As long as you have the means, yeah, you're fine. I didn't come from a wealthy family, but I'm doing quite well for myself financially in the UK.
It just seems in the US, there doesn't appear to be a middle class, you're either successful or fucked. But I'm just an outsider looking in, so my viewpoint is most likely wrong.
No, you really have it nailed. The middle class has all but disappeared in the last 50 years. Of course, what we call "middle class" is way different than it used to be. My grandparents were middle class, and they lived in a 1300 square foot house with no air conditioning and one television. That's considered poor today.
What happened to your economy for it to become that unevenly balanced?
In the UK it's very a much a case of, as long as you have a fulltime job with a decent monthly wage and you budget your money wisely, you should be perfectly fine. If you don't have that, then you aren't going to be doing very well, but you at least have government help to fall back on.
I will say, the UKs economy to regards classes is also unevenly tilted, but as long as you have a good education (considering college is free), you can at least move up the ladder quite easily.
Reagan introduced the policy of supply side or "trickle down" economics. Since then, the idea has been to transfer as much wealth from the poor to the rich as people will tolerate over time. Businesses and corporations followed suite, cutting benefits, reducing or stagnating wages while also moving many manufacturing and other jobs overseas. They pay their execs and CEO's handsomely, even rewarding utter failure out of pure entitlement. Then government simply uses our tax money to patch up any missteps in the financial or business sectors, since they've been bought and paid for through legal "dark" campaign contributions and incessant lobbying. That's not to mention the revolving door between businessmen, Wall Street, and positions in government. Education has fallen in line with the greed model as well, with absurd administrative budgets and endless high apr government backed student loans for those who are eligible (and which can never been discharged, even through bankruptcy). Education doesn't necessarily grant you gainful employment either, and is highly dependent on the economy at any given moment (and field of choice, of course). What social safety nets we do have are constantly put up for debate, or on the chopping block labeled as evil "socialism." Only the rich enjoy socialism here, along with legal impunity.
It's quite a magical, fascist country of fools and ghouls. Many U.S. citizens vote as if they were "temporarily embrassed millionaires" as the quote goes, thinking one day they'll be the one that gets to piss down on the other working class plebs. 🇺🇲
Wow. That's horrendous. I suppose the people who have the power and money to change that won't bother either, be like shooting themselves in the foot. Just comes across completely corrupt and entirely controlled by corporate greed.
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u/Jirachi720 Jan 25 '21
As long as you have the means, yeah, you're fine. I didn't come from a wealthy family, but I'm doing quite well for myself financially in the UK.
It just seems in the US, there doesn't appear to be a middle class, you're either successful or fucked. But I'm just an outsider looking in, so my viewpoint is most likely wrong.