<p>Which one should I get? Is having a backpack dangerous around NYU? It didn't seem like it when I visited, but being from rural Wisconsin, it seems pickpocketing and the like could be a problem. Any advice? I think I'd rather have a backpack, but would a messenger bag be better from a safety standpoint?</p>
<p>backpack, unless you want to be stylish. Thievery was never a problem here. If I were you I'll be more worry about my roommates than the bums on the streets.</p>
<p>i carried everything in a tote (not for style reasons). worked good for me. backpacks are fine for around campus, and convenient, so if you would rather carry a backpack...then carry one.</p>
<p>Hey, Just curious, where in Wisconsin are you from? I'm from the Madison area myself and it'd be great to know other Wisconsinites at NYU</p>
<p>I'm about 45 minutes north of Milwaukee, around Sheboygan. I've actually found a few people from Wisconsin that go to NYU, it was pretty surprising.</p>
<p>low chance of getting pick pocketed in New York city and even lower chance on or around NYU.</p>
<p>I cant tell if you're being sarcastic or not. When I was in NYC last, my uncle told me to put my wallet in my front pocket, not drift into unknown alleys and stick close.</p>
<p>Only if you're a 20 year old female wearing skimpy clothes and tanked out of your mind.</p>
<p>Look, the safety issue is overhyped. I’m from another urban area, and I don’t think I’ve come across a safer city than New York. Manhattan, that is. If you run out deep into the Bronx or through Bedstuy or the superblocks in BK then yes, you ought to be concerned.</p>
<p>Other than that, after your first year you will absolutely laugh at how concerned you and your family were before you moved in. The city is brightly lit, cops are all around, and no one in Manhattan is out to get you unless it’s 3am and you’re coming home from a bar or club dressed less than decently and some cretin starts harassing you, at which point you get in a cab and that’s that. People don’t even notice each other; that’s the phenomenon of Manhattan. No one looks each other in the eye, you don’t make contact with strangers. You won’t have people reaching into your backpack on the street, far more likely to happen in your room or at a party if anywhere.</p>
<p>Backpack, tote, or messenger bag … get more than one. Some days you’ll be carrying two books to class, and other times you’ll be pulling a marathon session in Bobst with every book you have for every class. It makes sense to have different options. Besides, who doesn’t love accessorizing? 
I have two backpacks, two totes, a briefcase, and a messenger bag I bought for myself.</p>
<p>hellodocks,</p>
<p>If there is someone who deserves to have a closet full of accessories, it is you. You work so hard, glad you have some nice “treats” for yourself.</p>
<p>Haha, in preparation for moving, I dug out all of my bags, purses, satchels, briefcases collected over the years when I worked and filled a big jumbo bag full of just these items. Even after getting rid of the ones I no longer use much and the ones which have gotten sullied over the years! Never thought I would be a collector of bags and shoes, but I am. So (nodding), I’m with you, hellodocks.</p>
<p>By the way, NYC, like many other cities, is a place where crimes of opportunity occur. Recently, I was really flustered and tired (with little sleep) and temporarily turned my attention from my IPad at a McDonald’s in the financial district and someone took my IPad immediately.</p>
<p>So while Manhatten generally is safe, there are just too many different types of people and you should be careful of making it too obvious you are carrying valuable items. Bad me, I normally leave my IPad inside a zippered handbag, but for some reason, that afternoon, I was just too lazy or too tired to put the IPad away (had the handbag) and the crime occurred. Also, two of the deepest memories for me were incidents that occurred in Manhattan: </p>
<p>1) having someone in between train cars reach out and yank my shoulder bag from me as I walked with the bag on the shoulder facing the subway train which was moving out of the train station.</p>
<p>2) Coming back to my parked car after luncheon with a colleague to find someone had broken open my trunk and stolen a Ralph Lauren scarf I loved (my all time favorite) AND, worse, my briefcase full of client notes (which I should not have brought out of the office but I was behind in my paperwork). Uughh. I thought I was in deep trouble. The car was parked in the middle of the day in a main throughfare in the village, forget which one, Broadway, Lafayette or Thompson Sts. </p>
<p>So, I agree with noco. Just use common sense and be cautious. Any big city will have its petty thieves, especially if you make it too obvious to see the valuables on you.</p>
<p>Haha, you should have seen how much I spent this summer. 
