POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

That's still what I would consider at or near middle class. I'm fairly confident my family earned around $160k-$200k when I left for college. We were most certainly not upper class. We were firmly in the upper middle class with no chance of being confused for upper class.

It's a question of how narrow or broad you think of each class as being. I'm taking the classes as 1:3:1, and by those brackets your family (like mine) was "upper class" while not being "rich." But if you think of the classes as say 3:6:1, then you were upper middle. As somebody has probably pointed out by now, in the US almost everybody identifies as "middle class," including that spectacularly tin earned Member a few years ago who said at $400k he was "middle class."

I believe this guy had the answer on this, as on everything.

Class traitor? What f-cking ever!
I'm just another middle class kid, too
But if I'm not good at changing, I'm good at self loathing
So I'll class hate myself with you

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

That's not how I read that chart. How I read it (and of course there also have to be regional cost adjustments):

Lower class (bottom quint): 0 - 22.8
Middle class (quints 2-4): 22.9 - 112.3
Upper class (top quint): 112.4 +

That chart is wrong. I live in the real world and in the real world Upper Class is NOT 112.4. Not even close.

you must remember michael douglas' speech in the back of the limo coming back from squash with aids boy!!! LIQUID!!! just making the top 20% don't make one upper class.

Exactly.

Shocked Kepler is falling into that hole.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

Define upper class? That income (10 years ago?) puts your family easily into a top bracket.

250 or more. It's the line our own Senators and Representatives always cite. And for good reason.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

250 or more. It's the line our own Senators and Representatives always cite. And for good reason.

Yeah, they cite that figure because it alienates the fewest number of voters as possible.

 

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

What's probably most significant is that a group of relatively smart people can legitimately disagree on the definition of such a widely used political term like "middle class".

Consequently, if I raise taxes on a $200k household, I am certainly "raising taxes on the middle class!" And if I cut taxes on a $200k household, I am most certainly going to be "giving tax cuts to the rich!"

 

[mookie1995]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

It wasn't teaching economics, it pertained to people assigning themselves to the middle class when their income and wealth don't align with the middle class because of the desire to be associated with traditional American icons and myths.

Nice reading comprehension. You're clearly below the middle.

dude, were WE talking about upper middle class - or what some moron thinks it is and where they belong??

mookie knows what class means. it doesn't mean income brackets. classes are not meant to be sorted in equal parts. not even close.


mookie salutes these people for trying, but as we learned in men in black - a person may be smart, but people are stupid.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

Your expectations and reality simply do not align.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychology-yesterday/201610/the-psychology-being-middle-class

That's cute and all. But we were not part of the upper class. We didn't have a cabin, we didn't have a boat, we grew up with a single decent car and usually a junker, both parents worked, we had a medium-sized house, we almost never took vacations (maybe once every five or six years), we went to public school, we couldn't afford to play hockey, etc.

It's a question of how narrow or broad you think of each class as being. I'm taking the classes as 1:3:1, and by those brackets your family (like mine) was "upper class" while not being "rich." But if you think of the classes as say 3:6:1, then you were upper middle. As somebody has probably pointed out by now, in the US almost everybody identifies as "middle class," including that spectacularly tin earned Member a few years ago who said at $400k he was "middle class."

I believe this guy had the answer on this, as on everything.

I think I'm aligned with mookie, the middle class is not the biggest class. It hasn't been for decades, and maybe it never was. It was mythologized as being the great center where almost everyone resided. Today we probably live in a 50:30:20 or 60:30:10 society. Maybe back in the day it was 30:50:20 or 30:60:10. But St. Ronnie and the GOP have dumped on the middle class.

$400,000 is not middle class. That's two industry-leading professionals both working. I think of middle class as topping out with two mid-range professionals. Today that would be in the $125k each range. It probably starts around two entry-level teacher positions (which I guessed around $35k-$40k each).

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

That chart is wrong. I live in the real world and in the real world Upper Class is NOT 112.4. Not even close.

If $112k is upper class, then I'll have to break out the caviar more often. Lol. That's absurd. Two out-of-college engineers would make more than that combined. It's not just salary that makes someone upper class. It's a combination of wealth and income.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

What's probably most significant is that a group of relatively smart people can legitimately disagree on the definition of such a widely used political term like "middle class".

Consequently, if I raise taxes on a $200k household, I am certainly "raising taxes on the middle class!" And if I cut taxes on a $200k household, I am most certainly going to be "giving tax cuts to the rich!"

The first paragraph can be an intelligent discussion.

