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The Upper Middle Class Is Ruining America
Slate ^ | January 30, 2015 | Reihan Salam

Posted on 01/31/2015 9:42:01 AM PST by C19fan

I first encountered the upper middle class when I attended a big magnet high school in Manhattan that attracted a decent number of brainy, better-off kids whose parents preferred not to pay private-school tuition. Growing up in an immigrant household, I’d felt largely immune to class distinctions. Before high school, some of the kids I knew were somewhat worse off, and others were somewhat better off than most, but we generally all fell into the same lower-middle- or middle-middle-class milieu. So high school was a revelation. Status distinctions that had been entirely obscure to me came into focus. Everything about you—the clothes you wore, the music you listened to, the way you pronounced things—turned out to be a clear marker of where you were from and whether you were worth knowing.

By the time I made it to a selective college, I found myself entirely surrounded by this upper-middle-class tribe. My fellow students and my professors were overwhelmingly drawn from comfortably affluent families hailing from an almost laughably small number of comfortably affluent neighborhoods, mostly in and around big coastal cities. Though virtually all of these polite, well-groomed people were politically liberal, I sensed that their gut political instincts were all about protecting what they had and scratching out the eyeballs of anyone who dared to suggest taking it away from them. I can’t say I liked these people as a group. Yet without really reflecting on it, I felt that it was inevitable that I would live among them, and that’s pretty much exactly what’s happened.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: class; middle; rich
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I read somewhere a lot of politics today is a war between the Upper Middle Class envious of the Upper Class; war between the 5% vs. the 1%.
1 posted on 01/31/2015 9:42:01 AM PST by C19fan
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To: C19fan

I would like to have a virtual dog to take a virtual crap on this publication. On line, that is.


2 posted on 01/31/2015 9:45:15 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder (At no time was the Obama administration aware of what the Obama administration was doing)
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To: C19fan
I found myself entirely surrounded by this upper-middle-class tribe.

You are falling into and buying the Marxist line of class struggle. Think it over, critically.

3 posted on 01/31/2015 9:46:52 AM PST by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannoli. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: C19fan

I don’t know that this class is ruining America but I do know they’re growing and the middle class is disappearing.

Here in the Houston area $500,000 homes are selling like hot cakes. A friend in the business told me yesterday that when she tells prospects the houses “start at $580,000 the response is “That’s not bad.” Three years ago it was hard to sell a $200,000 house in the same area. I don’t know where they’re getting the money. And I feel like the bubble is getting bigger and bigger.


4 posted on 01/31/2015 9:47:01 AM PST by VerySadAmerican (Obama voters are my enemy. And so are republican voters.)
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To: VerySadAmerican

By the way, good for them. I just wish I could figure out how they’re doing it.


5 posted on 01/31/2015 9:47:50 AM PST by VerySadAmerican (Obama voters are my enemy. And so are republican voters.)
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To: C19fan

Middle class. Upper middle class. Lower middle class. Those are really vague distinctions. But what has destroyed America is liberalism. And liberals come from all socio-economic levels.


6 posted on 01/31/2015 9:49:12 AM PST by LouAvul (If government is the answer, you're asking the wrong question.)
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To: VerySadAmerican

Here in NJ they are doing it at the taxpayers’ expense; the only Americans still buying homes here are teachers, cops, firemen, etc.. Since we lost so many good private sector jobs over the last twenty years or so, people either get on the workfare dole or flee.


7 posted on 01/31/2015 9:50:55 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: C19fan

I’m thinking its more of the elitist class on both sides of the aisle destroying the bedrock class.


8 posted on 01/31/2015 9:51:44 AM PST by headstamp 2
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To: C19fan
Though virtually all of these polite, well-groomed people were politically liberal, I sensed that their gut political instincts were all about protecting what they had and scratching out the eyeballs of anyone who dared to suggest taking it away from them.

The booshie libs are just taking a lesson from the rich liberals -- who are doing all they can to make sure that the tax structure prevents anyone they don't approve of from entering their ranks.

9 posted on 01/31/2015 9:51:45 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: LouAvul

Well said!


10 posted on 01/31/2015 9:52:18 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: C19fan

Not more of the Obama War on the Producers and the Takers want more free stuff. Look around the country what is ruining the country it is not the producers it is the takers. Look at Minnesota the Somalias there who receive food stamps want the program to approve pork free food products at tax payers expense. The Obamabots free phones that is pitted with fraud and abuse. Come now how many poor people are starting businesses and hiring. The marxist socilist crappola is creeping in everywhere


11 posted on 01/31/2015 9:52:42 AM PST by hondact200 (Candor dat viribos alas (sincerity gives wings to strength) and Nil desperandum (never despair))
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To: VerySadAmerican
Here in the Houston area $500,000 homes are selling like hot cakes.

Not for much longer.

Houston has seen more real estate boom/bust cycles than just about anywhere else in the country.

Soon you will be able to get one of those $500,000 houses for $70,000.

12 posted on 01/31/2015 9:52:55 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Government is the religion of the fascists.)
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To: C19fan

So now they’re open about “liquidating the kulaks as a class”...professing amazement and disappointment that people who have actually made it, and achieved their level of the American Dream, would (GASP) *dare* to protect their own interests.


13 posted on 01/31/2015 9:53:25 AM PST by M1903A1 ("We shed all that is good and virtuous for that which is shoddy and sleazy... and call it progress")
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To: kearnyirish2

” ; the only Americans still buying homes here are teachers, cops, firemen, etc..”

Yep, and 300 million Americans can’t work for the government, unless Obama gets a third term......


14 posted on 01/31/2015 9:55:25 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (My Batting Average( 1,000) (GOPe is that easy to read))
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To: headstamp 2

Yep teaching generations that the only measure of success can come with a white collar. Anything less is worthy only of ridicule or derision.


15 posted on 01/31/2015 9:56:26 AM PST by cripplecreek ("For by wise guidance you can wage your war")
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To: C19fan

Most of us are only a few generations away from when our ancestors were serfs.


16 posted on 01/31/2015 9:56:38 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: C19fan

The term “upper middle class” is being used as a synonym for “bourgeois/bourgeoisie”.

And we all know what generally happens to them at the hands of, say, the Bolsheviks when The Glorious Revolution cooks off, right?


17 posted on 01/31/2015 9:56:57 AM PST by tanknetter
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To: C19fan

Oh well. I have a friend whose brother got a GED. Never went to college. Knocks down $250-400K a year depending on how he does in his field. If someone called him upper middle class of whatever, he’d laugh at them. What matters is that the job gets done - he works right alongside his workers.


18 posted on 01/31/2015 9:57:50 AM PST by Fury
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To: stephenjohnbanker

If the government assumes control of the economy, we will all be working for the government. I expect medical facilities will be run like Motor Vehicles now that ObamaCare is responsible for so many people...


19 posted on 01/31/2015 9:58:04 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: kearnyirish2

Obama has hired maybe 250,000 fed workers ( I think that is low, with a good study.


20 posted on 01/31/2015 10:00:38 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (My Batting Average( 1,000) (GOPe is that easy to read))
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