It’s trouble. Oh well. That’s the nice thing about income I guess. I was just doing my part to stimulate the economy!!</p>
<p>Well, hellodocks, You are already experiencing the fruit of your hard labor. You are now climbing the rungs of success. Business is the place to make money. Did I tell you my BIL graduated with his Harvard MBA and while he has the least number of years of graduate ed of everyone with grad education in my hubby’s and my families, he really has “made it” and he has lived the good life right after graduation. He now is part owner of the Celtics, has beautiful homes and all nice gadgets in the house, own home theatre, etc… Well, money certainly allows one to buy many good things. So enjoy, but do not forget about the little guys too once you are successful. I agree with Buffet, TAX THE RICH. What is wrong with taxing the top few percent of people who have had great wealth transferred to them from the masses in the past decade plus?</p>
<p>It is not “from the masses” per se. This could launch a far larger discussion, but I’ll keep it succinct with a brilliant quote.</p>
<p>“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” - Isaac Asimov, column in Newsweek (21 January 1980)</p>
<p>The disconnect between Main St. and Wall St. is that the latter ‘takes’ from the former. Incorrect. And the idea that you as Big Brother stick your hand into someone’s pocket to keep a slice for yourself and put some in some other guy’s pocket sits very poorly with many people. Now granted, some of the very successful people in the world achieved that success through great fortune, privilege, opportunities, and with relative ease. Others, and I’d include whatever little I’ve been able to do for myself so far here, worked from absolutely nothing, and consequently, are appalled to see industry and perseverance rewarded so miserably given that this is a land of unparalleled opportunity where virtually anyone can become virtually anything they aspire to.</p>
<p>There has been an incredible wealth transfer, yes. That needs to be addressed. Taxation, however, ought not to be the first answer on people’s lips. Entitlement reform is a far more pressing and more weighty matter. Fix that, and you eliminate the primary basis for controversy over tax reform. (I use that term ‘reform’ loosely because I am heavily in favor of tax reform, here I mean it more like “let’s have a kneejerk reaction here and now because our country is in fiscal trouble because of very poor, ignorant policy decisions over a long period and we want the richest to foot the bill and fix things immediately!”)</p>
<p>When you have a situation in which 2/3 of every dollar (yes, that is a hard fact!) we pay to the government now goes to support healthcare <em>and</em> Medicare/Medicaid together now comprise 35-40% of healthcare revenues . . . that is NOT sustainable.</p>
<p>It’s much larger than squeezing the rich for more money. 'Cause guess what. You can do that until the cows come home (or until those few band together, create the strongest private military force, and overthrow the despotic government that would enact such policy), but until you fix the leak in the dam at its root, no amount of crazy glue will stem the tide. Address spending and you eliminate the problem. A doctor doesn’t focus on the symptoms, he observes them and subsequently identifies the disease, and THAT is what he works to cure.</p>
<p>Well, one of the root problems has to be the over-charging of health care costs (compare our drug and medical costs to other countries). How can we not be bankrupt in entitlement programs when programs like Medicare have to deal with sky high costs? By the way, our educational system (especially private ed) is also going the same way. There is no will to deal with cost control. Witness our obedience like sheep to pay for costly education (most of us in the hopes of buying that better opportunity for our children; haha, except NYU2013 who has repeatedly advised against over-spending for private colleges). Also, others like yourself have made this point. The reality is that the majority of people do not move out of the socioeconomic classes of their parents. We use the few who do as the example, “See, if you work hard enough, you will make it like an Eisner or someone else starting with nothinig.” Unfortunately, these are more the exceptions than the rule. Andersen and Collins, Paula Rothenberg, and Cornel West have articulated well how wealth tends to be passed on (inherited). It is like the game of Monopoly where the rich get richer. When you have more chips to begin with, the going is much easier, much easier to acquire more. </p>
<p>Let us not forget the real philosophy that rules in this country is that of capitalism. The people who can spend the most to affect out politicians have great sway over policies, so no one will touch the high cost of pharmaceuticals or the exporting of US company offices to foreign countries to get away from taxes here. Why is it that corporations have so many tax loopholes, they are actually paying less in taxes percentage-wise than many middle class families?</p>
