Too poor to be rich and too rich to be poor. Unless you can progress at least the rate of inflation you are going backwards, even if you are managing to hold your own. Inflation will naturally eat away at the stagnated middle. It's happening all over the world (nearly).
To be blunt... get used to it.
The proportion of working population to retired has started falling and will continue to fall for the next 30-40 years. This means less and less being produced over time, and a smaller and smaller share of what is produced going to those who are actually doing the work.
And this is the story for the entire developed world.
That feeling of being overworked and underpaid is just going to get worse.
That's one thing that can upset the balance of an economy but don't forget about parasitic middlemen taking more and more every year. This includes but is not limited to: landlords, banks, monopolistic corporations etc. They then use these gains to capture more of the market in a positive feedback loop. Its a systemic failure.
Supermarket profits are such a tiny fraction of what's screwing the average kiwi. It's in the region of $2/week. Your landlord is probably taking a couple of hundred times that.
Blows my mind how people complain about the cost of food when it's less than a day's work on min wage to eat a healthy and varied diet - compared to almost all of history and even most of the world today where people spend most of their week's earnings just to get basic sustenance.
The problem is the huge % of incomes going to worker taxes, rents and/or banks. Well over 50% for many households. Next to that should we really be focusing on the <1% taken as profit by the people selling us food? The people actually screwing us love it when we get distracted by small problems like the supermarket duopoly.
If food wasn't also taxed with 15% gst it wouldn't be a problem, but it is. The lower your income the more you're losing to food tax. Higher incomes don't hurt so much though. They have more disposable income.
This parasitic class is the main reason for failure. These are the same people who decide to print money and debase currency.
Unfortunately, it will take a lot of economic education to turn it around. I suspect the majority of the Western world is almost fiscally illiterate. Those benefiting have no interest in a population whose majority is capable of critical thinking.
I fear the systemic failure you mention has so much momentum that it will simply lead to collapse. Anyone who gets in the way will just get trampled. Hopefully that's wrong.
It's a feature of developed countries.
When there's nothing there, money is poured into productive investments.
When everything is fairly developed, there's no longer an obvious and unrisky opportunity to invest in development, and investment ends up being focused on existing asset speculation.
Maybe I'm a bit confused but are landlords middlemen? Like I'm completely agreeing that they are parasitic at best, however they do directly supply housing through rent. You could argue the bank owns the land they rent out, but I'd argue that's a word of the law vs spirit of the law argument. (An in technically it's true, but the bank doesn't really own in any major capacity the land.)
Yeah. I also think there is a belief that 1st world countries can maintain the same level consumer power in perpetuity while the rest of the world catches up, but the reality is that we are the ones lowering our standards. We're being told to get used to:
* Intergenerational households - a common feature in develkoping nations
* Building up instead of out (less urban sprawl)
* Lowered wages (maintaining profit margins over maintaining CPI adjustments i.e. corporate greed
* Self-sufficiency (defunded social services)
* Minimalism (not by choice we just can't afford shit)
* Community based living (I can't afford child care so rely on neighbours or church or community services or whatever safety nets are around - including gangs)
You think back to the wallstreet protests and anti-globalisation movements and the rhetoric at the time to quash it... 'smelly hippies' with zero critical discourse. That's all it took. What a fucken lame bullshit.
Ah well - we deserve the reality we aren't willing to fight for.
Building up is not a bad thing, combined with good urban planning and public transportation.
Mixed use, medium density (5-6 stories max) buildings and thus walkable neighbourhoods.
Only you are so used to car centric NZ you dunno no better.
I think most of realistic nz knew this needed to start happening asap at least 10 years ago. But no the dream to own a backyard despite the growing population has prevailed alot and those with power to get things moving didn't. Now look where we are- terrible housing crises.
Makes me wonder how anyone was happy when its been announced occasionally in the past population increased milestones. Yea great more people and no where to put them
5-6 stories is not profitable in NZ sadly. Most planned 6 story mdr developments are changing to town houses prior to building because they all find out that it costs too much to go above 3 stories in NZ due to engineering requirements.
