Cyclone Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 For all Labour's talk of the squeezed middle are they actually right after all http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2401122/Marry-Buy-house-Work-hard-save-Its-life-generations-took-granted-But-says-leading-historian-seismic-change-way--The-death-middle-classes.html Not often the Daily Mail does doom as well as it. I think there is something in it. How many families are bustin' their balls trying to keep up the pretence of still being middle class? I suppose you'd have to define middle class first. You can't lose your level of education for example. What else defines it, being a professional, unlikely to change for many people... Income is part of it, but that only changes if the profession changes or the person becomes long term unemployed... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna B Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 It has to be said that a good number of nations in the past and present did not sit around moaning about a standard of living they would like,the did something about it! When the Irish could not feed themselves through famine they emigrated,likewise the Scots when the clearances took place. Witness the number of people coming to live here ,(mostly for a better life than where they have left)............change happens! and it's happening in Britain today! best get used to it or maybe time to move on......Australia anyone? you could go there for a tenner at one time. Australia is increasingly difficult and expensive to get into. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Never believed in the middle class, "I'm better than you, but not him," lark. You either have to work or you don't. It never meant someone that didn't have to work though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staunton Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Maybe that nice Mr Gove is planning to give full attention to issues such as the potato famine and the Highland clearances in his new history syllabus? Perhaps - but I suspect not! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 They only exist because people want them to exist, I'm better than you etc. That's the point I'm making. No, you're attaching a value judgement about 'better' or 'worse' where one doesn't need to exist. They are simply a convenient way of identifying groups of people with similar backgrounds, work, incomes, interests, etc... You can identify those groups without trying to say better or worse, and no amount of denying it will make those groups disappear. You might as well deny that breeds of dog exist. ---------- Post added 28-08-2013 at 11:58 ---------- Yes it's changed. Like the OP says, a seismic shift is under way, the like of which has not been seen in our lifetimes. It's hard to envisage as we have no personal experience of what it will mean. All the old certainties are going - a home, a job, a family, a decent education, enough money to live on, working to better yourself, social mobility, a welfare state, marriage, even food, can no longer be depended upon. Non of those things were ever certainties, you had to learn a skill in order to have any job worth having. You had to work at it and save in order to buy a house. A wife and family have always been a personal issue and continue to be so. People are better educated today than they were in the past and the welfare state as a temporary support mechanism still exists.quote] Add to that world debtNot a new thing the collapsing economy, the collapse of democracyNot happening the dire political partiesNot different to the past. climate changeNot happening (or at least massively exaggerated). the upheavel in the middle eastNothing new the collapse of the English church and rise of radical Islam,We've had terrorists for a long time, nothing new. the decline of America and the rise of China,I fail to see why this is automatically bad. and you begin to realise we're all in a serious mess that isn't going to sort itself out any time soon. You're a massive doomsayer, yet most of what you've based the doom on is either not happening, over exaggerated or situation normal. It's the coming together of many disparate threads to create a perfect storm... A storm of normality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna B Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 No, you're attaching a value judgement about 'better' or 'worse' where one doesn't need to exist. They are simply a convenient way of identifying groups of people with similar backgrounds, work, incomes, interests, etc... You can identify those groups without trying to say better or worse, and no amount of denying it will make those groups disappear. You might as well deny that breeds of dog exist. ---------- Post added 28-08-2013 at 11:58 ---------- Non of those things were ever certainties, you had to learn a skill in order to have any job worth having. You had to work at it and save in order to buy a house. A wife and family have always been a personal issue and continue to be so. People are better educated today than they were in the past and the welfare state as a temporary support mechanism still exists.quote] Add to that world debt Not a new thingNot happeningNot different to the past.Not happening (or at least massively exaggerated).Nothing newWe've had terrorists for a long time, nothing new.I fail to see why this is automatically bad. You're a massive doomsayer, yet most of what you've based the doom on is either not happening, over exaggerated or situation normal. A storm of normality. So pleased to hear it. I hope you're right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridgeway84 Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 No, you're attaching a value judgement about 'better' or 'worse' where one doesn't need to exist. They are simply a convenient way of identifying groups of people with similar backgrounds, work, incomes, interests, etc... You can identify those groups without trying to say better or worse, and no amount of denying it will make those groups disappear. You might as well deny that breeds of dog exist. ---------- Post added 28-08-2013 at 11:58 ---------- Non of those things were ever certainties, you had to learn a skill in order to have any job worth having. You had to work at it and save in order to buy a house. A wife and family have always been a personal issue and continue to be so. People are better educated today than they were in the past and the welfare state as a temporary support mechanism still exists.quote] Add to that world debt Not a new thingNot happeningNot different to the past.Not happening (or at least massively exaggerated).Nothing newWe've had terrorists for a long time, nothing new.I fail to see why this is automatically bad. You're a massive doomsayer, yet most of what you've based the doom on is either not happening, over exaggerated or situation normal. A storm of normality. There you go again. And you can't see why the rise of a murderous dictatorship is a bad thing? Strange. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L00b Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 How many families are bustin' their balls trying to keep up the pretence of still being middle class?All those who over-extended themselves while the going was artificially good. And that's no bad thing. Simply call it a correction under the communicating vessels effect. The 'middle' has always been squeezed hardest in times of penury, and always shall be. Wherever you look, whenever you look. Comes with the territory, nothing new under the sun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 It has to be said that a good number of nations in the past and present did not sit around moaning about a standard of living they would like,the did something about it! When the Irish could not feed themselves through famine they emigrated,likewise the Scots when the clearances took place. Famine? Ireland exported vast quantities of milk, butter, cheese and pork throughout the potato famine. T'was the poor that starved and emigrated, and they then got exploited by slumlords in NY. The Scots were exploited too, and there is lots of anger remaining relating to the stealing of the land, in both Ireland and Scotland, and here in England, and also in Wales. Witness the number of people coming to live here ,(mostly for a better life than where they have left)............change happens! and it's happening in Britain today! best get used to it or maybe time to move on......Australia anyone? you could go there for a tenner at one time. A lot of people who emigrate here after war etc. complain at our small houses and the high cost of living. I'd be tempted to move to Aus for a tenner, 100 acres of land there per person, compared to just one here. But also a massive property bubble and artificial scarcity of housing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 Well about time people woke up. What do you think student loans, which started as a top us were all about, if middle class parents were not being indirectly taxed for further education, for that is what it is. They will support their children so its 50K per person, per degree and more if they go for a MA or PhD. Only the well off can afford this game, and the rest become slowly impoverished. Clearly you don't really understand how student loans work. The are repaid by the graduate, and only if they earn over a certain threshold, they don't present a barrier to higher education at all. Next is the game of pension robbery, where it will be discovered that financial products sold by you know who, which are valued at a price today will be found as they were in the Eurozone to be worthless bits of paper. It was the selling of financial products that have and continue to devastate the western world. We all know everything has to be privatised, the NHS has to be crippled completely before it will be saved by corporate interests. We are witnessing the slow deliberate destruction of everything we valued, and its all done slowly, stealthily, over a few decades, so as not to frighten the population. To what end, the government are part of the people, how do they gain by destroying the nation? Its how predators work, they do not rush in but set things up slowly, and stealthily before the final push. We the population will all stand round mouths agape, like watching a building burn down, helpless to do anything and acting publicly when its too late. The death of nations through the traditional 1000 cuts, and like such a demise it’s a slow lingering death. Who do you suggest is orchestrating this multi decade killing and why and how? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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