Life is hard living on £120k a year.

Wow, imagine applying the same logic elsewhere. Make the wrong choice, tough, live with it……

And with that you’ve perfectly articulated the attitude of the present government towards the poor, the unemployed, and the disabled. Except that these are people who have had choice removed, and are at the mercy of things completely out of their control

The middle class (if that is what we’re now saying £120k a year represents) have many many choices available to them. They’re positively empowered, and in charge of their own destinies.

He’s prioritised his children’s education. Good for him! Entirely noble and understandable. But you can’t then moan that this has removed his ability to do things he seems to think he’s also entitled too. Thats called having your cake and eating it. Hence getting no sympathy. Because he doesn’t deserve any. He can live with his choices and STFU bleating about what is still an incredibly comfortable lifestyle

So this guy “deserves” no sympathy because his predicament is based solely on his choice to invest in his childrens’s future?!?! Wow, imagine applying the same logic elsewhere. Make the wrong choice, tough, live with it……

No, it’s because he’s made choices he can’t afford. It looks like, based on the article, he can’t afford private schooling, so he perhaps shouldn’t have made that choice.

(We’ve done to death on other threads whether he’s actually investing in his kids’ future or just wasting money, so let’s ignore that aspect.)

Binners you do remember that socialism is a failed system right? I mean, I’m not suggesting that pure capitalism is the right one (I like George Soros’s view that we need free markets with keen oversight and a social conscience) but man you sound like a bitter twisted Marxist who has never been able to get over the fact that what you stand for just never worked.

The middle class (if that is what we’re now saying £120k a year represents)

Hmm well if you’re working then at most you are likely to be upper middle class; upper class are aristocracy and if they work they’re still that whatever they earn.

the fact that what you stand for just never worked.

Well I wouldn’t call our current system a resounding success either e.g. people aren’t exactly happy (13 million anti-depressant prescriptions last year in the UK), we have wide spread poverty, huge inequality, a political party in power which persecutes the poor and disabled for fun and Nigel Farage to contend with………

(I like George Soros’s view that we need free markets with keen oversight and a social conscience)

It will never work. Capitalism is based upon pure greed. As we can currently see by the increasing disparity between the top 1% and the rest.

Pure socialism doesn’t work.
Pure capitalism doesn’t work.

I admit I haven’t read all 7 previous pages but does wifey work? The telegraph article focuses on him alone and his wages.

We could reduce the tax burden on high earners by having a living minimum wage and a maximum multiplier for the highest pay in the organisation.

Minimum wage of £7.65 (IIRC) would give just under £15k as a salary. Max of ten times that for the highest earner in an organisation?

(Notice the living wage is less than 12% what someone in the Telegraph’s version of the squeezed middle is making…)

That would be a terrible thing IMO! Cleaners on 10% of the CEO’s income? Never work.

geetee1972 – I’m not bitter and twisted. I’m quite a happy bunny generally. I’m certainly not a marxist

I don’t resent people earning plenty of cash for jobs with big responsibility. Thats fine, if a large percentage of them weren’t so graceless about it. Regarding all the trappings as some divine right. Or as Dave would call it a ‘Culture of Entitlement’ perhaps 😉

But what staggers me on threads like this is that some people have genuinely no concept of what most peoples lives are like. Pensions? Savings? Yeah… right. There are plenty of working people in this country who can’t even contemplate things like that, as they just about cover their bills every month

If this guy can afford all this without his partner actually having to work, then I’d imagine that puts him in a tiny minority of families in this country. But he still seems to think he deserves more?

Does he? I think he’s just saying he used to have more and now it’s difficult for him to maintain the lifestyle he developed.

Like I said… its pretty radical stuff. I didn’t say it was easy. It might take a while for people to get their heads around it. Getting jobs when you leave school at 16. But desperate situations require pretty drastic measures

I’ll lead you back to your own comments on unemployment… Of which the largest sector is unskilled/uneducated 16-24 year olds!!!

There are just about ZERO prospects for most kids leaving school without any real qualifications these days, or that is at least how it is portrayed. Certainly you don’t have the wealth of apprenticeships you had in decades gone by, or the trades to go into. If this blokes kids left school the only wage they would likely be able to contribute for a while would be dole money!

Society these days almost dictates that you need a degree to flip burgers. Well ok that is being over the top, but part of Blair’s goal for Britain was to get as many kids as possible through a university degree. Which of course only devalued the education system and drove the cost of doing a degree through the roof, rendering everything pointless!

I’m interested to know too why you think someone should have to be so damned to a life so ordinary too. Ok, I’ve got little sympathy for the guy in the original article when he’s paying £45k a year on school fees (he could save 2/3rds of that and still put them through private education elsewhere if he needed to!) but if you want the best for your kids you’ll go out of the way to help them out surely?