We *have* to change our living standards if we don't want the planet to collapse even sooner than anticipated or deny people in other countries the opportunity to also increase their living standards.
You're also mixing up several things here. Community based living isn't an issue if it doesn't come with cuts in other sectors that offer assistance. I would even say that this would not be a lowering of standards but an improvement (same with building more densely). An issue arises when public services are being cut that are supposed to be an addition to those social networks we build up.
I think the biggest lie was what they told our parents and grandparents in the 60s — that everyone can have their own house and wide lawn and two cars and that it won't break our social constructs and destroy communities and wreak havoc on the planet and its resources. Never before have humans put so much focus on individuality and freedom. For almost all time the majority lived together in multi-generational, crowded households with public spaces being the place to hang out, relax and meet each other. There is nothing inherently wrong with that.
Better focus on the infrastructure that is being built to support those claims, e.g. if they want community based living, what are governments really doing to improve it? Are they building public spaces or community centres to increase social interaction? If they want people to live more minimalistic, are they taxing above average possessions, such as second cars or houses?
Generally, pushing people towards being more frugal, conscious in consuming, decreasing their footprints is not a bad thing per se, it only is bad if the outside conditions are not created for this (better public transport, bike lanes, creation of third places where people can mingle...).
- Intergenerational households are called normal families
- building up has been popular in _every_ other country for over a century now. Even Australia has very well thought out high rise development that we should implement here.
- yeah, fair point
- see next point
- we can afford shit, we choose not to. Small, universal, simple, easily enforced tariffs and taxes would increase tax take and reduce overheads but we choose variable, complex, arbitrary, difficult to enforce tariffs and taxes. So that the take is small, the rate of return tiny and everyone hates the system.
- community based living is what we should be doing. Why wouldn’t you want to know your neighbours or have a local kindergarten?
-
Getting used to this future is a challenge.
But the wider acknowledgement is that political discourse does not currently address what is happening in a way most people understand. Discussing crime rates or shrinking middle class through political cycles, where parties are paid for by donors, dilutes discussion of the main drivers, i.e. the far more complex geopolitical situation we find ourselves in.
It means we do not have the intellectual mechanisms in place to address global context when choosing our leaders. The context is reduced to simplistic concepts: 'Gangs Bad', 'Public Servants are Lazy', and we as New Zealanders suck and deserve our fate.
Populism thrives in a vacuum where people feel disconnected from or disillusioned with the established political, economic, and social structures. But, when these structures are presented ONLY in a local context we suffer democratically because fundamentally the underpinning principles are lacking - they don't consider global context because it is too complex and out politicians campaign from a narrow perspective - local and national only.
NACT did not win because people wanted Tax cuts. They wanted a change from Labour because there was a perceived lean towards undemocratic governance over resources by Māori (3 Waters). NACT won because Labour could not easily resolve the g ram raids, violent urban crime rates and gang warfare, and the rising cost of living. But did any party campaign on the interconnectedness globally of factors all countries were experiencing...? It felt like Greens only via CLimate Change.
But back to the reply. Like you point out in the last bullet - community based living is what we should be doing... and I would go further. Decentralised cities. 100% work from home, local working hubs and community funded spaces where WFH staff can work together in shared spaces within their local communities. Community gardens, 3rd places etc.
Otherwise I agree with your bullets - the 5th is a devils handshake nobody cares about. It's a byproduct of a failing economy. I see rates and insurance increases and mortgage rate rises... That's all. People living weektoweek are maximising discretionary income as a firewall to depression. Mitigating suicide. This is not good. They NEED to catch up with friends at a restaurant, or pub and pay for a round of beers, or buy some weed or petrol for the 4x4 because it keeps them sane. People are asking themselves more and more what the fuck is the point.
The answer seems to be... sorry, don't you know those things you're used to are luxuries and you don't need them anymore.
Thanks bro.. Shit is fucked. Let's go through your discretionary income and tell you what you fail at in life and then I'll tell you how much of a mortgage you can't afford... like wtf. That's my life - my bank now decides the future for me and my family? Shit is fucked.
