Death Of The Middle Classes

[The Masked Tulip]

A neighbour of mine - a 29 year old Greek girl working here in the UK and about to go to Uni next Autumn - and I were having an interesting discussion this week. We were talking about houses and she lurched into a 'wonderful' observation about the UK.

She commented that the Middle Class is being wiped out by economic polices and that, in her opinion, within 10 years or so the Middle Class will no longer exist as the UK becomes polarised into the very rich and the poor. She put much of this down to economic policies, to taxation and to house prices. Anyhow, I thought I would share as I felt it was an interesting observation from a 'foreigner' who has worked here in the UK for several years now.

[JJJ]

Good. Maybe if we destroy the middle classes there will finally be an end to the boom bust house price cycle!

[Bingley Bloke]

Good observation. But with only very rich and very poor people left the very poor will need financial help and the very rich will have to pay for it via much higher taxes. They won't like this so they'll emmigrate, leaving a country full of liabilities and no source of money to cover the cost. This is the vision I have had for the UK for a number of years.

[right_freds_dead]

War of the masses, the outcome, disaterous

Many of the victim family save there ashes

A million names on walls engraved in plaques

Those who went back, received tax penalties for their acts

Another heart is torn, as close ones are gone

Those who stay, get slayed on the song

The country renders helpless and suffers from multiple stabwounds.

As the world turn, It spreads like germs

Bless the globe with this pestilence, the hard-headed never learn

It's a testament to those burned

Play my position in the game of life standing firm

on foreign land, jump the gun out the frying pan, into the fire

Transform into the Ghostrider, or Six Pack

In a Streetvan named Desire

[bearwithaconscience]

She commented that the Middle Class is being wiped out by economic polices and that, in her opinion, within 10 years or so the Middle Class will no longer exist as the UK becomes polarised into the very rich and the poor.

That seems to have happened in London already. There is an increasingly priveleged asset owning class, who lock themselves ever more securely in their homes, fighting over school places to keep away from the "chavs" who they perceive as a social menace. Meanwhile seemingly the only way ordinary people could now afford to have a family is with a state subsidy (tax credits, housing benefit, child care credits etc). Those children are born into a world of low opportunities and the circle continues. Meanwhile the asset owning rich blame all of society's problems on the "chavs"...

How are you going to persuade someone to go to uni when they watched their older peers do that and end up in a tiny flat unable to afford kids? What incentive is that?

[CrashCrash]

That seems to have happened in London already. There is an increasingly priveleged asset owning class, who lock themselves ever more securely in their homes, fighting over school places to keep away from the "chavs" who they perceive as a social menace. Meanwhile seemingly the only way ordinary people could now afford to have a family is with a state subsidy (tax credits, housing benefit, child care credits etc). Those children are born into a world of low opportunities and the circle continues. Meanwhile the asset owning rich blame all of society's problems on the "chavs"...

How are you going to persuade someone to go to uni when they watched their older peers do that and end up in a tiny flat unable to afford kids? What incentive is that?

We are neither Super Rich nor Chav. Atleast chav have NuLab to look afterh them and Super Rich do not need anybody. What about us those who do not fall into any of these categor

ies?

Edited July 7, 2006 by CrashCrash

[pickle]

This whole argument is nonsesne. If anything, the class structure is flattening - we are all becoming middle class!

Just because house prices are currently above trend hardly means we are turning into a polarized society! As for the "I cant afford to have kids" crap. Where do you think all those "chavs" come from? Poor people have more kids than the rich!

[Bemused]

A neighbour of mine - a 29 year old Greek girl working here in the UK and about to go to Uni next Autumn - and I were having an interesting discussion this week. We were talking about houses and she lurched into a 'wonderful' observation about the UK.

She commented that the Middle Class is being wiped out by economic polices and that, in her opinion, within 10 years or so the Middle Class will no longer exist as the UK becomes polarised into the very rich and the poor. She put much of this down to economic policies, to taxation and to house prices. Anyhow, I thought I would share as I felt it was an interesting observation from a 'foreigner' who has worked here in the UK for several years now.

Stagflation, the gradual decline of the middle class .... looks like we are going back to pre WW2 Germany .................. Only the Muslims look set to be the new Jews? Lets hope not.

[OzzMosiz]

This whole argument is nonsesne. If anything, the class structure is flattening - we are all becoming middle class!