I’m interested to know too why you think someone should have to be so damned to a life so ordinary too. Ok, I’ve got little sympathy for the guy in the original article when he’s paying £45k a year on school fees (he could save 2/3rds of that and still put them through private education elsewhere if he needed to!) but if you want the best for your kids you’ll go out of the way to help them out surely?

Well said mboy….and despite the fact there are some very wealthy people sending their kids to private schools, there are also shopkeepers (for example) working 20 hours a day (both parents) and foregoing any holidays in order to send their Kids to private schools.

mboy – Member
Like I said… its pretty radical stuff. I didn’t say it was easy. It might take a while for people to get their heads around it. Getting jobs when you leave school at 16. But desperate situations require pretty drastic measures
I’ll lead you back to your own comments on unemployment… Of which the largest sector is unskilled/uneducated 16-24 year olds!!!

There are just about ZERO prospects for most kids leaving school without any real qualifications these days, or that is at least how it is portrayed. Certainly you don’t have the wealth of apprenticeships you had in decades gone by, or the trades to go into. If this blokes kids left school the only wage they would likely be able to contribute for a while would be dole money!

Society these days almost dictates that you need a degree to flip burgers. Well ok that is being over the top, but part of Blair’s goal for Britain was to get as many kids as possible through a university degree. Which of course only devalued the education system and drove the cost of doing a degree through the roof, rendering everything pointless!

I’m interested to know too why you think someone should have to be so damned to a life so ordinary too. Ok, I’ve got little sympathy for the guy in the original article when he’s paying £45k a year on school fees (he could save 2/3rds of that and still put them through private education elsewhere if he needed to!) but if you want the best for your kids you’ll go out of the way to help them out surely?

Interesting post, to which I’d like to counter with a couple of personal examples, having experienced a similar hiatus in my life, not that I ever cleared 120k p.a.. However I was forced by circumstance to pull my youngest out of private education at 16 because we couldn’t afford it, she was also the laziest academically of all of ours and never had a part time job, she did however fortunately have an interest in cooking which has not only saved her ass but elevated her to the highest paid 17 yr old that has ever passed through Fish towers thanks to a Chef course and part time job as a Commie then Sous Chef.
Another example is of my third daughters best pal who took up hair dressing rather than accompany mine into UNI, she now drives a Mercedes, whilst mine is still sofa surfing in town unable to afford rent in order to work in London the only place in the country to offer work for her qualifications.

So not entirely true the zero prospects, what is true is the failure of the promise that a University Education would deliver, the absolute scandal that those encouraged into the path with its subsequent debt burden have suffered and with it a sense of entitlement that makes it difficult for them to consider the ‘lowly paths’ of the hairdresser, cooks & bottle washers and other trades.

Difficult as it may be for you to grasp, not everyone bases their happiness and sense of self-worth on how much money they earn.

Maybe he earns ‘enough’ and is quite happy? Imagine that.

Why would you work the same job for less than the going-rate?

Charity?

Yeah that’s completely true….I have a few friends who’s daughters have got their degrees, one who has spent the past few seasons as a chalet Girl in the Alps and is now heading to Oz to work/travel.

Another just completed her degree and is she getting a job? No she is going off travelling for a year. Am I jealous? Probably! But I do wonder what the hell its all about!

One who didn’t go to uni but got her A levels and a job in Estate agency, is now working in a top Agency, working hard, earning money, is debt free and building a career.

she now drives a Mercedes

How is that a measure of success or wealth?

You should be paid what your job is worth

hmmmm… I think this is the crux of the issue

there would seem to be an awful lot of city folk drastically overvaluing themselves..

It’s pretty perverse

Claims last week that children from poorer backgrounds are to be given priority at a great many grammars comes as yet another setback. But it is one the Squeezed Middle will, as is their wont, find a way to cope with.

But with taxation at its current levels and the rising cost of essentials, it is quite difficult for people like me to maintain our standard of living in the current climate, and that is a worry.”

🙄

Won’t somebody think of the poor, huddled masses of the squeezed middle, beset on all sides by the evils of social mobility, mildly redistributive taxation and preposterous school fees that they actually choose to pay?

And “click here for ideas on growing your wealth”. Chance would be a fine thing! When does the next rocket leave for Planet Telegraph?

Indeed yunki . Interesting article by Will Hutton on exactly that

Extravagant CEO pay doesn’t reflect performance – its all about status

and they’re still not happy as there’s always someone else earning more…..

Does he? I think he’s just saying he used to have more and now it’s difficult for him to maintain the lifestyle he developed.