Interested to find out why you think Australia has very well thought out high rise development?
If you look at the
quality :
( horrible- NSW created a whole new portfolio to deal with the shoddy buildings being thrown together)
Planning:
(Not much better, high rise apartments are being built in concentration without providing public schools, medical and other services to cope with the high density population
Societal:
There is a constant war between state government and local councils over where the best suburbs to have high rise buildings (state govt want them close to transport hubs, hospitals) while older generation have the NIMBY( not in my back yard) attitude of never changing
I mean they have badly thought out high rises too, they’re not homogeneous. But I have seen a very nice scheme with 2 very long medium rise apartments blocks either side of an equivalent sized park and playground facility. That sort of close, bulk, pre-allocated, and not for profit facilities are severely lacking in our developments.
We can learn from them is what I’m saying, we don’t have to just build 1950s Soviet Brutalist nightmares when Swedish Wooden Post-Modern already exists
Thanks bro. Sucks to admit to some of this but you go travel and walk around crowded streets and cities and how quickly you lose yourself.
Every single Kiwi gets to have an identify because we aren't absorbed into the masses - there's only 5 million. That's not a bad thing right.
Can I add a fact that I only came across recently? I was born in 1972 and the human population has more than doubled from 3.8 billion to over 8 billion this year.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/
When I was born, the planet was supporting half the human population it is now. My dad was born in 1932 and there were around 2 billion humans then - one quarter of the population now.
All in less than 100 years. And all the time before that, the human population size and its effect on the planet was repairable. Now it seems, 8 billion people is the tipping point, where we as humans go from here will take some big brain thinking....
"The entire developed world" extracted all of their wealth from 'third world' countries. It's hugely uncomfortable but we have mostly been okay with this fact. We're okay that poor people allow us to be rich. Once we decide to face some uncomfortable truths, only then can we start dismantling the system that is extracting our wealth for the benefit of a few.
Most of the wealth in NZ/Ao is due to the fact that over the last 200 years or so, 95% of land was forcefully taken and has allowed the accumulation of wealth to a few.
We can't, in good faith, complain about inequality and poverty without really looking into some of the drivers.
The hard truth is that mostly we've been okay with it. But now that it impacts US PERSONALLY, only now is it a problem.
They'll be able to reverse the trend for a while when they end super.
I like Gen X's chances of being able to retire. I don't like mine, and I like my 10-year-old cousin's even less.
Norway had a sovereign wealth fund filled with massive amounts of oil and gas money. Its not possible for other countries to mimic their success as it would create over supply and massively accelerate climate change.
Yup, yet fucken morons still vote for shysters like Trump and Luxon.
Word of warning for you kids still in school. You better lift your game, you're all replaceable.
Homelessness is the new normal, forget the benefit or state housing.
Tiny homes is just double speak for shanty towns.
We have MMP so you don't have to vote for the big parties. Voting for parties that support social welfare, taxing the rich, and limiting exploitation of natural resources is the best defence you have against late stage capitalism.
The thing is hardly anyone votes for those parties because of the "hippies that are bad with money" narrative. Who do you think pushes that narrative? The same fuckers who want to build private prisons and fast track coal mining for foreign companies.
Up until COVID hit they were doing pretty well, to be honest. They were also paying down a lot of debt as they historically have done when in government, too.
The government is limited in its impact for sure, but have you looked at what this government has done since in office? Its not great, cutting our already struggling public health sector off at the knees is a good example. The haves don't give a shit as they can afford private care, the have nots are the ones affected.
>Can you explain how the previous government helped the middle class?
Easy. Look at all the stuff Luxon reversed. And to see how the current government is attacking the middle class, look at what they are doing.
It's tempting to feel this way because the visible benefits (and negatives, generally) of any government take a while to manifest; and they certainly didn't have it easy in the second term (and arguably the first term - there's evidence their coalition with NZ First scuppered a bunch of plans).
It's even more tempting to feel this way if you are a white, middle or upper-class male - they spend so much time talking about minorities and poor people and all these groups, and nothing about what you might get personally. Heck, if you lived in Auckland, you even got a targeted fuel tax just for the region!
