[Leanan]

It's not the poor against the rich. It's the rich against the really, really rich:

Revolt of the fairly rich

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..Ordinary workers won't rise up against ultras because they take it as given that "the rich get richer."

But the hopes and dreams of today's educated class are based on the idea that market capitalism is a meritocracy. The unreachable success of the superrich shreds those dreams.

"I've seen it in my research," says pollster Doug Schoen, who counsels Michael Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton, among others. "If you look at the lower part of the upper class or the upper part of the upper middle class, there's a great deal of frustration. These are people who assumed that their hard work and conventional 'success' would leave them with no worries. It's the type of rumbling that could lead to political volatility."

...Lower uppers are professionals who by dint of schooling, hard work and luck are living better than 99 percent of the humans who have ever walked the planet. They're also people who can't help but notice how many folks with credentials like theirs are living in Gatsby-esque splendor they'll never enjoy.

This stings. If people no smarter or better than you are making ten or 50 or 100 million dollars in a single year while you're working yourself ragged to earn a million or two - or, God forbid, $400,000 - then something must be wrong.

You can hear the fallout in conversations across the country. A New York-based market research guru - a well-to-do fellow who's built and sold his own firm - explodes in a rant about ultras bidding up real estate prices. A family doctor in Los Angeles with two kids shakes his head that between tuition and donations, ultras have raised the ante for private school slots to the point where he can't get his kids enrolled. A senior executive at a nationally known firm seethes at the idea of eliminating the estate tax; it is an ultra conspiracy, in his view, a reprehensible giveaway to people whose outsized lucre bears little relation to hard work.

[FoxV]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'i')t is an ultra conspiracy, in his view, a reprehensible giveaway to people whose outsized lucre bears little relation to hard work.

[IanC]

This is just painful to read on the heels of the World Wildlife Federation report about a 25% ecological overshoot. These are the Uberconsumers, fighting over who gets to consume the most. This type of consumption is what is driving the planet into the whirling spiral of destruction. They have lost all perspective of their place in the world.

The WWF says we need to reduce consumption by 50% globabally, or roughly back to the consumption patterns of the 1980s to only BEGIN to ameliorate the overshoot we've started. Does anyone have any hope that this will happen given how the rich, super rich, and super elite cake-eating rich feel they are entitled to keep trying to out-consume eachother?

BTW, these guys will be the last to feel the effects of the Peak Oil Apocolypse, watching the rest of us starve from behind their fortified communities.

Grrr.

-IanC

[Dreamtwister]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'i')t is an ultra conspiracy, in his view, a reprehensible giveaway to people whose outsized lucre bears little relation to hard work.

[Leanan]

This all just seems so...decadent. The gap between the rich and the rest is getting insanely wide. And now being merely rich simply isn't enough. It reminds me of the Roaring Twenties, just before the Great Depression reared its ugly head.

[joewp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'i')t is an ultra conspiracy, in his view, a reprehensible giveaway to people whose outsized lucre bears little relation to hard work.

[benzoil]

Remember that the American Revolution was one led by shopkeepers and merchants. If the meritocracy wakes up to realize that they're getting just as hosed by the widening gap between rich and poor, that's a powerful force.

A lot of professional people think that they're safe or that they aren't affected like "poor" people, but if you're making less than $250,000 USD a year - you probably got your job through merit - usually education. Start closing off avenues for the upper middle class (anyone see the latest statistics on tuition hikes released yesterday?) and you'll see some powerful class struggles start to take shape.

Do these folks "suffer" the way everyone else does? Hardly. But wait til they realize that the ultra rich are selling them down the river, too.

[joewp]

Great minds think alike, benzoil!

[mgibbons19]

Of course, notice that the point of the article is that the distance between the rich and the uber-rich is GREATER than the difference between us working schleps and them. The author's example is a 1 million dollar salary. Let's say that's 20x more than us working schelps (50k for this example).

The uber rich dude the next office over is making 100 million in the article, or 100x what the rich dude makes.

Regardless of your interpretation of the problem (or whether it even is one), don't miss the point of the article.

[benzoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('joewp', 'G')reat minds think alike, benzoil!

[benzoil]

Salon.com's "How the World Works" has some commentary on a similar WSJ piece AND a NY Times piece. Not sure if this is echo chamber pandering to their markets (who are probably heavily skewed towards Lower Upper Class folks) or a genuine meme.

