It’s the formula for success, I guess. Megyn Kelly has found the recipe. She was bombing — her shows were dying for lack of an audience.
At the time, according to news reports, Lack had already informed Kelly her poorly-rated morning show would not last; her Sunday magazine show, launched last year, had never found an audience and was canceled after only eight installments. Weeks before her blackface gaffe, Kelly was looking for an exit strategy.
An exit strategy…hmmm. What to do. I know! Let’s defend white people wearing blackface on Halloween, on a broadcast show! It’s a totally unsurprising remark from someone who previously insisted that both Santa Claus and Jesus had to be white. And it worked!
Megyn Kelly is reportedly finalizing a $30 million exit deal with NBC and parent company Comcast, Page Six reports. She was ousted from the Today show last month after she defended blackface on national television, triggering outrage from her fellow hosts and the public alike for her comments, which included “I don’t see how [blackface] is racist on Halloween.” “Everyone wants this to be over—both Megyn and NBC—and Comcast has the money to pay off Megyn,” a source told the tabloid. The deal will reportedly close next week. “NBC decided rather than fight and face a lawsuit from her, they—and more importantly Comcast with all its money—decided to draw a line under the entire debacle and pay Megyn the full amount owed in her contract to go away,” another source said. Kelly was reportedly making $23 million a year to host her low-rated program.
Wait, $23 million/year for a failing show? Getting paid $30 million to go away? Those are totally unreal numbers, especially when you consider that she has no particular talent or insight that would make her stand out among all the other people reading teleprompters on cable news.
With $30 million dollars, I would be set up for life. I would rake that money in, set up some diversified investments, and lean back and relax and enjoy my sunset years. Maybe travel more. Read lots of books. Make lots of charitable donations to causes I care about. Set up college funds for my grandchildren.
And all I have to do is make vulgar, insensitive, stupid remarks about people with a different skin color, and white people would rush to support my lifestyle? United States of America goddamn.
It looks like I’m destined to die poor. Sorry, grandchildren.
Bloody hell, a million would do me. And I’m not much younger than you.
Then again you do have a very long way to travel before you can find more than one or two other countries to visit.
This may sound far-fetched, but hey, you could even run for President and have a good chance of success.
I just made a quick calculation. With current prices, half a milion dollars would set me up for very comfortable life for 40 years. Quartef of a million would set me up for a life where I need not fear powerty or not fulfilling my basic needs.
30 Million? I would not know what to do with that money. Nobody actually needs that kind of money. Nobody, ever.
Sorry, PZ. If you tried to follow the path of getting a media job, then doing something awful to get paid off, you’d fail the first step. You don’t have the legs for it.
With $30 million PZ you would be equipping your own lab at home with all the latest and best stuff for doing embryology and genetics, while avoiding all the bureaucratic rubbish of the university. Sorry, but I don’t see you as a lean back and relax sort of guy.
#3 Charly:
Checking your math: $500,000 / 40 years is $12,500 per year. That is barely above the current poverty level for the US of $12,140 (for a family of one). Not sure that that is “a very comfortable life”. And a quarter million would be really tough.
But yea.. 30 million? That’s $750,000 per year. WOW!
OverlappingMagisteria @6
The money is invested and earns interest/dividends. If you can live off the earnings, and not touch the principal, the money will support you for a long time. That is what you look at in determining how much money you need to retire. The present rule of thumb is ten times your salary in your IRA will maintain your same standard of living for the rest of your life.
I once heard a financial manager interviewed on the radio, who said that too many lottery winners and windfall recipients assume that a million dollars is enough to set you up for life. How much would you need to feel comfortable about quitting your job, he was asked? Ten million, he said. With that you could set up a trust fund to provide a generous income and never worry about running out. Which is all to say, I think Kelly’s going to squeak by all right.
I occasionally succumb and buy a lottery ticket when the prize gets exceptionally large, but then, after daydreaming about the winter home in Hawaii, a 30-ish foot center console, a custom PRS guitar, and maybe a BMW I-8 (sorry, but they just look so awesome), I come to a full stop. WTF am I supposed to do with all the rest of this $? I’m single, no kids. My cousins might have mortgages I could pay off, and their kids’ college debts.There are several charities I’d donate to and causes I’d like to support, but I can also imagine a nightmarish line of people with their hand out knocking on the door everyday. (I don’t live in one of those states where you can remain an anonymous winner) I’d have to give away 90% of it a.s.a.p. just to sleep at night.
More to the point of the quoted post (I was planning on getting around to it). I’ll take millionaires depending on where the money came from, but there’s no excuse for billionaires. There’s a respectable few, like Gates and Buffett that have committed to donating nearly all of their wealth when they die, but like I said, a few. Far too few. Fucking tax the fuck out of those fucking fuckers. You could take 90% of the Waltons’ dough, and they wouldn’t even notice unless they looked at a bank statement. Their life would be just as lavish, decadent, and removed from the common man as ever while a thousand state of the art schools were built or thousands were insured or received full scholarships. Fine. Your ancestor created one of the world’s largest companies. Great. Now do something with the rewards instead of sitting there like Scrooge McDuck on his pile of coins.
