The Patch reported that two Newton residents made this year’s Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans.
Spoiler alert: I’m not either one.
Hint: Think sneakers and beer
by Jerry Reilly | Sep 9, 2020 | Newton | 21 comments
The Patch reported that two Newton residents made this year’s Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans.
Spoiler alert: I’m not either one.
Hint: Think sneakers and beer
drivers man be like
Men's Crib November 3, 2023 8:51 am
Congratulations on their hard work and life achievements. I’m sure they’ve created thousands of jobs and we welcome more to Newton.
Excuse me while i enjoy a sam adams while wearing my new balance shoes.
Hmm, the common thread seems to be that both of these businesses you tend to buy a couple of their products at a time.
I’m thinking of opening a sock business, or maybe I’ll get into earrings … or tires
@Jerry, I’m confused. First you say, “Spoiler alert: I’m not either one.” But then you say, “Hint: Think sneakers and beer,” and of course when I think of sneakers and beer, you’re the first person that image conjures up.
Jerry, if only your parents had named you Jim instead?
There’s also 2 food banks.
@Rick Frank – Actually … three are three Newton food banks and they are all swamped these days with the demand
Fun fact: if you worked for $100/hour 40 hours/week every week from the moment Columbus arrived in North America until today you still wouldn’t have a billion dollars. No one, including these Newtonians, becomes a billionaire through hard work because it’s impossible. You only become a billionaire by exploiting your workers and stealing their money. Time for us to steal it back from our billionaire neighbors and give it to the food banks! Xoxo love you Jim Koch
Mr. Shames must be absolutely crushed by the abject failure of Karl Marx’ vision to come to fruition.
@Alexander does that include 2 weeks vacation?
We need to tax the wealthy because
A) that’s where the money is
B) when one person ( or maybe a few )has all the money the game is over
Who is the worlds largest pitchfork manufacturer? Time to buy some stock…
Elect Joe Biden so the Federal Govt. can mandate construction of low cost housing projects immediately next door to their unaffordable Newton homes.
Combined they are worth nearly $10 billion. To make that much money, everyday people were duped into thinking the billionaires gave them something more valuable than $10 billion. Hoards of workers were exploited with jobs and the consumers were exploited by being tricked into buying sneakers and beer. Who needs a job, sneakers, and beer? Even if people think they need these things, government jobs, government sneakers, and government beer would be better.
Mr. Shames, shame on you…Go out and start a beverage company inaugurating a whole new class of beers for Americans to enjoy or start a footwear company that millions of runners count on…And don’t let your new company fail—like most new companies do—because you picked a flawed strategy or whatever else you may screw up. Do simple things, like designing great products at price points people want, hire and pay thousands of people, organize supply chains, get customers to buy your stuff where they want to buy it and have it there when they want to buy, etc., you get the picture. Pick one, and you can be a billionaire, too. God bless Jim Koch and Jim Davis and let’s all pray He brings the world more people like these two or Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs or Henry Ford or Ken Langone (Home Depot) or Ralph Hoagland (CVS) or thousands of other entrepreneurs so we Americans can continue to receive the countless benefits they will bring to the world. Without people like this, you’d be living in a cave and going out to fetch firewood.
@Robert E. Flaherty: You forgot something else that is almost always required to be a billionaire in this country. I’ll give you a hint: Everyone you mentioned falls into this category.
I look to results. I care less about anatomy
@Robert E. Flaherty: Would all of the individuals be as successful and wealthy if they did everything on their own. Of course not! These are complex organizations and while those individuals started their companies, they would never have become as successful if it were not for the thousands of people putting in countless hours. I don’t think anyone is saying that the founders should not be compensated. It is more about the level of compensation relative to everyone else.
Good lord Gail!
Can’t possibly have a thread without race tossed in there…
Like I said on another thread,
Newton will be separated into the virtue signalers and the change agents when it comes to the ward 2 election.
Bill Humphrey, Sean Roche and most of the city council and their enablers will be ignoring their white privilege and voting for Bryan Barash.
You’ll be voting for Tarik Lucas, yes?
@Alexander-
The bigger the risk the bigger the reward. New Balance and Sam Adams
have been durable quality products that are still affordable after all these decades.
Paul,
You’re right. How could race possibly be relevant in a thread about billionaires?
Jim Davis of New Balance and Jim Koch of Boston Beer Company are both about as sleazy as you can find around here.
New Balance founder gave nearly $400,000 to Trump
Donald Trump, Jim Koch share the love – and the beer
Here is a different “socialist” perspective to ponder. I have lived here 20 years and found Newton to be “going progressive” on a “tea party budget”. We want the socialist agenda. I actually find much of it great. BUT we cannot appear to even try and fix the revenue required for a city of ours to provide “outstanding services” to our residents.
The cap on property taxes has created bigger budget gaps. Yes, Newton pays a great deal for schools compared to the overall budget. Let’s compare that to the other end of the spectrum. A private school charges $30K+ a year at least (I do not really know). Even if we do not think that is the right number, I will take a guess that for MANY residents of Newton who entrusted NPS with our kids, their property taxes are less than a single year in private school.
I guess we are just giving up and will wait for the Federal Government to fix all the problems and we can just meander along on a broken revenue model as our city services decline and the private services continue to shine. It’s a bummer because many of us would be willing to pay for some of the things we are involved with, but we are not even given the chance to.
I am personally trying to fix this for athletics. While children at Fessenden and Rivers and Dexter Southfield enjoy playing on brand new fields, our kids still play on fields built 50 years ago that are not even funded properly. Yet at the same time, Newton’s fee structure for field rentals has been stuck for 20 years. Why??????
Yes, this post is also a shameless plug for my new organization.
http://www.FixNewtonsFields.com if you want to sign our petition and read a little more.
Children at Fessenden, Rivers, Belmont Hill and Dexter also benefit from full in person learning. The public school children in Newton are not benefiting from in person learning “for the foreseeable future.” Let’s get a plan to open the High Schools this year!