Middle class. How do you define it? (mortgage, vacation)

[tande1n5]

Originally Posted by novaman

How many generations would you have to go back in the wealth tree to not be neuveaux riche...Paris Hilton's grandpa made the money.

A few... I guess it's more of a question for the old money, but I'm sure just going back to Grandpa Conrad isn't good enough for many in the upper class... I remember hearing about how JFK wasn't able to get into many clubs in the Boston area because, besides his Catholicism, his father Joe making the money wasn't good enough.

[karkyco]

Originally Posted by tande1n5

A few... I guess it's more of a question for the old money, but I'm sure just going back to Grandpa Conrad isn't good enough for many in the upper class... I remember hearing about how JFK wasn't able to get into many clubs in the Boston area because, besides his Catholicism, his father Joe making the money wasn't good enough.

Well, that could have also been due to the fact Joe made the bulk of the family fortune as a booze smuggler during the prohibition...

[MySecretSelf]

Originally Posted by Reivax

Seeing as how class doesn't exist, maybe it would be more fun to rate everyone by some fancy new statistic derived from a complicated formula comparing your potential vs. what you have actually achieved in life.

This kind of rating reminds me of trying to break into the Elementary School's "Insider Club" or old school fraternities which shall go unnamed. It's the stuff Hollywood is made of the Innies vs. the Outties.

[MySecretSelf]

Sounds like the caste system, IMHO.

Originally Posted by Reivax

Class doesn't exist, whether we think it does or not.
No job application or home loan app asks you to specify what class you are in. None of us are obligated to wear a distinguishing mark on our bodies that indicates what caste we come from. My driver's license doesn't specify my class. (well, actually it does, apparently I'm class C )
If I show up with the money, I can buy a home in Beverly Hills, I can buy a 100' yacht, I can sit around the French Riviera and order the staff around. It has to do with money, and any one can get that.

I'll agree that not all people are smart enough to generate wealth, but intelligence, savvy and ambition don't know what class is.
You sure don't need to go to Princeton to be a good business person. You go to Princeton to make good contacts. Princeton doesn't have exclusive access to special books and business secrets. You get the same education over at University of Phoenix night school.
That none of us can even agree on the definition of a class is proof enough that they don't exist as cold hard fact.

The wealth isn't concentrated because someone is hording it. It's because most people either a.) don't see the acquisition of this wealth to be the be-all, end-all of existence, b.) are too lazy to do anything about it, c.) aren't smart enough to figure out how to do it.
But nothing is stopping us from a class or government standpoint.
The ones who belllyache the loudest down there at the end of the bar about how they can't get ahead in life because of the (insert boogeyman du jour here) ought to take a look at themselves.
The wall stopping them from success is made of shadow.

[MySecretSelf]

You show me a family where the Dad is the only wage earner, Mom has plenty of money to do her daily shopping at the neighborhood market wearing designer dresses, pearls and high heels, the kids walk to and from school and after school sports SAFELY, they go to the movies, and get refreshments every week. Now the average family has two working (or more likely two blended families child support going both ways in & out) parents, daycare, stress, not getting everyone home til after 7 p.m. When is dinner, showers, and homework done? Mom and Dad both need to be to work before eight, so the kids need early morning daycare. Around here, infant/childcare is easily over $1,000 a month. Latchkey kids are tuned into Children's Services and may well become wards of the Court.

There is nothing wrong with each generation expecting a better lifestyle for their kids. I know few people (even those using VA loans) who did not buy their own homes without family help. I don't even consider the people involved subprime loans to be anything but pawns that overinflated the economy and we're on a heck of a ride til it adjusts.

I don't think a young person should turn 18 and get their own place everything better than Mom & Dad, but they should be able to provide the basics and a bit beyond to their kids.

Originally Posted by markas214

I believe it's the exact opposite. Middle class 1960, say middle management 9-5, was usually a husband working and stay at home wife. They owned 1 car, 1 TV, no pool, well maybe a pool table, and lived in a 3 bedroom 1200-1500 sq ft house, no family room and with a 1 car garage. Typical Leave it to Beaver life. Now that would be considered a lower middle class lifestyle.

