most stereotypical new york times article ever

It’s got a little bit of everything, but most importantly, it successfully portrays something totally ridiculous that only rich people do as a normal, increasingly popular trend in American life.

“FOR some parents, an engraved pen set just won’t cut it as a graduation present. It seems so insubstantial, so unoriginal. Anyway, the kid will just lose it. So how about a New York apartment?”

Umm… what? Does your kid even have a job yet?

“In many cases, brokers say, the parents do not live in the New York area and view the apartment as a potential pied-à-terre for themselves when the child decides to move on. Some buy it as a straight-out gift, a gesture of profound affection sweetened by the current generous tax exclusion. Others buy it as an investment and retain ownership, and still others acquire it through a family trust for joint ownership.”

Sure. Totally reasonable. In fact, if you don’t buy your kid their own NYC apartment, you’re practically throwing money away. Can we get some practical advice here, though, for the regular people who are doing this?

Richard Koenigsberg, a certified public accountant, thinks that these gifts can be a good idea. “We are in a remarkable period of time at the moment,” he said, because the tax exclusion on gifts and estates has been raised to $5 million from $1 million until the end of 2012. This means that a parent can give a child as much as $5 million tax free; if two parents are involved, make that $10 million.

You don’t say? That’s interesting, especially because I’m pretty sure the only reason my parents didn’t buy me my own apartment in the most expensive city in the world was because of the taxes on a five million dollar gift for their idiot son. Or possibly because it’s an insane, terrible idea and all these kids do is use Instagram and write pithy blog entries and DON’T YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT I HAVE A DECENT FULL TIME JOB AND A REASONABLY SIZED RENTED TOWNHOUSE IN THE SUBURBS AND WE OFTEN BUY STORE BRANDS.