Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here

sometimes reading this and other threads i get the feeling that there's an enormous class gulf on ilx that some posters are not even remotely aware of

what posts in particular give you that idea (I'm sure there is a gulf on ILX just as there is in any other online place)

if i'm not mistaken, everyone on ilx makes at least 100k + bennies.

sometimes reading this and other threads i get the feeling that there's an enormous class gulf on ilx that some posters are not even remotely aware of

what is your average yearly income (after taxes)?

Wish I could make over 100k and still post on a messaging board regularly

Hell, I’d even settle for 50k

I’m kidding, I don’t actually wish that and am very happy with my current financial position (besides wanting some more money to trade in my motorbike for a proper car, we’ll get there)

i mean not to get to the very nub of it by asking in the most gauche terms possible but if by class divide do we really just mean spending money baby?

id imagine lots of ilxors have changed class through their 20s, 30s or whatever decades they have been posting on the site if so

when i look at the menu, i'm like "the prices don't matter to me, i could pay for all of the items together if i wanted", but i don't want to eat that much food so i'll just have the toast and a bottomless mug, please

xp yeah i was thinking abt this this morning. i feel a very strong sense of anger about class system from both uk and us ilxors, but i think they’re talking about different things. class is much more fluid in usa i think

speaking for myseld, i make over 10x as much as i did when i started posting ($6.25/hr min wage)

this is to say i think when usa ilxors talk abt class they are talking abt wealth, which i don’t think is actually anything like an actual class system (with peerage etc)

otm

There used to be an idea of "old money vs. new money," but I don't think that's as prevalent any more.

I think Old vs. New probably still exists, but I don't circulate in those rarefied airs

Wasn't that Trump's whole insecure beef with the East Coast establishment? That he was considered trash from Queens and never invited to parties in the Hamptons, etc.

i mean that exists now where i live in california. because of rising property values locals whose families own homes become old money, meanwhile ppl moving here from other places might be wealthy but their money doesn’t go as far because they’re not already settled and trying to buy into a crazy market. not to mention the craziness our prop 13 property tax system creates

but that’s pretty different than “you own an estate in malibu forever if you’re duke of santa monica”

class is much more fluid in usa i think

It's not easy to pull together data to resolve this question, because a good study requires reliable data spanning multiple generations of individuals and their offspring, and census data about such economic matters is anonymized at the individual level. But the one study I've read about concluded that mobility between economic classes in the USA is fairly stagnant and not much different than the UK. What fluidity there is in the USA seems less about actual economic and social mobility than our having more laxity and latitude in our social attitudes about class.

i mean much more than spending $

the impulse to swoop in and swat the problem away is part of what makes it annoying

the latter part of that post is v unclear to me tbh

Add: The GI Bill probably did more for class mobility than any other event in US history.

class is interesting, the difference between what "class" means in UK / US could be an interesting discussion

what's annoying is to say "you're not talking about class, you're talking about wealth" when i didn't even specify what i was referring to

thank you aimless for referencing one (1) study which i will take with one (1) grain of salt

i’m already discouraged from looking into it further because of the issues you described so we’ll agree that because the question is too difficult to resolve i’m not wrong and you’re not right

I would assume most people are talking about wealth tbh … I mean we can discuss Bourdieu and cultural capital but that is less politically relevant nowadays and is closer to rolling hipster studies

I don't know a whole lot about the UK class system, but it's almost 'caste' related, yeah? Like, you might be a wealthy footballer or rock musician but we can still hear your accent and you're not fooling anyone

i must have missed where anybody told anybody else they were talking about anything tbh but in defence of whomever stands accused there you're kinda half posting what you mean tbf

now tbf tbf this is ofc the exact thread for that and no onus accrues etc

It’s the 21st century, when does class not mean wealth? I am obviously a few galaxies away from these circles, but I would imagine the multi-millionaire soccer player is not quite concerned about not having the invite to the Hampton, nor am I sure they’re not even getting invitations? If there’s no power in class divide aside from wealth, is there really class divide? Obviously royal families/major political figures are the exception.