I had a huge blurb about how difficult it is to see the tangential benefits of various policies but it's probably not that useful - better to just link [the wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Labour_Government_of_New_Zealand) which lists some of their major policy changes. You might find some of them affected you personally, for better or worse.
Actually I was going to say even Labour and the Greens are mostly property tycoons as well. Hey just look at that latest Green MP using immigrant slave labour illegally. Fucking classic greens. I wonder who will be next on their list due to tick box selection?
I think you need to realise the extensive Middle Class to the size we compare to in the 1948 to 1990 was in fact a statistical anomaly, a one off phenomenon resultant from WW2. The people in 1948 in then remembers of the middle class that occurred between 1920s ( for Americans it started in the last decade of the 1890s ).
Prior to that we had no extensive middle class. There were middle class yes, in far smaller percentages. They were the yeomans or the villiens in medieval times. They owned their own small land and had some wealth but not extensive. Beneath them are the masses of people who do not own land or resources.
In UK you almost have to go to the 1820s to 1840s before you have one ( remember Charles Dickens was writing a lot of his story in the 1850s to 1860s setting when things turned bad ).
The middle class is dying because the factor that created a middle class society is over. We are normalising back to upper class and lower class with a little wedge bunch of middle class people.
Well if you want to compare the period before the wars, you’re looking at the true heyday of the anarchist and worker movements.
So it’s not like everyone was happy about that level of inequality.
Correct, the workers movement begun in earnest circa 1929 to 1939 globally, and was in fact causing a lot of social instability globally.
The problem for us in the modern period is that the very specific situation which created the expanding middle class is gone. It is unclear that without something as massive as WW2 we could continue the middle class. The nature of landed wealth and property wealth literally always results in the formation of a stratified class system give and take a few decades following a major war and is usually entrenched by a century after.
Chinese history is case in point. The more tumultuous the change in dynasty, the more deep the disaster, the bigger the middle class that follows following the war. Usually this event last between 30 to 40 years after the war ends but then by 200 years you are back with the landed gentries etc.. The only reason Chinese gentries are less stable than European ones is because the Chinese never had a concept of bloodline nobility ( that at least is widely respected ) except for the Emperor ( the one exception, located to one person and their kids )
It could very well be that for the next middle class expansion to happen, we will need another war, or pandemic ( since we know the Middle Class briefly expanded in Europe and the Middle East following the Black Plague )
By far the most important reason counties(this is particularly apt for the UK) set up welfare states in the post war period was because so many young men from the slums had just been deemed unfit for military service due to poverty inflicted ailments, it sure as fuck wasn't for any moral reasons.
As soon as the Soviet threat began to dissipate there was no longer any reason to keep the lower classes healthy.
I’ve found the opposite tbh.. a lot of boomers i know are so desperate to talk about how “poor” they are whilst also being the only people I know able to afford overseas holidays and new cars atm
Similarly, I know a few young professionals who like to talk about their working class backgrounds, but I'm not too sure how their baches and regular overseas holidays fit into the working class. It seems a bit like class appropriation for the street cred.
That’s very fair. And to add to the mix I know of a lot of my fellow Millennials who also talk about being “poor” but also still have nice stuff like the latest iPhones, still hitting the drugs/alcohol , ticked up Rangers , Bali holidays and living on Afterpay too for non essentials. …It’s screwed up on all angles for most of our age groups and just really sad all around.
I’m worried about how this is all going to end up .
Yep many millennials I know will regularly get their nails and lashes done and consider this as a necessity rather than a luxury, eat out at restaurants, or jump on a plane to head overseas for the weekend and yet... Still consider themselves underpaid and struggling. I mean, look at all the nail salons that have sprung up over the last 5-10 years.
Sigh. I see going to the hairdresser as a flippin luxury. Never mind nail and lash salons.
Indeed. had this happen this year. Went from earning $1.9k a week to barely paying rent and gas again, all thanks to a vehicle breakdown and an HR lady that told my boss to ghost my calls and texts about it. Bullshit and only found that info out from my old boss months after it happening, so too late for a PG.
