Death of the Middle Classes?

grizzly1911

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Personally, I would predict that any measurement of wage distribution in the future will continue to show broadly the same shape as now.

I am sure you are right.

In the UK I am sure it will continue to distort to the US shape with growing numbers on sub living wage to the left and the real wealth being concentrated in even fewer than now to the right.

Interesting point about the heirs now delivering pizzas. I read somewhere that family wealth often gets "thrown away" after about 3.5 generations, or something similar.

Whilst more and more of our young are "attaining" higher and higher education levels are we actually becoming wealthier as a result?

Thrugelmir

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

Why not?
.....

Only so much expensive software you can sell. Currently I'm witnessing a £120 million of software investment being scrapped. In 2 years time the data is to be migrated onto an out of the box vanilla solution. Which will save in the region of £25 million a year in technical support costs alone. The system became over engineered. Far too complex and unwieldy.

pop_gun

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

Are you suggesting that we create a long-term solution to fix a short-term problem?

As someone has pointed out, you can't look at job creation in an economic down turn and decide that this is the 'new norm'. Neither can you change the way the economy is set up in order to fix a problem that may not exist once the economy recovers.

In the 80's home owners who couldn't afford their mortgages were repossessed. Now we have something called forebearance.
When we had to much money in the system and the value of our currency was under threat, the BoE would raise interest rates. Now, for the same problem it lowers interest rates and prints money.
The economy can work a number of ways. The only thing that constrains it, is the availability of natural resources.

In short you can change the economy and there are new norms.
This is why the bull have been right thus far. The bear are working on the old economic principles, which seem, to no longer exist.

CLAPTON

Linton wrote: »

Doctors, who 100 years ago ran their practices as businesses are NHS employees.

doctors are self employed contractors to the NHS and businessmen

chewmylegoff

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

Why not?
.....

Because when the fiat currency system collapses we'll all be living in mud huts again with no electricity. Except me, I will be living in a hut constructed entirely from silver eagles.

BobQ

Carl31 wrote: »

Being 'Middle Class' these days seems to mean 2 working adults in a household, meaning they are able to afford greater luxuries

Surely truly middle class would mean a professional high earner, leaving the other adult with no need to work, or to work part time for pocket money?

I think middle classes (along with any other class) died ages ago

In my lifetime I have seem the middle class grow from a small percentage of the population to over half of it.

It once meant professionals (doctors, lawyers, headteachers, senior civil servants, business owners) in secure employment and people who had a secure income from other sources to maintain a similar lifestyle. I have also seen many people re-define the term to cover all sorts of low skilled office workers, believing that saying they were middle class made them socially superior.

It does not matter what terms you use. The future will see this large middle strata split into (Group 1) of highly skilled employees, employers and self employed who have a secure lifestyle (property owners, pensions), together with those with secure incomes from significant wealth. The rest (Group 2) will exist in less secure jobs, self-employment or partial employment and live hand to mouth on low wages, unable to afford a house, but with a better standard of living than (Group 3) the unemployed or unemployable.

Group 1 will in effect be the new middle class and Group 2 will include many people who call themselves middle class who come to realise they are not. The younger generation are already realising this harsh reality as even some with degrees find they cannot get into secure employment. I think the past few years have been a rude awakening for some of those who thought they were middle class but now find it was an illusion

chewmylegoff

JP Morgan has announced today that it is employing 5,000 more staff to improve risk and compliance. This is quite a good example of an industry which is cutting staff in some areas due to technology (e.g. Trading and Sales jobs are disappearing in large numbers) but jobs appear in other areas, some as a direct consequence of automation in the front office. You can program a computer to trade, but you can't program it to carry out trade surveillance (at least not properly) or to work out whether an employee has committed gross misconduct.

The_White_Horse

i've said this loads - but I will say it again. For the babyboomers, who bought houses for £5k and had mortgage repayments of £78 a month but earned £50k a year - life was rosey. they were the middle classes, who could afford holidays, luxuries etc.

nowadays, the people that bought those houses for £350k - £650k have huge mortgage payments of £2-3.5k a month, even at historic low interest rates (and rents aren't far behind). Meanwhile, they are still earning the same £50k as the boomers.

therefore, the people nowadays don't have such vast disposable incomes because a large proportion is taken up on mortgage or rent costs.

can those who bought 2005+ ever see their monthy payment being an "insignificant" part of their monthly outgoings?

Loughton_Monkey

The_White_Horse wrote: »

.....can those who bought 2005+ ever see their monthy payment being an "insignificant" part of their monthly outgoings?

________
Yes.

The_White_Horse

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

________
Yes.

you're sadly mistaken.

people who bought in the 70's etc had massive salary inflation. most bought properties for £10-20k in the 70's and by the 80's were earning double this.

people buying 3 bed semis for £400k will not be earning £800k 10 years later. probably lucky to be earning £100k at the end of their careers.

you're out of touch monkey.