Clinging on to a middle class lifestyle...

[fifthcolumn]

I forget my statistics but that point in the bell curve right in the middle with the two chunks on either side of it - standard deviations?

That's more or less the definition that they use over here.

Personally speaking for me middle class means university educated regardless of income.

[RenewableCandy]

That's a New World outlook.

Here in the UK, it is perfectly possible to be middle-class and, erm, not exactly flush. It is also perfectly possible to be working class and loaded. The builders who bought the previous Chateau Renewable may well be the latter: there's not a book or a plant in the whole house, nor any item of furniture with a lifestory longer than "I was bought new, less than 3 years ago".

[fifthcolumn]

Candy:

I don't disagree - I was just bringing an alternative point of view.

Personally I don't know what bloody class I'm in.

By UK definition I'm working class origins - my grandparents did menial work and labour work.
My dad was a school teacher my mum worked in a bar. They now have a small business.

My siblings have degrees but only one of them is flush, the other two are flat broke.

I have a couple of degrees and by colonial standards I'm upper middle being that I'm above one standard deviation from the exact middle income line but even so I'm by no means loaded - I just didn't suffer much from the (ongoing) recession back home and I still have to work to pay the (ridiculously high) bills.

I think the whole class thing, however, is irrelevant unless you are a marxist and want to encourage the working class to rebel against the evil overlords.

In the end result, as someone else posted above - if the SHTF then it will split into the very wealthy and the struggling to survive crowd a la Argentina.

For the moment though, it's seven years after putative peak and we're still clinging on in a manner of speaking.

I don't think a collapse will come quickly unless things unravel from a big blowup in the middle east. War has a bad habit of messing things up.

[vtsnowedin]

Candy:.....snip

.....
For the moment though, it's seven years after putative peak and we're still clinging on in a manner of speaking.

I don't think a collapse will come quickly unless things unravel from a big blowup in the middle east. War has a bad habit of messing things up.

Unfortunatly the odds are not in our favor on that one.

[fifthcolumn]

On the other hand if things move to an emergency footing there will be a lot less whingeing about doing what's necessary to reduce oil consumption to make it in line with supply.

[vtsnowedin]

On the other hand if things move to an emergency footing there will be a lot less whingeing about doing what's necessary to reduce oil consumption to make it in line with supply.

OH no, there will be no lack of whining. Just that busy people will for once tell them to shut up and deal with it.