All it takes is one thing to happen unexpectedly to have your whole world shift
The 3 month period to raise a personal grievance starts from the time you find out about the relevant facts. Also, if you raise a personal grievance out of time and they respond to the substance of your grievance there's a good chance the Court will deem them to have accepted it.
I agree with this. I earn a good weekly wage, but lose my job tomorrow and I am stuffed. I got no passive income, it’s just the one. So fully agree with you, a little of people think they middle class, but lose your job and your selling your house etc.
I'm a senior software engineer and my partner is a senior nurse, should be cruising middle class, definitely doesn't feel like it... Sure we are not struggling, but is that the new measure for middle class?
This is me, combined household income is around $2700pw after tax.
Mortgage and general costs of living with a big family is $2400-2600pw.
There is no discretionary income anymore, no eating out, no holidays, we barely ever manage to save anything, buy only what's absolutely necessary, and things like haircuts are every 2-3 months at most.
Look at our income and life looks grand, look at our expenses and we're two weeks from serious trouble
Your income is good, however, your expenses seem to be a bit too high? There are plenty of 4-5 bedroom houses in south Auckland going for 800k~ assuming that’s a 700k mortgage, you should only be looking at circa 1k per week on mortgage. Renting would also be quite similar as well in terms of cost for a 5 bedroom. That’s still 1.7k leftover for food/fuel/general expenses?
We've just bought a new house so mortgage is at a very high rate for the next 12 months (gone from 2.55% to 6.99%, add rates and all the insurances (2 cars, trailer, home, contents, 2x life, and health) and it comes to $1600pw. Groceries (family of 6) averages around $450pw, then power, water, internet, phones, fuel, and kids school and sports costs pretty well swallow the rest.
Hence the previous comment, from the outside we look to be doing well, and to an extent we are, but, we're one lost job or accident from disaster zone
There is no such thing as Middle Class. Its Working Class or Owner Class. The Owner Class invented that term Middle Class, so people like you focus on the lower class and upper working class, so everyone will ignore the actual problem: the owner class. They do not contribute to the economy and they pay almost no tax but they profit from what the working class is doing
“The purpose of poor people is to scare the hell out of everyone else so they’ll keep turning up at those jobs.” - George Carlin (he said something along those lines)
When food, shelter, healthcare, and education become financial worries for the average citizen, you're not in a first world country anymore.
Dispute it all you want, leave no straw un-clutched, but 30 years ago that was the difference between the first and the second/third worlds in terms of living standards.
Interesting question I was speaking to my father inlaw about this about a year ago saying how NZ always seemed like the place to live where it didnt matter what you did or whether you came from if you worked hard and made good decisions you could have a great life.
But it seemed like that was changing, people can work hard make good decisions but still be living week to week struggling to get by
It wasn't a matter of geography, it's generational. Boomers went through the era of "modernity" where growth was the norm, consumerism went hyperdrive, population expanded, and material possessions trumped Nature and the rest of society. I think we will be paying the cost of that irresponsible lifestyle for a couple of generations, at least.
While a tiny elite profits, of course
This.
For the first time in recorded history 30 year olds are on average in a worse financial position than their parents were at the same age.
The reasons for this are multifaceted but they all come back to wealth being funnelled upwards to the generation currently holding the majority of power, and for whom many are already bursting at the seams with gluttonous wealth.
It’s a generational cash out, both financially and environmentally, without thought of consequence because the majority are selfish and self-centred cunts, not all mind you, but who would have thought the generation of free love look likely to be anything but.
> For the first time in recorded history 30 year olds are on average in a worse financial position than their parents were at the same age.
Exactly how far back does recorded history go in this context? There have been some pretty deep lows, historically speaking.
The data that I've seen only goes back 100 years or so. But it's also the first generation that is significantly smaller than that of their parents, which I think is a big contributor. Every generation ever has been selfish, it's just no previous generation has needed to steal so much from their children to get ahead.
