Why does everyone hate the middle classes?

a reply to: crazyewok

Anger at the 1% is something of a misnomer, though a widely used rallying cry to be sure. The reality is that the top 10% is not the problem. Not even the top 1%... But the top .001% who wield enough wealth and power to skew the entire system in their favor. They have accomplished this through 30+ years of deregulation, the funding of think tanks, political action groups, lobbying and, now, outright and legally bribery.

This small circle of people also controls nearly all media - so they control the narrative... Which is how we arrive as the terribly mixed messages we see today - such as the 1% misnomer.

To be fair, the other side of the coin is the bottom 53% of the economic scale who can scarcely offer an opinion these days without being told they have no right to one as they are "useless eaters".

Neither representation is correct or helpful.

A man named Jay Gould once said "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." He stated this during the period we now refer to as The Gilded Age and it applies as much today as it did back then.

Oh and make no mistake... even if you are a millionaire.... to the Jay Goulds of this world, you are most certainly still "working class".

a reply to: crazyewok

From my perspective...

It's the lower classes in the economic strata that are hated in America. Viewed as taking, useless eaters, thugs, lazy etc.
Where in fact many of them are working and still falling thru the cracks. They are easy scapegoats as they have no voice.

a reply to: Esoterotica

the problem with this one percent or 10% that when you are looking at the big picture - i would speculate with some confidence that most ATS contrubuters are 10%ers and very few fall below 15%ers

this is not because we are all rich - its the reality that of the 7 billion other people on this oblate spheroid - 3 billion of them live in abject poverty

a reply to: crazyewok

Heck, some people drive about an hour one way and then work as much as 10 hours on top of it, but those are people who end up the target of the "soak the 1%" policies.

What the people who advocate for those policies don't understand is that they end up making it harder for themselves to succeed in the end because they make each rung steeper and harder to climb. The ones already at the top won't be hurt by those policies, but those on the ladder will have an increased chance of falling back down or never advancing thanks to them and if you haven't started at all ... well, you have that much of a harder time even getting up.

But you are so busy being taught to hate the idea of climbing and those at the top that you doom yourself.

a reply to: ketsuko

I buy groceries for a single mom who makes 9.00 per hour as a CNA. A lot of us old geezers are doing that, sponsoring a local family. Food access for every day of the week is a reality in the USA.

ETA I don't believe children or old people should miss a meal for 24 hours. I guess you can find a doctor or scientist somewhere that will make you feel good about that.

a reply to: crazyewok

Yeah... This is the problem with modern debates.

Bernie Sanders folllowers do not want to stick it to millionaires.

They want to stick it to billionaires, trillionaires...

Youre not being persecuted, dude. You just feel like you are.

I have never once desired to punish an honest man's hard work towards riches.

I just happen to believe that most if not all fortune 100 companies are probably corrupt, sociopathic, dishonest, liars.. Etc..

a reply to: crazyewok

What do you mean by punishment? Do you mean tax increases? Maybe you feel deep down inside that you could do something to help. But that would mean sacrifice.

a reply to: ketsuko

Thats the problem.

I travel 1 and half hours to work there and back every day.

Thanks to the incompetence of Labour (LEFT) and CONSERVATIVE (RIGHT) in regards to improving UK roads and trains its a nighmare.
Road are almost impossible with traffic and would take 3 hours to get to work.

so that leaves the Train.....which again thanks to neglect costs a freaking fortune.

Now at the moment I can claim back some of the travel expenses through tax expenses. Our wonderful government want to get rid of that......bearing in mind or MP get to claim FULL travel expenses.

a reply to: MOMof3

I do what I have to help our family make ends meet. When your budget allows a certain amount for groceries, you can feed yourself breakfast or you can make sure you son has what he needs to eat it every day. As you say, it's more important for the kid to have his than it is for me.

Thankfully, I made the voluntary move away from breakfast long ago in high school because I valued my sleep more, so it's not as hard for me to go without now when it's more necessary in order for us to make our budget.

And I suppose I could eat breakfast, but then we'd have to eat a lot of low quality processed food in order to make our money stretch. I would prefer less meals, but more nutritious ones when I do eat. The fresh food tastes better and is better for me (and him).

I find it funny that you put up meal skipping as a criteria for complaint and then when you find out that I do, you complain that I do it.

a reply to: ketsuko

That is ok. I would not expect you to understand.

a reply to: crazyewok

The rich also pay lots of taxes. So why blame them?

originally posted by: TheTory
a reply to: crazyewok

The rich also pay lots of taxes. So why blame them?

Not blaming them either as long as they earned there money honestly and within the law.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: ketsuko

That is ok. I would not expect you to understand.

Oh, I see. Now that you don't want to discuss anything anymore you claim that I am incapable of understanding.

This is why we feel you hate us.

You get upset because we don't enjoy paying so much in taxes that we get to starve even though our jobs should prevent that status, and then you get upset and complain we simply can't understand.

Yes, I get that $9.00/hour is not enough to make a good living. I also understand that I went to school, worked hard and made something of myself, as did my husband, because we realized this early on and become determined to make choices that would see us eligible to NOT be stuck making only $9.00/hour.

Some people do not have that foresight and for some reason blame people like us for their plight. This is our complaint. It is not our fault if you did not finish high school or only finished high school or get pregnant before you left high school and thus did not ever even think about anything other than your GED and stalled out in your life.

