to ask those posters who are entirely self-made and wealthy how they would like to be treated ?

[OrmIrian]

Because clearly most of us are doing it wrong.

We are always carping on MN apparently. And going on about the poor and how hard their lives are. I think this should be addressed forthwith!

Should there be a sort of new form of address? 'Hail, oh beacon of success, may your hard work be always rewarded, may no-one ever accuse you of being lucky, may your children always be able to walk in the hallowed corridors of private schooling without ridicule, and may the forces of socialism and the whingeing, feckless poor never darken your sight!'

Would that do it?

Thread about a thread.

Thicko question of the day alert

When people talk about homeowners, or say 'we own our own home', do they mean they have no mortgage? Or are people with a mortgage also home 'owners' ?

I should know this kind of thing, I know.

Rhubarb Oh, I would have got you to do my website if I'd known, and I 've just paid for another year's hosting.

You would laugh if I told you the pathetically paltry amount of tax I have to pay for my will writing business. Did it online so it told me there and then how much I owe.

Beenbeta I think you are correct. In fact I've seen stats which say the income disparity hasn't been this great since 1929, which in turn was the highest since Victorian times. The attitude certainly matches.

Perhaps the 1945-80 era, the Keynesian, Welfare state model of economics which was the most equitably prosperous era in modern times, was just an aberration.

Noooo Psammead I have always wondered that...

Rhubarb it's a sucky time of year, but have you tried going up the food chain a bit and targeting comms, branding and ad agencies? That's where I get most of my work - there's less of it but it's tons better paid.

The price of petrol (or diesel in my case) is ridiculous now. I pay almost as much to get to work as I do on the food shopping.

Psammead, depends who you ask. Technically, if you have a mortgage, you don't own your house, as if you don't pay, it will be repossessed, but I think most people do call themselves homeowners even when they still have a mortgage.

We paid ours off last year and I feel a lot more financially secure.

Diesel has gone up, I heard someone on teh radio say it is because it';s basically the same stuff as home heating oil, which is in big demand right now because people fear another bad winter like the last two. Plus the fact of the trouble in the ME slowing production.

Psammead - I guess mostly people who say the are 'homeowners' mean they are well off enough to afford a mortgage. Its funny but I never owned a house but I could have. Its just I prefer to rent. There is a stigma to renting though - not from everyone but usually from older people who rank people socially by whether they are 'homeowners'.

Thanks. I don't feel so thick now. Sees there is no cut and dried definition.

Wilson, I'm targeting everything that moves on PPH right now! Used up all my bids already. Had a response from one so fingers crossed for that.

mumble - I don't host I'm afraid. I just write the content. So that might be your homepage, your categories etc all with good keywords that will get your website good ratings with the search engines. SEO it's called. I also do blogs, press releases, product descriptions and so on.

My dh drives 60 miles to work and back, it costs us a fortune in diesel. No travel allowance. It's true what they are saying, the cuts are hitting the poor and the middle classes and the rest of the country seem to be getting richer.

Thank you Sinical - I have been trying to work out why the gap between petrol and diesel has widened so much and that makes sense.

Ah, just lost that bid. Damn it!

bum.

YABU

Nobody has asked to be treated in any way at all - they've just said that they don't like being slagged off because of how much money they have.

Inverted snobbery is rife all over MN and particularly AIBU.

But I can't see evidence that they are being slagged off for being rich. Hence the question.

They might get slagged off for many thing but not having money.

Wot MoreBeta said.

Wish I could reference it properly, but there was an excellent piece on, I think, Channel 4 News a few weeks ago about the sort of jobs Britain does now.

In a nutshell, mid-level jobs are disappearing. We've lost the bulk of our skilled manual jobs a while back, now administration is going offshore (eg HR functions of London companies being done in the Philippines).

The top-earning jobs are still here, in high-tech industries, financial roles (just about), lawyers, etc. But the support roles providing a nice middle class wage are going. Leaving only minimum wage jobs for the people who would have done those roles.

Combine this with house price rises of several hundred percent over the last few decades, and suddenly vast swathes of the population who, a generation ago, could have expected a modest but secure life with their own home, free healthcare and education, not much in the way of foreign holidays but still a comfortable existence, are finding themselves insecurely housed and struggling to make ends meet.

But they aren't MorrisZapp - people get slagged off on MN for being JUDGEMENTAL of others. People get slagged off for saying 'Well I worked for what I have'. Implies that other people don't work, and therefore deserve to be struggling.

It's a very simpplistic notion, that you get what you deserve whether it's wealth or otherwise. A quick glanced around shows it's not to cut and dried as that.

ExactlyTianc

Without the mc you are shaping an almost feudal type of society.

Anyway beta said "...there is quite a serious issue lurking behind the thread". So ner....

Loads of folk get slagged off for being (comparatively) rich. Anybody who admits to having a higher than average income, or more than one holiday a year, or whatever, gets mighty short shrift on here.

It's like the only people who deserve to be 'right' are those with absolutely nothing, and the rest should never be allowed to moan about anything, ever.

I also take issue with the endless assertion on here that if you say 'I worked hard for my money' this is the same as saying 'You do not work hard'.

It is not the same at all, it is a deliberate misunderstanding used to berate anybody who dares to think that they actually deserve a good life.

Who doesn't deserve a good life though morris?

lol at 'boot for commoners', according to my sil i'm 'common'.

We ALL think we deserve a good life, MorrisZapp, that's the bloody point! Most people work hard to try to make it but it doesn't always happen for everyone.

Also 'I worked hard for my money' is rich in subtext. Unless you follow it up by recognising that nearly everybody else does too, the subtext IS that others don't. So that's probably the source of the 'endless assertions'

Ooh can I have a skull next to my name

Every now and again I could change it to a top hat and go on about Thatcher was the best thing that ever happened to Britain. :o