Just because house prices are currently above trend hardly means we are turning into a polarized society! As for the "I cant afford to have kids" crap. Where do you think all those "chavs" come from? Poor people have more kids than the rich!

And because the poor people can't cloth their kids, they end up wearing tack shell/track suits, hence the chav is born!!

Because these kids are in poor families, they can't afford decent hobbies and end up hanging around streets being

a nuisance! Not all, but some!

[The Masked Tulip]

Interestingly, my copy of this week's Moneyweek has just come in and there is an interesting article, on page 17 for anyone who has a copy, that brushes around the edges of what this thread is discussing.

The editorial this week is about the Editor - I assume he reads this forum - who was, I think it is safe to say, conned by a chap knocking on his front door and saying he had come to clean the carpets. The Editor was not sure who had booked this chap, could have been his wife or the landlord, so he lets him in, this chap works for 90 minutes doing a great job by all accounts and then charges £97 in cash. The Editor later gets through to his wife on the phone who knows that this cold-calling is a scam but...

The editorial makes a comment about how people prepared to work are making money - I suspect this touches on the numerous 'Poles' threads appearing here of late - and those who aren't... aren't.... A fuller article later in the mag makes a comment about how London is full of people doign this kind of thing these days...

Anyhow, if you did 3 £97 jobs a day and you worked 40 weeks of the year you would make just under £60,000 - cash in hand. I wonder what that is in real terms (How much would you have to earn paying taxes to have 60K in your back pocket?).

If the UK Middle Classes, ignoring Brown's determination seemingly to tax them out of existence, are only prepared to be teachers, civil servants in offices and other such jobs then they will disappear in taxation as those who do work, and who do charge the £97s for their work, become richer and richer. The poor, of course, will continue to be shafted by all sadly.

[right_freds_dead]

this kind of stuff is fine while in a boom, but i am sure plenty of door knockers will get it shut in their face if pennies grow tighter.

easy come. easy go.

these workers are living off the boom like pilot fish.

the real makers are the people that BTLd in 1995.

can you imagine the sums made if you had say 3 terrace houses in london.

[The Masked Tulip]

The people who bought the 3 BTL terrace houses in London in 1995 were probably door knocking and cleaning carpets, etc in the late 80s.

[dog]

This whole argument is nonsesne. If anything, the class structure is flattening - we are all becoming middle class!

Possibly true, but the new middle class have less respect for such virtues as honesty, hard work and service to the community. A person who hands in a lost £20 note today is laughed at.

[cocacolalight]

Talking of Poles, I know quite a few who have emigrated to America and have made small fortunes from nothing but hard work.

They put it down to the fact that Americans do nothing for themselves. If the car needs washed, they pay for it. If it needs fixed, they pay for it. If carpets need cleaned, they pay for it. And guess who does the work?

[The Masked Tulip]

Watched a prog about a British couple last year who went to Florida and set up a gardening business as they realised the locals did not garden for themselves and had no real idea how to.

[warwickbloke]

A neighbour of mine - a 29 year old Greek girl working here in the UK and about to go to Uni next Autumn - and I were having an interesting discussion this week. We were talking about houses and she lurched into a 'wonderful' observation about the UK.

She commented that the Middle Class is being wiped out by economic polices and that, in her opinion, within 10 years or so the Middle Class will no longer exist as the UK becomes polarised into the very rich and the poor. She put much of this down to economic policies, to taxation and to house prices. Anyhow, I thought I would share as I felt it was an interesting observation from a 'foreigner' who has worked here in the UK for several years now.

Middle class

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In early industrial capitalism, the middle class was defined primarily as white-collar workers—those who worked for wages (like all workers), but did so in conditions that were comfortable and safe compared to the conditions for blue-collar workers of the "working class." The expansion of the phrase "middle class" in the United States appears to have been predicated in the 1970s by the decline of labor unions in the US and the entrance of formerly domestic women into the public workforce. A great number of pink-collar jobs arose, where people could avoid the dangerous conditions of blue-collar work and therefore claim to be "middle class" even if they were making far less money than a unionized blue-collar worker.

