It seems that ladies who lunch do not like to give up those lunches, nor their shopping sprees, Gucci handbags and Hamptons summer getaways—no matter what the condition of their marital finances. With the market on the skids, and more than 40,000 people laid off on Wall Street in the first quarter of 2008, the financial strain is breaking up marriages, says a story in Sunday’s New York Post.
The evidence is mostly anecdotal, but the story does note a 20-percent increase in divorce filings this year at one unnamed white-shoe Manhattan law firm, and a 25-percent increase in “Wall Street divorce clients” this year at a Westchester law firm. The Post also trots out three “case studies” of divorces between couples who had been together for between 10 and 20 years. In each, the wife was a stay-at-home mom, and the trouble began after the mega-earning husband was laid off. After all, trophy wives have appearances to keep up, and a sugar daddy without sugar is a little bit like … well, you do the math.
Traders In The Ring
Traders and stockbrokers have been exercising their aggression in the boxing ring for years at places like Trinity Boxing Club in Tribeca and Gleason’s, with its “White Collar Boxing” event, in Brooklyn. Now there is an official amateur boxing night in Manhattan that pits Wall Street’s stockbrokers and traders against one another in the ring. The event, sponsored by Trader Monthly magazine, is profiled in this week’s Page Six magazine. It’s no surprise that Wall Street has a thing for boxing, a sport that is known for its big egos, big paydays and deadly blows. But the Trader Monthly event is a tough political game to navigate, the story says, as the men in the ring are often fighting in front of, even against, their current or future coworkers—perhaps even tomorrow’s boss.