Salon.com - How the World Works

Note: Salon requires a subscription (easy to get a 1 day pass) and the piece has a link into the NY Times site, which requires registration.

[Zardoz]

An indicator of how the uber-rich are getting vastly richer is the state of the market for some of their favorite toys: mega-yachts. Consider this:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n 1985 there were only five yachts measuring more than 150 feet on our list ("America's 100 Largest Yachts"). Ten years later there were 18. Today the entire list is in that range—larger, actually, as the “smallest” yacht measures 151 feet and a handful of inches.

[FoxV]

Although everyone likes to frame things in terms of "I have/have not"

I think this is more a matter of the fact that the lower upper's are starting to feel the pinch of the FED's falsified inflation numbers.

One way to look at it is this, 10 years ago you only needed a mere $500K/year salary to afford an ivy league boarding school for your kids. Today you need a $10M/year salary.

and while the Lower Upper's whine about land speculation prices, you'll probably hear the Middle Upper's complain about how the Upper Uppers have driven up the prices on Private Jets and then hear the Upper Uppers complain about the unaffordability of tropical islands, because the Saudi Shieks are bidding them up.

In the end nothing has actually changed except that everyone finds themselves with less money than before and can't explain why

[mgibbons19]

Cuts both ways though. That there represents a lot of shipbuilders' jobs, resource jobs, marine operations jobs, ship's crew, and wait jobs.

[benzoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mgibbons19', 'C')uts both ways though. That there represents a lot of shipbuilders' jobs, resource jobs, marine operations jobs, ship's crew, and wait jobs.

[lawnchair]

Part of the problem is these lower-uppers are expecting to *feel* accomplishment for their 'merit'. But, only a very upper crust get many experiences that really qualify as unique.

Sure, the lower-upper drives his new-every-two Lexus. But, the experience of driving (taking forever to get anywhere, stuck in traffic, parking hell) is the same for the schlub. And, they both have to drive through the same blighted wasteland of modern culture.

Commercial flying still sucks for the lower-upper. Though he may have to do it more, many $40k families fly regularly. The term "jet-set" is passe.

For clothes and restaurants the middle-class go to chains, and the lower-upper go to fancier chains. But it's still microwaved frozen steak and sweatshop clothes from Myanmar.

A home 5000 sq.ft. of drywall and veneer isn't that much of a qualitative difference from 2000 sq.ft. (It just means you probably have no yard). Living in a exburb of all mid-six-figure earners doesn't mean you have better or more interesting neighbors. But, at least they may never be home.

The $15,000 home theater still plays the same low-brow movies and crappy TV programs, just louder. Their computers are still running Windows and filled with viruses.

Heck, most of the lower-uppers can't even spend their money on vacations. They're too stuck to their 80-hour-week no-holiday careers.

A lot of the spending of the lower-upper goes into trophy children. Private schools (or $$ to buy into elite public school districts), sports, and private universities. Of course, no amount of merit prepping is going to propel their kid into that upper realm (private planes and full-time staff), nor even guarantee that they remain in the lower-upper realm as the economy goes to crap.

That, and spending on brand-name sweatshop goods, country clubs, and cosmetic surgery... just to keep in the lower-upper rat race.

But, it's all they have to show for years of long hours and wasted lives.

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('benzoil', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mgibbons19', 'C')uts both ways though. That there represents a lot of shipbuilders' jobs, resource jobs, marine operations jobs, ship's crew, and wait jobs.

[benzoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mgibbons19', '
')The interesting question to me, which your post suggests is How much wealth concetration can capitalism stand and still work for the whole society?

[IanC]

Lawnchair,

Excellent points. I hadn't thought about it that way. The lower uppers are still trapped in the same degraded world as the rest of us. They are rich, but not rich enough to truly insulate themselves. Besides, as the article shows, they have to work a TON to make their money. I don't care what anyone says, but full time work sucks and no job is worth trading the best years of your life for.

My wife is a nurse and works with cardiologists who make well into the $300-500K/year. They make lots of money and have all the trappings, BUT work insane hours, never see their families, are constantly subject to malpractice issues and, day by day, week by week, are getting older and older.

I can come up with some empathy for these people, caught in a more gilded cage. The answer, of course, is that happiness cannot be found in stuff. Capitalism teaches us that consumer appetites are limitless. Therefore, we can either persue them forever and die anyway, or think of ways to enjoy what we have.

-IanC

[Don35]

Beautiful point joewp. I agree!