It is not our fault that you did not decide to marry and become a two-income household which vastly reduces poverty even with only a GED of high school education. We are not at fault if you do not have someone who picks up a trade and cannot manage to hold that line of work down. Truckers, plumbers, electricians, etc., society always needs those and they make decent pay ... if you can show basic job skills like showing up on time reliably which many can't or won't these days.

And we especially can't help it if you somehow think everyone else owes you a living because you failed to have the foresight to understand all this for yourself. Your life is not my responsibility.

I already take care of my own family, and not just my immediate, but also my extended on two sides. Then I find time to give what I can to the community around me.

But it's never enough, you think I need to give more off my table, off my back, but I'm not giving, you are taking.

(and not "you" specifically, but you generally)

But nevermind, I guess you can't understand.

a reply to: ketsuko

No. I don't. Some humans are not capable of empathy. So we will never find common ground. I think you represent the 1% very well.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: ketsuko

No. I don't. Some humans are not capable of empathy. So we will never find common ground. I think you represent the 1% very well.

Except I am not them.

And if you think I have no empathy ... well, I'm not the only here who doesn't.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: ketsuko

That is ok. I would not expect you to understand.

Oh, I see. Now that you don't want to discuss anything anymore you claim that I am incapable of understanding.

This is why we feel you hate us.

You get upset because we don't enjoy paying so much in taxes that we get to starve even though our jobs should prevent that status, and then you get upset and complain we simply can't understand.

Yes, I get that $9.00/hour is not enough to make a good living. I also understand that I went to school, worked hard and made something of myself, as did my husband, because we realized this early on and become determined to make choices that would see us eligible to NOT be stuck making only $9.00/hour.

Some people do not have that foresight and for some reason blame people like us for their plight. This is our complaint. It is not our fault if you did not finish high school or only finished high school or get pregnant before you left high school and thus did not ever even think about anything other than your GED and stalled out in your life.

It is not our fault that you did not decide to marry and become a two-income household which vastly reduces poverty even with only a GED of high school education. We are not at fault if you do not have someone who picks up a trade and cannot manage to hold that line of work down. Truckers, plumbers, electricians, etc., society always needs those and they make decent pay ... if you can show basic job skills like showing up on time reliably which many can't or won't these days.

And we especially can't help it if you somehow think everyone else owes you a living because you failed to have the foresight to understand all this for yourself. Your life is not my responsibility.

I already take care of my own family, and not just my immediate, but also my extended on two sides. Then I find time to give what I can to the community around me.

But it's never enough, you think I need to give more off my table, off my back, but I'm not giving, you are taking.

(and not "you" specifically, but you generally)

But nevermind, I guess you can't understand.

********************************************************

Cause I cant give that more stars.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: ketsuko

No. I don't. Some humans are not capable of empathy. So we will never find common ground. I think you represent the 1% very well.

I do have empathy.

I don’t mind paying a FAIR amount of tax.

I don’t mind paying for a bit of charity that can help the poor that truly fall on hard times.

What I mind is being lumbered with a tax burden that makes my hard work not worth it as it put me no better off than someone on welfare/ in a low skilled job.

Instead of forcing me through tax into the lower income bracket how about helping those in the lower bracket get into my income bracket?
I don’t want my wages being massively cut to subsidize the life style of the lazy.

As Ketsuko said you don’t need to be a genius. Truckers, plumbers electrician ect earn GOOD money.

originally posted by: crazyewok

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: ketsuko

No. I don't. Some humans are not capable of empathy. So we will never find common ground. I think you represent the 1% very well.

I do have empathy.

I don’t mind paying a FAIR amount of tax.

I don’t mind paying for a bit of charity that can help the poor that truly fall on hard times.

What I mind is being lumbered with a tax burden that makes my hard work not worth it as it put me no better off than someone on welfare/ in a low skilled job.

Instead of forcing me through tax into the lower income bracket how about helping those in the lower bracket get into my income bracket?
I don’t want my wages being massively cut to subsidize the life style of the lazy.

As Ketsuko said you don’t need to be a genius. Truckers, plumbers electrician ect earn GOOD money.

When you say you earn good money what kind of bracket are we talking here, not nosey but looking for a benchmark and what makes you consider your self middle class?

In some parts of the UK plasterers are on £200+ per day self employed and grain of sand is a plasterer so that tells you what level of intelligence you need to be a plasterer

a reply to: nonspecific

I’m firmly in the 40% bracket

Lets just say I’m somewhere in between £40-60K

I was briefly JUST in the 45% for abit but that job was too stressful for my health.


And yeah I know some roofers that make WAAAAAAAAAAY more than me.
And good on them!
Money is out there if you work for it!

a reply to: crazyewok

My first cousin never went to college of any sort. He is a trucker, mostly local hauls, but he does one long haul per week. His wife never did college either. She has worked her way up in the family business from secretary. She did finally earn a correspondence degree and she's in sales now.

They do very, very well for themselves. They own a house they built and have a bit of ground. He has an auto-body shop and restores cars for a nice side business.

His best friend from high school also never did college and now owns a construction contracting business and does very well for himself.

However, they both started with the attitude that no one owed them anything and started their own lawn mowing business in the summers during high school. You can see where that attitude has led.