In the United States, by the end of the twentieth century, more people identified themselves as middle class than as lower or "working" class, with statistically insignificant numbers identifying themselves as upper class. In contrast, in the United Kingdom, many who traditionally would be considered middle class today identify themselves as working class. In recent surveys up to two-thirds of Britons tend to identify themselves as working class. This has been described as a form of "inverse snobbery." Nonetheless the British Labour Party, which grew out of the organized labor movement and originally drew almost all of its support from the working class, reinvented itself under Tony Blair in the 1990s as "New Labour," a party competing with the Conservative Party for the votes of the middle class as well as the working class. The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined, whether by education, wealth, environment of upbringing, genetic relationships, social network, manners or values, etc. These are all related, though far from deterministically dependent. The following factors are often ascribed in modern usage to a "middle class":

Achievement of tertiary education, including all financiers, lawyers, doctors and clergymen regardless of their leisure or wealth.

Belief in bourgeois values, such as high rates of house or long-term lease ownership and jobs which are perceived to be "secure." In the United States and in the United Kingdom, politicians typically target the votes of the middle classes.

Lifestyle. In the United Kingdom, social status has been less directly linked to wealth than in the United States, and has also been judged by pointers such as accent, manners, place of education and the class of a person's circle of friends and acquaintances. Often in the United States, the middle class are the most eager participants in pop culture. The second generation of new immigrants will often enthusiastically forsake their traditional folk culture as a sign of having arrived in the middle class.

A net worth, what a person's total material assets are worth, minus their debt. Most economists define "middle-class" citizens as those with net worths of between $125,000 and $250,000. Those with net worths between $250,000 and $500,000 typically are categorized as upper middle class. Those with net worths below $125,000 can be further broken down into working class to lower class.[1]

There will always be 'middle class', apparently.

[Assurbanipal]

Probably - and unfortunetly - she had a right. I noticed that it is harder and harder to became a memeber of middle class here - due to many reasons.

1. Costs of education - presently, anyone for any studies has to pay 3.000 pounds per year. I wonder how it will increase level of indebtness among young Brits, if before raising education costs this level was enough bad.

2. "Bad" manners of young people. I am calling it "buy now" culture. There is very rare among young people to save - they are rather use a life, by buying anything using credit cards and loans. Moreover, there is no respect for the money among young - if money is so easy (loans!) there is no reason to respect...(yes, it is an illusion). So, finally, in such conditions is impossible to cumulate a wealth. Moreover, the young are very sensitive on any economic fluctuations - when unemployment will jump, many of them will find themselvs in big troubles, unable to pay off debts.

3. Macroeconomics factors - like trade/budget deficits. Both deficits mean need of loans - not cumulating of the wealth, like in, for example, China case.

[Marina]

Dear Lord, pleaaasseee stop me .... do not let me type this .... it isn't funny ..... obviously not the chap's first language ....

Bugger it - you're asking for trouble carrying accumulated wealth around in a china case.

[Montauk]

Good observation. But with only very rich and very poor people left the very poor will need financial help and the very rich will have to pay for it via much higher taxes. They won't like this so they'll emmigrate, leaving a country full of liabilities and no source of money to cover the cost. This is the vision I have had for the UK for a number of years.

Actually, I doubt that very much. England is a very desireable place to live and will remain so into the far future. Sort of like California. It may be taken another peg or two down, but nonetheless...

[Montauk]

For interesting reading about what's presently happening in my country, you may be interested in "thehousingbubbleblogdotcom".

[Montauk]

Bump to the top.

[Montauk]

Afraid, eh? Not surprising from the like of you all!

Such a pansy wedsite these days, I say!

Not to ruffle any feathers, now shall we?

What ever happened to "Freedom of Association" ?

[Montauk]

Mysteriously absent from this board are links to alternate discussion boards, which should give one pause. Has anyone els noticed this lack of FREEDOM?

If not, surely there should be some interesting blogs in England about the housing situation.

That being said, I fully expect to be banned outright. Anyone out there?

[StainlessSteelCat]

Forgive us - most of us in the UK are sleeping at 3.30am. I'm sure someone will be along shortly

[dog]

Probably - and unfortunetly - she had a right. I noticed that it is harder and harder to became a memeber of middle class here - due to many reasons.

1. Costs of education - presently, anyone for any studies has to pay 3.000 pounds per year. I wonder how it will increase level of indebtness among young Brits, if before raising education costs this level was enough bad.

People resent £3,000 for their child's education but they are happy to pay £10,000K in mortgage repayments for a bigger house and they must have a prestige car to show off to their neighbours. In today's society, a wide screen flat TV is considered more valuable than a good education.