The second paragraph is almost always political derp.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

yes.

when the working / proletariat class got too uppity, those jobs were moved to offshore plants. middle class jobs are mgmt level salaries.

once more

owner class
mgmt class
working class

upper
middle
lower

it's not rocket science (those guys would be middle while the owner of the rockets lives in upper. the dude who screw the metal together are lower. if the screwers make too much the rockets will be made in guyana).

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

Yeah, they cite that figure because it alienates the fewest number of voters as possible.

And it's accurate. Anyone who's in the age range that I am, and has raised a family, and has held down a job for the last 20 years has a pretty good idea where the lines are.

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

If $112k is upper class, then I'll have to break out the caviar more often. Lol. That's absurd. Two out-of-college engineers would make more than that combined. It's not just salary that makes someone upper class. It's a combination of wealth and income.

I think the point of all this is just how poor most of America is, not how "upper class" one feels.

By the raw numbers, we are upper class. We're not rich (the 2%) and we're not the obscenely rich (0.1%) but compared to most Americans we're rolling in it.

That's not a statement about how rich we are, but about how poor Reagan et all has made this country. Elections have consequences and 39 years ago (the midterms before The Triumph of the Rich) the white working class fell for a line of talk and f-cked themselves, and eventually us all.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

I think the point of all this is just how poor most of America is, not how "upper class" one feels.

By the raw numbers, we are upper class. We're not rich (the 2%) and we're not the obscenely rich (0.1%) but compared to most Americans we're rolling in it.

That's not a statement about how rich we are, but about how poor Reagan et all has made this country. Elections have consequences and 39 years ago (the midterms before The Triumph of the Rich) the white working class fell for a line of talk and f-cked themselves, and eventually us all.

So it's perspective. If you look at it from the working clas, everyone is upper class.

I still think it's better to frame it as jobs rather than income. How can two entry level professionals be considered upper class? They have no wealth. They have a middle income. Likely massive debt.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

I think the point of all this is just how poor most of America is, not how "upper class" one feels.

By the raw numbers, we are upper class. We're not rich (the 2%) and we're not the obscenely rich (0.1%) but compared to most Americans we're rolling in it.

That's not a statement about how rich we are, but about how poor Reagan et all has made this country. Elections have consequences and 39 years ago (the midterms before The Triumph of the Rich) the white working class fell for a line of talk and f-cked themselves, and eventually us all.

I think here you're at least acknowledging that the raw numbers have been destroyed by how skewed the graph has become. Bar, Line, Pie, the chart is super ****ed up compared to before Reagan took office.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

So it's perspective. If you look at it from the working clas, everyone is upper class.

I still think it's better to frame it as jobs rather than income. How can two entry level professionals be considered upper class? They have no wealth. They have a middle income. Likely massive debt.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Almington]

So it's perspective. If you look at it from the working clas, everyone is upper class.

I still think it's better to frame it as jobs rather than income. How can two entry level professionals be considered upper class? They have no wealth. They have a middle income. Likely massive debt.

Stop comparing them to their parents and compare them to their age group peers.

They have had all the opportunities needed to likely remain upper class. Compared to their parents, they are not upper class, compared to their peers they absolutely are and they are likely to remain upper class as they become older and more established.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

he isn't comparing it to his or anyone's parents.

and it doesn't matter what your peers think. for all intents everyone (within a subset) can be working class. while true that people think of themselves as a Sun and perhaps "everyone who makes more than me is rich, everyone who makes less than me is poor", that doesn't make it right

 

[rufus]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

Hilarious that you had a household income of 200K what, ten years ago, and yet you don't think that was upper class. Sure, you may not "feel" upper class, but you certainly were.

Median household income is what in this country, 46K? That means half the families in this country are getting by with that or less. Imagine the struggles they're having to make it in this world today.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

It was a guess. God I knew you people would focus on the high end of that range and run with it completely ignoring the fact that it could have easily been $160k. And that it was a complete guess.

If anything I probably romanticized my family's accomplishments and income. We didn't have money problems, none that I knew. But we didn't have money.

Class isn't derived solely from income. It's derived from a combination of income, wealth, and lifestyle. We may have had what you consider an upper income but we didn't have the wealth. We didn't have the lifestyle.

But you go on inserting yourself in my life haha. Tell me what we were.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: POTUS 45.12: Dan, does it take courage when encountering the covfefe?

And you are hilariously misusing median here and making it out like I didn't understand we were priveliged growing up. You really framed it well in that you're either poor or rich and completely missed the other 80% of the discussion we've had.