. Manhattan is third. The reason it's so expensive to live in San Jose and San Francisco, however, is mostly because of the outlandish real estate markets in those areas. In another study, which excludes housing and focuses instead on the day-to-day cost of living, Manhattan comes out on top. (The most expensive cities to live in, ranked in those terms, are, in order, Manhattan, Washington, Honolulu, Boston, San Jose and San Francisco.) In other words, going to the movies in Manhattan costs an average of $8.66, compared with $7.54 in San Francisco. A fast-food meal costs 12 percent more in Manhattan than it does in San Francisco. Tobacco and alcohol cost 19 percent more. None of which is probably a shock to anybody. What I'm talking about, though, is something beyond mere numbers. It's something that happens when the soles of your shoes make contact with the grubby sidewalks of Manhattan. The city rolls out its long fingers and wraps them around your brain and your wallet, rendering you temporarily incapable of recalling your priorities. You unconsciously readjust your carefully tuned expectations and tolerance levels. Without realizing you've touched your internal controls, you find yourself nodding, dazed, at menus posted outside bistros, not necessarily going in, but muttering, "Oh, $12 burgers. That's reasonable, right?" You find yourself one night agreeing to order a $25 pitcher of margaritas, even though you're not that thirsty. You find yourself thinking maybe those well-kept couples strolling by with $400 nylon knapsacks on their backs aren't the enemy after all. (Although, once you're back inside your own home, you're pretty sure they are.) San Francisco, where I lived for six years before moving back East, is hardly some hick town, and it didn't occur to me I would still be susceptible to all this. I thought my adult sense of appropriate and inappropriate expenditures, along with the realities of my bank account, would see me through. I didn't know that Manhattan's constant groping for one's pocketbook was an integral part of the city itself -- even the guy at Runzheimer seemed to know what I was talking about. What is different now from my college days, though, is that I am at least capable of understanding the phenomenon, if not always of controlling it. When I awoke the Sunday before last, filled with real regret over my unplanned -- and, more important, what seemed at the time unavoidable -- extravagances, I was able with the help of a pencil and paper to figure out exactly where my money had gone. Eight dollars on a cab because I was running late to a restaurant described to me as "mid-range," $35 on a meal I would characterize as wildly overpriced, $20 on a ticket to hear music, $32 on four drinks, $6 for a package of barrettes at the corner bodega and on and on and on. Part of my nausea the next morning was at the fact that what to me was a shocking night of excess -- I wasn't the planner behind it, just the wimp unable to put a stop to it -- didn't seem to bother my accomplices at all. And what I couldn't understand for myself -- like an alcoholic after a binge or a gambler who realizes that the thick stack of chips being pulled away from him actually represents real money -- was how I had let it happen. At times, living in New York seems like one long attempt to float in an ocean with a strong undertow. (Those of us lucky enough to have some discretionary income at least have blow-up arm floaters, excuse the extended metaphor; many of those not so lucky have been sucked out of the city by an administration that seems to despise them and a cost of living that borders on the criminal.) The city never ceases to be greedy or alluring, however long you live here, but those who stay seem to grow accustomed to the pull. Contrary to what you might think walking along Manhattan's main thoroughfares -- many of which have come to resemble alcoholic amusement parks for the young and the wealthy in the last half-decade -- not everyone indulges in expensive drinks and fancy dinners, but in the city's cramped quarters, it's almost impossible to avoid the fact that others are. One of my best friends from high school has lived in the city for about 10 years. She's a social worker, and she dreams of living in the country and making her own soap, yet she doesn't blink when it's time to hand over $20 for a pitcher of beer or $12 for a cab ride home because it's too late to take the subway. True, she doesn't put herself in these situations often, but when she does, she's capable of accepting the facts as they are. Her boyfriend, on the other hand, a public school teacher, who only moved to New York one year ago, struggles as I do with the resentment and the shock. In fact, I think he's reverted to carrying a flask in his hip pocket when he dares to venture beyond his Brooklyn neighborhood. An excellent idea. I still flip-flop, with alarming speed sometimes, between acceptance, abandon, total tightfistedness, penitence, dread and then back again. Fortunately, I'm so exhausted earning what it takes to live in this part of the country, I don't feel compelled to go out that often. SALON | March 5, 1999