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Original poster

Anyone else read...

49 replies

faraday · 24/02/2009 12:02

this!

Quite interesting, really. It does show how everyone comes at a situation from a preordained point which then affects their perception of the situation.

OP posts:
LadyGlencoraPalliser · 24/02/2009 12:04

If you hear a dripping sound it's my heart bleeding for them.

PerArduaAdNauseum · 24/02/2009 12:07

This is my caring face: See? Caring, right there.

Original poster
faraday · 24/02/2009 12:17

LOL

OP posts:
mayorquimby · 24/02/2009 12:20

well it's all relevant. i mean even a millionaire is going to feel pissed off and that life is unbelievably unfair if he has the smallest yacht in the port.

Kitstelsmum · 24/02/2009 12:30

"...we've sacked our cleaners, we're exercising our own pets, rendering both the dog-walker and the personal trainer surplus to requirements..." BOO HOO!

UpSinceCrapOClock · 24/02/2009 12:36

Actually I'm sure I saw a link somewhere where people could donate to help.

Please everyone, dig deep...

Every little billion helps

TotalChaos · 24/02/2009 12:40

oh I was a bit about a couple of the comments - but I didn't think it was an unreasonable article.

OrmIrian · 24/02/2009 12:41

"With typical stoicism, professionals were quietly labouring away, paying the mortgage, putting teenagers through university and looking after elderly parents"

Isn't that what most of us do? How odd. My company has quite a few people in the factory and warehouses "labouring away, paying the mortgage, putting teenagers through university and looking after elderly parents". But I guess that doesn't count. Maybe they aren't properly from the 'coping classes'.

What are they talking about?

AbbyLubber · 24/02/2009 15:42

Hi, irate all. I too blinked at some of the 'hardships' faced by the CCs, but it is to some extent true that this recesasion has hit the comfortably off, and might actually make for less in the way of class divisions.

potplant · 24/02/2009 16:04

OK there are a few things mentioned here as harships that aren't really but its all relative.

Losing your job and wondering how you are going to pay the mortgage is stressful whether your house is worth £50k or £500k.

OrmIrian · 24/02/2009 16:22

Of course it is. But I fail to see why it's more of a hardship because you are MC (or coping class as they put it). Or even a story really.

potplant · 24/02/2009 16:33

My interpretation of the article is that it is affecting MC more than the recessions previously - not more than any other class (yuk - hate using the word class in any context!)

The bit about the couple who are putting off a 2nd baby cos they can't afford it - would you be more sympathetic if they replaced 'employee of a City bank' with bus driver?

However I do agree that its a non story.

AbbyLubber · 24/02/2009 16:46

Think there's nothing wrong in saying that impact of recession is going to depend on where you start from.

OrmIrian · 24/02/2009 16:49

Hmmm. Losing your job and your home isn't going to hurt more because you earned 200k and had a lovely big house, than it does if you earned a fraction of that and had a 2 bed terrace. It's just as horrible when it all comes crashing down

potplant · 24/02/2009 17:02

AL: I agree but putting in the line about walking dogs detracts from the seriousness of the article. Its something the journalist has made up rather than said by an acutal person.

(I just don't like to see people 'celebrating' in others misfortune because they had more to start with - not happening in this thread but has in plenty of others.)

AbbyLubber · 24/02/2009 17:21

Oh, totally. And probably it wouldn't hurt some of us to be less snug/smug and sure our privilege is the product of our own merits. But for example you have to 'own' a house to lose it...

cestlavie · 24/02/2009 17:23

One thing I've been staggered about on MN on other threads and in various other media is the at best schadenfreude and, at worst, downwright glee with which many people are viewing the plight of the middle classes in this recession.

Everything is comparative. Someone selling their wonderful 6 bed house may hurt them just as much as someone selling their tiny 2 bed flat. Someone giving up private education for their kids may hurt every bit as much as someone not being able to buy birthday presents for theirs. Someone giving up their live-in nanny might hurt just as much as someone giving up their childminder.

If can't acknowledge this then we might as well not giving sympathy to anyone no matter badly the recession affects them. After all, in the UK we are, without question, multiples better off than anyone in the vast majority of the world so if we're going to play the comparative game, we're all going to lose out on the sympathy stakes.

OrmIrian · 24/02/2009 19:26

There has been some of that without a doubt. But I think it's a bit hard to have a lot of sympathy for very well-paid people having to cut back a bit when others, whose lifestyles are modest, and have no slack to cut, lose everything.

Nighbynight · 24/02/2009 19:47

I have never been on holiday with my children. Some of us struggle like this all the time, not just in a recession.

Pepa · 24/02/2009 20:01

An important thing is that many these professionals when then loose their positions are going to have a tough time finding another position....especially the older people. So regardless of whether they were the privelidged elite 2 years ago these people are looking at loosing everything, jobs, pension values, property values. There are families being destroyed by this. People who feel they can't go on, committing suicide, it doesn't matter what economic "class" you are in at the start. When your family spirals out of control and you have no power to help, the pain is real. My family has lived this back in the 1990's I would not go back there for anything.

You have to feel compassion for other families pain otherwise what is the point.

cory · 24/02/2009 20:30

I'd agree with cestlavie if suffering were all in the mind, but it isn't. Someone who ends up on the street shivering and without food is going to suffer more than someone who ends up in a small semi on a modest pension- even if the latter person was a millionaire to start with. They are both going to suffer mentally, but only the first person will suffer physically. And the body matters too.

dontgive2shoites4daftpricks · 24/02/2009 20:33

interesting article. a lot of sour grapes on here though.

cory · 24/02/2009 20:34

If the crunch comes and we end up becoming jobless, then dh and I are still going to suffer less than some single parent in a low-paid job, because we had enough money to insure the mortgage and we have enough savings to keep ourselves going for a while. I would imagine a parent who sees her children go without the basics and fall ill because of their insanitary and cold environment suffers more even mentally than anyone who doesn't have to watch that.

cory · 24/02/2009 20:35

not sour grapes from me though 2shoites: I am saying we are the lucky ones

never hurts to count one's blessings

dontgive2shoites4daftpricks · 24/02/2009 20:38

that wasnt directed at you cory

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