@OverlappingMagisteria I am not living in USA. My minimal living costs would be about 500 $ a month – 150 food, 150 electricity, 200 the rest. 500 $ a month is also saround the powerty level here, which is about half of what USA has – and there were times where I had to do with less.
And had I had that money upfront, there are things I would not need. Like a job. So I could spend more free time to grow my own food and wood etc.
The top question should be who were the jackasses who approved that much pay for Megyn Kelly’s contract to begin with? Were they really that serious about capturing the redneck demographic?*
*Where physical appearance and right wing nuttery are #1 in importance.
start your own nonprofit grant agency to help fund the educational subject of your choice.
money would be gone in less than a year if you just wanted to give it to worthy candidates.
or, you could invest half the money into building an infrastructure for a longterm grant agency, and use the other half to fund grants, and hopefully establish an ongoing nonprof to service the educational area of your choice.
your problem is not that you have too much money, but too little imagination.
I could spend 30 mill in a heartbeat this way. actually, I drew up plans for a long term environmental research funding agency where the budget was over 100 million.
per year.
and that was 25 years ago. it would cost near double that to do it right now.
All
I am no paradigm of success in life, but I saved my money during a blue collar union wage career after majoring in music. Now am getting caught up doing the volunteer thing, which is a grand result.
I always drove $200 to $600 cars all my blue collar time and my colleagues laughed every year when they bought another one. When my beater died, I bought a different one. Repeat.
Guess who retired 10 years earlier than the others?
Stick your money in Vanguard. Lack of fees and expenses REALLY means something over 30 years. Pick one of their 100+ funds. Don’t try to time the market. Can’t be done.
Here’s the point: learn “need” versus “want.” I tell the kids this and some get it.
A dumb speech but true.
Apparently being a major media personality is somewhat similar to being a CEO of a major corporation – no matter how badly you screw up, you won’t really lose. They’ll pay you tens of millions to go away instead of just telling you to clean out your desk.
@Ichthyic:
Good ideas. Also, IIRC, when the Powerball was a bazillion or whatever recently there was an article (Vox?) about what to do with that kind of moolah and the author recommended starting a foundation.
I’ll have to remember these for the day I
‘m bitten by a shark while being simultaneously struck by lightningwin the Lotto.I wish there was an edit feature…
Anyway, I still don’t understand NBC’s thinking about this. OK, so you don’t want to be painted as the Network Bolstering Communism. But hiring idiots like MK and Hugh Hewitt aren’t friggin helping. Megan’s Fox viewers weren’t just going to jump ship to Socialist TV, even for an hour. There’s reasonable conservative voices out there. Nicole Wallace’s show is doing well. Michael Steele is on as a guest on one show or another just about everyday. Sure, they’re Never Trumpers, but any real, rational conservative would be.
If they want to “balance” the viewpoint, thre’s ways to do that. If they think they’ll score ratings by pooper-scooping up Fox rejects… well, I hope they remember this $30mil stinker.
None of you “prognosticators” even mention global warming! Bugs are disappearing. Birds to follow. What are you thinking?
jack16
I have enough in a retirement account and passive income to live comfortably if I were to retire right now at 56.
The one hitch? Health insurance. My job provides it as a nice perk for my entire family (including the oldest who, at 23, still has a few more years where I can help him along with insurance as he gets established). If I were to retire, the insurance bill for the whole family would soak up more than I could justify. I pretty much go to work every day feeling like I’m just there for the insurance.
If I lived in a country with decent health care like oh, say, everyplace else in the civilized world, I’d be out the door like a shot and let an up-and-coming young person take my spot.
How about a less subtle way to let us know that no more comments are being accepted. Alternately, if my comments have been rejected for some reason, then let me know that reason.
And since that one went, I must assume that the word ‘b***h’ is verbooten.
nice of pis “https://scribd-civil.blogspot.com/2018/11/merry-christmas-whatsapp-status-video.html”
@Ragutis #9:
Many countries used to do this, but the fuckers responded by buying up media companies and politicians to tell us that it really just wasn’t fair. Now they pay less as an overall percentage of their income than do the poor. Mission accomplished.
$30 mill?
I…
Okay, the problem I have is that I could easily spend that. The “home lab” (or rather the purpose built lab in a location I would like to live where supply deliveries and staff were simple/easy, with obviously attached uber-home) idea is exactly what I would do. I would happy tinker away for the rest of my life. Selfish perhaps (the “staff” would be researchers free to do their own work and assorted techs), but I’d burn through $30mill pretty fast.
Now £100mill (or better 100mill Euros) would be enough to…
…I missed the point didn’t I? Wait…why have I dribbled over lab catalogues?
Louis