In line with salary bumps from past years, Mayor Catherine Pugh, all 15 Baltimore City Council members, the city comptroller and liquor board members will each be getting paid more starting Jan. 1, 2018.
Tag: money
JHU Alums Don’t Give Often–But When They Do, They Give a Lot
Last week, Forbes released its annual college rankings. While there are lots of best-colleges lists out there, the Forbes ranking is interesting because of its focus on finances.
You Need $88,275 to Be Happy in Maryland
As Groucho Marx said, “Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.” But as Puff Daddy also said, “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.” So which is it?
According to Princeton researchers, who asked nearly half a million Americans to evaluate their happiness and reveal their salaries, having more money does make you happier… up to a point. And that point, according to their research, was $75,000. Beyond that annual salary, more money added negligible happy points.
Whit’s End: My Ex-Husband Owes Me $50,000. How Can I Get Back at Him?
Hey, Al:
Here is the problem. My ex-husband and I have been divorced for 5 years, and getting money from him is like pulling out teeth with tweezers. We have two teenagers who go to expensive schools. He partially pays for school, but is always underpaying because he says that he doesn’t have to pay for any “extras.” He just refuses to give me anything for medical expenses. At this point he owes me nearly $50,000, but he ignores my requests for reimbursement.
He is a businessman who makes and spends a lot of money, so tight finances are not the problem. Since I make very little, the only way I can make it financially is with help from my parents, who are not wealthy but were always frugal and have savings.
Part of it is that he is getting back at me for divorcing him, and the other part is that in his world, “suckers pay.” He wants the whole world, and especially me, to know that he is the man and that he’s in charge. What should I do?
Tired of Getting Stiffed
Baltimore Native and City College Alum David Rubenstein Among America’s Biggest Philanthropists
With donations of $1.9 billion, or about 2.6% of his total wealth, Bill Gates tops the list of American philanthropists in 2012, Forbes reported ahead of Thanksgiving. Investment guru Warren Buffet was a close second with $1.87 billion.
Does Joe Flacco Deserve to Be Paid the Big Bucks?
Courtesy Citybizlist – Days after Joe Flacco led Baltimore Ravens to the Super Bowl victory, the player’s agent is upping the ante in his bid to install him as the highest-paid quarterback in the game, The Baltimore Sun reported.
Two Maryland Boarding Schools Among the Most Expensive in the Nation
Courtesy Citybizlist – Sandy Springs Friends School and Georgetown Preparatory School have been ranked among the most expensive boarding schools in the country, according to a listing published in Business Insider.
Bag of Cash Update
We’ve got an update on the bag-of-cash-falls-off-a-car story. The man who left a bag containing tens of thousands of dollars in cash on top of his car in Glen Burnie and then drove off is Roy Weeirasinghe, a 7-Eleven store owner, not an employee as originally reported.
And we’ve got more details to the story. Apparently, Weeirasinghe realized his blunder quickly and drove back to search for the bag. But by the time he arrived on the scene, “cars had parked on both sides of the road and people scrambled to scoop [the money] up.” If that doesn’t hurt, I don’t know what does.
Later, Weeirasinghe appeared on ABC 2 pleading for his money to be returned. “I hope that in your good heart, you will return the money and give it to us because I have two children and a wife and we work hard every single day… sometimes seven days a week to make a living and if I don’t get this money back, I’m going to have a hard time,” he said.
You Want to Start a Business? Loyola University Can Help
Courtesy of Citybizlist – Loyola University Maryland is launching a business accelerator, an initiative that will create a forum for the University to collaborate with local entrepreneurs interested in creating and building new businesses. The accelerator will be located in the Govans community in North Baltimore, just east of Loyola’s North Charles Street campus.
The project is a partnership with Wasabi Ventures, a California-based venture capital firm with a presence in Baltimore, which will provide professional staff to manage the accelerator, funding for start-up companies, internships for Loyola students, and the expertise of entrepreneur-in-residence Thomas “T.K.” Kuegler, Wasabi’s co-founder, general partner, and a 1994 Loyola graduate.
“This initiative allows us to advance two priorities deeply important to the University,” said Rev. Brian F. Linnane, S.J., Loyola’s president. “First, it creates new opportunities for our students to think creatively about new products, new markets, and the types of business, marketing, and expansion plans that will help young companies grow, and to apply these ideas to real-world organizations and the entrepreneurs behind them. For those with an entrepreneurial spirit of their own, it can give them a chance to get their own businesses off the ground. Second, it offers Loyola a new way of continuing to contribute to the revitalization of the York Road commercial corridor. Loyola is committed to contributing to projects that help improve the quality of life for all those living, working, and learning in this community, and helping to revitalize its businesses is a key part of that effort. ”
NY Finance Culture vs. Baltimore Finance Culture
The internet was abuzz this week about former Goldman Sachs employee Greg Smith’s op-ed in The New York Times, “Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs”, about the “toxic” culture at the New York investment bank, characterizing it as self-interested, lacking humility and money-first. (If you’ve been in coma and missed the story, see the animated version in the video, above, by Taiwanese animation studio NMA.tv.)
How does the culture of New York’s financial institutions compare to the culture of financial institutions in Baltimore?
We asked a few Baltimore financial types to give us their view, anonymously, of course. (They’ve seen the beating Greg Smith’s reputation has taken since he fired off his missive a little more than 48 hours ago.) You’ll be glad to know, though we may not have anyone taking home tens of millions in pay like Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein — whose 2006 compensation package was over $54 million — we don’t have the grotesque culture that goes along with it either, they said.
“Maintaining culture in a company is an everyday, 24/7 commitment,” said one T. Rowe Price veteran. “It comes from the top and if the leadership does not push it, it erodes.”