[MySecretSelf]

West Coast, East Coast and inbetween. I agree with you that it's widespread, and I have NOTHING against, family/cultural pride. But there's no pride in losing someone you love too early whether they are a gang member or have been affected by their behavior.

The sad truth is that it's multigenerational and expected. I'd rather it be expected that people have pride if they qualify for Daughter's of the American Revolution or Proud Immigrants Glad To Be Here. I'd gladly support a positive Car Club/Artist group fundraiser as long as the focus wasn't on hurting your neighbors and classmates.

Originally Posted by LDDiamondGirl

First we had tribes, then we had ghettos. They grew into whole neighborhoods, and then cities, and then counties of similar socioeconomic stature. And now......well, it looks like there will soon be whole states of people which will make up a "class" of their own.. There will be Rich Earth.....the states containing coastal communities along East and West. Then there will be Poor Earth.....(where NO One wants to live...I won't even profess to having a clue where that is, but it should be Las Vegas), and then there will be Middle Earth.......formerly the Midwest......the Rust Belt states which are already, it seems, on their way to losing more of their wealth and people every year than gaining.

[MySecretSelf]

any day. Of course, I would prefer high quality coziness over cheap faux upscale decor and it does exist! If you rent to good people who treat their abode as somewhere they love to live, granite is a good, durable (and currently trendy) choice.

Originally Posted by tande1n5

Something that drives the blurred lines of middle class is everyone's outward desire to join it. Weather you're looking up or down at middle class from your vantage point, it is widely considered best taste to describe yourself as it. I've done well, but I'm not pretentious is that sort of thing.

Electronics and modern things aside, leave it to beaver's house probably also had formica countertops and linoleum flooring. Both are readily available, but undesirable nowadays, not because it's out of style, but because it's not upscale. You also made a line to the bathroom every morning to get ready because you had one, and if your parents were fancy, maybe they had their own. Now, you can find apartments with granite. Is this a case of people being too lavish? Yes, but as much as it is that, it's also just an improvement in quality of life. With the world as small as it is today, products and ideas can penetrate much further into the markets than it could have back then.

[MySecretSelf]

Personally, I think a lot of her "dumb bunny" act is just that. And Nicole Richie seems to be pulling her life together, all three of these girls pretty much have chosen to grow up in a fishbowl, but they aren't so different from many others just about their age. They just have better lawyers!

Originally Posted by tande1n5

I tend to think that that's the main reason that they aren't upper class, and most members of the upper class would tend to agree with me. They are nouvaux riche, which may as well be a class unto itself. I know it usually comes off as a derogatoy term - that just because your money didn't come from family you lack discretion to spend it wisely - and although it's not nice/correct to say that as a rule for all members of the nouvaux riche, cases like the aforementioned show that it is absolutely true in some cases, and reason enough for me to hold that those people will never be able to attain status in the true upper class.

[MySecretSelf]

Not too long ago, the Kennedy's were too new money and it was acquired in a questionable manner for their kids to be accepted. Now , if it made a difference at all, it would probably be a positive trait. All that aside, the Kennedy's have always put great stock into living and playing and volunteering HARD, so a tip of the hat from me to them.

Originally Posted by karkyco

Well, that could have also been due to the fact Joe made the bulk of the family fortune as a booze smuggler during the prohibition...

[DawnW]

I think this really depends on WHAT career you are planning to go into. My DH's Business Taxation MA from USC got him a promised job with a Big 4 seven months before graduation.

MBAs, Law Degrees, and Medicine (and there are many others) do matter where you go to school.

For me, it really didn't matter as much. I went into Education and I would have gotten the same job had I gone to Cal State or any UC.

Dawn

Originally Posted by novaman

You might call him an academic snob (but I won't). I'd have to find the study, but it has already been proven that all other things being equal, an Ivy league education does not make a difference. The study looked at groups of identical achiever's, i.e. people who had the same SAT scores, grades, backgrounds, etc. and concluded that those who went to non ivy schools ended up actually having a slightly higher average income than those who went to an ivy school (they used income as a determinant of "success", which can be a debate unto itself). However, the report did find that an ivy education did benefit those from lower socio economic backgrounds.

So ultimately, it really is the individual more than the school that makes the difference