This. But don’t begrudge the inverted snobs their opportunity to compare Working Class Hero credentials.

You missed the opportunity to use the term ‘politics of envy’. You’re slacking 😀

One who didn’t go to uni but got her A levels and a job in Estate agency, is now working in a top Agency, working hard, earning money, is debt free and building a career.

Speaking as someone who dossed about for 3 years after uni and didn’t get a job until I was 24, I can honestly say had I left school and got a job when I was 16/18 my life would now be far more miserable and empty than it is now. Why the rush to push kids into a job early on? You’ve got your whole life to do the job/career thing so you might as well live a bit first.

LHS – Member
she now drives a Mercedes
How is that a measure of success or wealth?

She’s not yet 25, took me until 50 for my first Mercedes, they’re neither cheap to buy, rent or insure and have always been a status symbol, particularly amongst her (and my)peer group.

😀

I’m not sure such CEOs exist. You need to be pretty ruthless and selfish to get to the top….

Even many large charities are run by cut throat money grabbing individuals, whose sole aim is to earn more and don’t give a monkeys about the charitable cause.

Try the CEO of Next for starters – CEO gives his entire bonus to staff for the second year running

😀

She’s not yet 25, took me until 50 for my first Mercedes, they’re neither cheap to buy, rent or insure and have always been a status symbol, particularly amongst her (and my)peer group.

I remember the excitement I felt as a nipper when my dad came home from work one evening and said “Guess what? I’ve been promoted! I’ve got a new company car – it’s a big, white Mercedes!”

Bounded outside to have a look there’s one of these sitting in the street:

have always been a status symbol

And their in lies the problem.

If you put having a Mercedes as a priority, you will make it a priority. They are not expensive to lease.

You would be amazed at how many people will happily spend £500 a month but not bother putting any money aside to save for a house / retirement. You can lease a brand new C-Class Coupe for £300 a month.

You can lease a brand new C-Class Couple for £300 a month.

C-Class couple..?

They’re not waiting for an Ocado delivery? How frightful!

If I bought a Mercedes I think my mates would laugh me out of the pub 🙂

Has her Merc got heated wing mirrors?

Oh, how the other half live……

*wonders what 120k squeezed middle bloke drives*

She’s not yet 25, took me until 50 for my first Mercedes, they’re neither cheap to buy, rent or insure and have always been a status symbol, particularly amongst her (and my)peer group.

oh the aspiration !

samuri – Member

Absolute bobbins. The majority of tax comes from the real middle income earners, £20,000 to £50,000

@Samuri, yes of course the majority 99% pay the majority of the tax ie 75% of the total but the top 1% pay 25% of the tax a hugely disproportionate amount as @mashiehood’s chart shows. Think of how much extra the 99% would have to pay, they would have to pay close to 30% more in tax each to cover the loss of the 1%. What his chart also shows is that raising taxes beyond a certain point leads to a fall in tax revenue, we saw this a number of times in the past and we saw it again when taxes went to 50% (as the chart shows). When the tax rate was dropped from 50 to 45 tax revenue went up.

@Northwind – this view that the 1% make their money off the labours of the 99% is ideological not factual viewpoint, it isn’t reality. A lot of people join a business with the hope of being promoted, maybe one day being the CEO. In reality not everyone can make it but it doesn’t mean the CEO is “treading on” everyone else, the 99%.

As for the quiz, I’ve been open in the past on here. I’ve worked in finance for nearly 30 years and have been fortunate enough to earn good money over that period.

this view that the 1% make their money off the labours of the 99% is ideological not factual viewpoint, it isn’t reality.

You sure about that?

The lack of any correlation between remuneration of CEOs and their companies performance would suggest otherwise….

despite the fact there are some very wealthy people sending their kids to private schools, there are also shopkeepers (for example) working 20 hours a day (both parents) and foregoing any holidays in order to send their Kids to private schools.

This assumes private education is ‘better’. It also assumes the benefits of a private education outweigh never seeing your parents.

We send our kids to the local state school. Does that mean we don’t value their education?

@Samuri, yes of course the majority 99% pay the majority of the tax ie 75% of the total but the top 1% pay 25% of the tax a hugely disproportionate amount as @mashiehood’s chart shows. Think of how much extra the 99% would have to pay, they would have to pay close to 30% more in tax each to cover the loss of the 1%.

Or, the top 1% are paid a hugely disproportionate amount, which brings an increased tax burden.

We send our kids to the local state school. Does that mean we don’t value their education?

It’s a fact. Working class parents love their kids less than middle class ones. They also beat them and lock them in cupboards to instill discipline instead of using some tv-guru inspired attachment parenting technique.