OT. Middle Class Living

[Clare Snyder]

And not based on income, but accumulated wealth - no matter how obtained (inherited or earhed)

[Bod F]

Teachers/professors don't do any real work and are generously compensated so they certainly wouldn't be "working class".

[Xeno]

If you are paid a wage, you are working class.

[Bod F]

No, teachers and professors are more like a cream-puff class.

[hubops]

Wage as opposed to .. salary ? or what ?

John T.

[Xeno]

In general, yes.

[rbowman]

So when I was a consultant I was middle class? When I got tired of the Boston bullshit and decided to drive an 18-wheeler for a few years I was working class? When I went back to software development I suddenly became middle class again? I'm confused but at least I'm not of the bourgeoisie.

[Clare Snyder]

So that takes "self employed" out of the class I guess??

[Swer]

Shadow [e-mail] wrote

Nope, that's the original version, from the time when the middle class first showed up, when there was just the aristocracy and the working class. That's where the name came from. They were mostly shop keepers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, traders etc.

Yes you were because your work involved your mind, not your hands most of the time.

What you earn is irrelevant to your class. Plenty of the widows of the middle class that don't make adequate provision for the death of the only income earner don't turn into working class when their financial situation goes bad.

Small business owners arent working class.

Plenty of the middle class start out like that.

Doesn't make you working class if you are doing a professional job like a doctor, lawyer etc.

The average lottery winner isnt upper class. And neither are the better paid sports fools like OJ either.

Wrong.

That mangles the real story too. A very well paid individual who drives a f****ng great mining haul pak isnt middle class, he is just well paid working class.

Doesn't say that "Classes" are defined by purchasing power and income, not by profession.

[Clare Snyder]

Well, I was "salaried" for the last 15 years I was not self employed

- and for over 3 years earlier in my career

[Swer]

That's where the term came from, before you lot emigrated.

The brits don't have projects, they have council sink estates.

Wrong again.

Nothing like as bad in fact.

[Swer]

That’s not true of teachers or junior doctors employed by a hospital.

[Swer]

Yep.

The widow of say a small business owner who didn’t make adequate provision for his unlikely death doesn’t turn from being middle class to working class overnight.

Yep.

but at least I'm not of the

[rbowman]

If you're speaking of the country now known as Canada, my 'lot' emigrated to the area before your lot ever showed up. It was all downhill from there.

If you're speaking of the US, then the rest of my 'lot' emigrated from Germany. Neither the French or the Germans have a lot of use for Brits...

[rbowman]

'You think you're so clever and classless and free but you're still f****ng peasants as far as I can see.'

One of your lot said that. He should know.

[Swer]

Irrelevant to who invented the term middle class.

Irrelevant to what is middle class.

[Swer]

Never said anything about classless.

Or that either.

Then you need new glasses, bad.

He doesn’t.

[micky]

I had an Amana Radarrange Model 2. Looked just like the classic picture.

First time, sparking inside the cage or maybe near the diodes. Used GE Silicone Sealant and put a thick layer of the stuff over the sparking area, and that worked fine.

At one point I wanted the wiring diagram, and the woman on the phone was plainly afraid to give it to me for fear I'd radiate myself. I convinced her I wouldn't, that I would reassemble the cage correctly, and she sent it for free. In some ways I shouldn't have needed it but it made me feel comfortable.

Eventually the transformer broke and I called Amana and they wanted maybe $450. I pointed out that this was more than almost the best new one cost, but he was unmoved. I didn't want to give up on it (with two spring timers (one for one minute and one for 40 minutes iirc) So I wrote the HQ in Amana Iowa and said keep a couple so you can fix your museum models, and sell me one for much less because you have a lot of them and you'll never sell them for $450, and I got back a letter to call a different parts place, in Pa. instead of Baltimore. So I did, and it was the same thing, $450. I had to throw it away.

[hubops]

Why then - you are thereby an uppity middle-class-er ! :-) ... something like those salaried/middle class first-line supervisors who make about half of what their " hourly wage / working class " underlings make ! John T.

[Joe 30330]

All manufacturers are forced by law to give free appliance parts to illegals and welfare democrats. (You don't want some poor kid to have to eat cold meals, do you?)

Anyway, when some cash customer comes along, the manufacturer has to charge more to make up for the losses caused by welfare people.