<p>And fundamentally, we have entitlement programs galore because many people on those programs need them to subsist because for many in the lower rungs of society, their labor is valued at much less than others who are somehow valued more, ridiculously more by our society. Why is it that the Disney CEO makes $200,000+ an hour and enough income annually to last him multiple lifetimes. A supervisor of cashiers for walmart does not make enough to pay bills and has to rely on food stamps to survive with her family. Lest you forget, supposedly the CEOs have greater responsibilities for creating products and jobs in society, but we have heard of many cases where CEOS of big institutions have failed and yet are not held accountable and they still have their golden parachute, no matter how they have run down their respective companies (the Deep Recession of 2008-2009 was not that long ago; in fact, we are still in the throes of that wonderful work of packaging all the risky sub-prime mortgages and other financial products). Yet the bonuses flowed freely. BP even had the nerve to praise their leaders’ for their safety record and proposed larger bonuses despite the big BP oil spill.</p>
<p>We forget, unfortunately, that the rich have many entitlement programs and tax loopholes that are not touched upon.</p>
<p>Hellodocks make a good point - it makes sense to have options. I only use messenger bags, but I have a few of them - in different sizes, colors, water proof, etc. If I need to carry only my laptop to class, I can bring a small bag. If I need to carry a lot of things, a larger one. If it’s raining out, a waterproof one.</p>
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<p>The function of government is not to equalize wealth. It is as simple as that. If people feel so strongly about the poorer in their community, they ought to be compelled by human decency to help <em>of their own accord</em>, not because the government reached in their pocket (keeping a bit for Uncle Sam) and forked some over for them.</p>
<p>I grew up literally scrounging for money. Odd jobs, you name it and I did it. Mowing lawns, cleaning scrapyards, washing windows, scrubbing toilets, I been there, done that. I didn’t want to do that the rest of my life, so I made some decisions, and long story short, my prospects are much brighter right now. I would say that everyone has the opportunity to make something of themselves. The sad part is that most lack the ingenuity or industry to succeed, and consequently look to an (unfortunately all too eager) Big Brother to help them out.</p>
<p>And guess what. I want to be filthy rich. Not because I want money for me, but because I know dozens of phenomenal people who exist in miserable conditions, with less opportunity than you could imagine, and worst of all, with less hope than any human being should. To me, money is a tool to affect change. That is why I want it. I see change that needs to be wrought, and guess what? We’ve proven that policy, government, and law has fallen to such deplorable standards that it’s ineffective at reaching even its most basic responsibilities, let alone aims. I argue that I will do a far better job of capital redistribution than any government will, period.</p>
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<p>That is largely true, but you overlook some considerations. In a capitalist society (which you so poignantly pointed out earlier is what we exist in), poor performance is not rewarded and good performance is. Also, skill is placed at a premium and commands consideration (i.e. you pay someone more for more skill than someone with average skill). It is the same as a professional sports league. Why does a single person receive a gaudy salary for tens of millions annually? Because they bring far more than that in return. Just as Lebron, Kobe, or MJ brought God-only-knows how much revenue from actual tangibles (ticket sales, merchandising, broadcasting rights, endorsements, and publicity), let alone intangibles (employee confidence or satisfaction, competitive differentiation, goodwill, brand perception, etc. etc. etc.), the best corporate leadership carries its cost.</p>
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<p>Do not say that. That is absolutely and materially incorrect on a number of levels. Yes, we are still in the depths of the mess, but want to know the root of the mess? It wasn’t the packaging and the engineering. It was the underlying asset. Housing was a mess for years before the cracks even began showing in its corresponding financial products. I am 100% confident and eager to explain this in great depth if I have to.</p>
<p>Put it like this. Say you have a room and the walls are coated with lead paint. You subsequently find out lead paint is incredibly toxic, noxious, and harmful. To fix the problem, what do you do? You don’t ban paintbrushes … you ban the paint!! That is the perfect analogy for this. Unfortunately (and I can say this from direct professional experience) the regulation being applied by Congress is misdirected. We are now in an environment where the safeguards that should have been placed all along <em>still</em> fail to exist while benign instruments are regulated up the ass.</p>
<p>Bonuses flowed freely? Challenge. Hundreds of people across the Street lost their job, their livelihood. It was literally only days before people stopped sitting around talking about what percentage of their bonus might get axed but whether or not they would even be coming in to work tomorrow! I work with 25, 26 year olds with gray hair. It was not pretty. Yes, F500 firms C-suite members still enjoyed uninterrupted tremendous compensation. The average Joe on the Street bore the brunt of the storm just the same as you, probably even worse given their compensation’s dependence on the markets + the emotional/mental aspect of it all.</p>
<p>Despite the incredible amount of respect I have for you, I have to say it’s frustrating and disappointing to see you fall into the bland, predictable reasoning so many uninformed people love to toss around and treat as definitive.</p>