I am speaking about something I know nothing about, but this something concerns 0.000000000000000001% of the population, whereas wealth differential defines the rest of the whole. From this, it makes sense to consider class difference and wealth difference as practical synonymous these days

xp at dmac: yeah, exactly! lol

Not sure that's true... I could win the lottery with $18 million dollars, squander it on fast cars and boats.. and not experience any class mobility whatsoever

Whereas some Yale alumni from Maryland may not have $18 million in cash, but he has family capital, perhaps land.. and he'll always be upper crust

Difference between wealth and money. You can have less money in the bank account than someone, but if you’ve got a mortgage on a nice piece of land with a bunch of equity in and they’re still renting, you’d be the wealthier one. Wealth is about more than the bank account, but the lottery winner’s got a better chance than anyone else of transferring that cash to some more lasting wealth if they’ve got some financial-smarts behind them

Sorry for thinking out loud things that are obvious to most, but yeah I probably had it wrong. The footballer, if all he does is buy a nice house, some boats, store enough money in the bank to have a few of his generations never have to work, is probably of a different class to a capitalist who with the same amount of money, buys a 1000 properties to rent/businesses to be run.

"i mean that exists now where i live in california. because of rising property values locals whose families own homes become old money, meanwhile ppl moving here from other places might be wealthy but their money doesn’t go as far because they’re not already settled and trying to buy into a crazy market. not to mention the craziness our prop 13 property tax system creates"

this is true, but it's also misleading since just because someone has a lot of equity in their house, it doesn't mean it necessarily does them any good. I have plenty of neighbors who probably own their homes outright with no or low mortgages in an area that is increasingly expensive; but they don't have any money. they are old and retired and their houses are falling apart. are they upper class? I don't think so. Are they 'wealthy"? on paper I guess.

correct

i grew up in one of those rarefied environments - which are themselves diverse in a way, he likely has a neighbor who is -1.8M in the hole and another with +1.8Bn - and it’s like a revolving door around here.

90% of my friends from school don’t live here anymore, but even allowing for the fact i was hanging w hipsters who all fled to oakland or chicago or paris or portland, it’s just well known that there’s a lot of turnover. i think native portlanders might be able to relate!

land isn’t capital unless you’re doing something with it, and investing is risky. a lot of people made and lost a lot of mortgage money here. so if we’re going to associate class with geography, then that makes it look fluid to me!

the other thing that occurs to me is how geography itself (even capital) is not fixed. the neighborhood where i grew was a long street of edward hopper beach cottages, some from the 1940s, with huge front yards. this is capped with brady bunch single level ranch homes at each end. they tore down all of the cottages and built huge disgusting mcmansions that fill up the entire lot to the very edge, so it’s all “private space”. they cut down a bunch of old trees lining the road too, so they can look out i guess, while still being private

that’s what happens when they build a biotech investment hub in the big empty space between you and the rest of town, i guess!

and yeah i have friends with old and sick parents and they’re trying to figure out do i sell in portland and buy back my family home, and can i afford to live there after i do? so they will be ok, not immiserated and impoverished, but they might have to take a big hit to maintain this “generational wealth” and that’s just not possible for everyone

just need to point out that the last twenty or so posts itt are complete horseshit and you're all rich, congratulations.

Land absolutely is capital, the most fundamental kind of capital. Whether you're doing something with that capital or not, it still exists - equity could still be used, it is still a home base, even if you don't want to move because you can't directly replace a piece of land, owning a million dollar house gives you options/potential mobility that don't otherwise exist.

Well yeah

To both milo and map

my least favorite thing abt ilx econ discussion is suddenly everyone is either a starving prole or a cackling oligarch. obviously both exist (and far too many of the former) but i think akm is right on in that a lot of people are “middle class”, at least in the sense that their fortunes could swing significantly better or worse

you're all rich, congratulations

I know I'm rich. I don't deny it. I made it to the top of Maslow's pyramid, but I spent enough time lower down on that scale to know that everyone who's at the top is rich by any reasonable definition.

It’s important for one’s humility to every now and then recognise their own middle class is most of the worlds upper-echelon-never-to-be-reached-position-of-privilege, and then hopefully to do something about it.

milo is a steak worth money if you don’t pay to refrigerate it?

(Most) land doesn’t have a use by date, nor does it go down in value

I dunno, does land spoil after three days on the counter?

Absolutely baffling point to raise.

hrep if you buy land and it doesn’t keep up with inflation?

You’re arguments about respecting the middle class would hold a lot more weight if you didn’t imply owning land was some kind of curse

Which it might be, but definitely not for the land owners

i know, that’s how i feel! but i forgot i’m rich. i don’t understand money, like a fish doesn’t understand water. or humility … that’s for some other reason though?

*your