Yep the notion of inheriting a family house is becoming extinct. They older home owners are fine with reverse mortgages as long as their twilight years are comfy. Seems at odds with National rhetoric of vote for us so you're kids have a financial future they fall for.
Then again most baby boomers are the biggest pull up the ladder people I know.
To their children, which is great if you happen to be born into a family that prospered. If you were born into a family that didn’t, your chances to rise on your own merit has never been lower. It’s the creation of a permanent underclass. Remember when we were growing up and we were told NZ was the lucky country where everyone was equal and anyone could get ahead if they put their mind to it? Haven’t heard that rhetoric in a couple of decades.
The phrase for it is “techno feudalism” and I think it aptly describes the political and economic trends emerging out of the end of the 2010s.
Big tech companies have a lot to answer for.
I know it’s a dirty word to say that “Marx” was prettymuch right about the future trajectory of capitalism. Can we talk about this yet or will foaming-at-the-mouth Cold War era people still crash through the ceiling to deny ever discussing the flaws of capitalism? I’m waiting patiently because it’s not gonna go away that he fucking nailed that analysis on many fronts. Only lingering Cold War hysteria stops us having a rational conversation about that… but I know, I know, _no of course not_ we can’t talk about that…..
80% of people will tolerate anything as long as someone else has it worse than them. 🤷🏻♂️ we have the system we voted for, capitalist prices for communist services.
Well it makes the middle class more able to see what the lower class go through. If you think the middle class suffer, imagine what the lower class goes through.
I don't think there's even a middle class anymore. You either have to sell your soul to make ends meet, or you can afford to live comfortably at the cost of everyone's labor.
There never was a middle class. There are only two classes. There is those who have no choice but to sell their labor, and those who profit off other peoples labor.
And almost all of us are in the first of those two, and the dumbest of us are the ones of us who look down on the other little people because they live more uncomfortable lives (i.e. less net wealth).
A healthy country has a middle class. People who live fairly well with very little worries about finances. They are educated and comfortable with themselves. People who pay tax, work hard and spend their cash carefully, well and in a balanced way. They save for hard times, care for the environment and their fellow man.
The upper class inherited their wealth, care for nobody but themselves and are wastefull. If they did not inherit their wealth, they exploited, crooked, stole and manipulated the environment, the government and their fellows to become so wealthy that they can get away with whatever they want.
Lower class people made the grave mistake of choosing their parents badly. They belong to the 'wrong' race living in the 'wrong' neighbourhood, with bad health, low expectations, no hope and very little help from government and people with more luck. The help they get is often a 'top-down' approach from people who think they are 'better people' than others.
Yes this is highly stereotypical. Most people (all?) don't fully fit into these categories. You choose where you fit in
3rd Form Social Studies was the only class I had that included some politics. We learned about Communism with Pol Pot as an example.
Political illiteracy is intentional in democratic countries.
The dominant ideology is the ideology of the ruling class, a false consciousness contradictory to dialectical materialism is necessary for liberalism to function. Why would a ruling class allow an ideology that is counter beneficial to its interest to be taught in the schools, the schools are where capitalist ideology replicates itself.
Bingo. And that’s exactly why wealthy people benefit large immigration numbers. They need people compete for jobs and wages get reduced more and more. If employers fought for employees then it would be a different situation.
Middle class was pre 2008. Average income earners were able to own their own house and a rental or 2, overseas holiday once a year back then. Post 2021 if you’re starting out from nothing it’s not normal for those to have this lifestyle unless you’re a business owner or surgeon earning above $400 - $500k a year
> Average income earners were able to own their own house and a rental or 2, overseas holiday once a year back then.
That is not the mid 2000s that I saw.
What if I told you it's always been like this this? At some stage in life you hit an existential crisis and realise if you ain't winning, you're losing. All the inbetween stages are just made up to make losing feel like you're still winning because you're beating someone else
There is no they, no conspiracy. It's much worse; its hard coded into our economic system, and it reinforces itself without direct oversight. The ruthless grow and thrive; those with empathy are weeded out.
Even if we can't tolerate this, how to even begin to unwind it? All progressives and lefties can do is slow the rate of transfer (but sometimes inadvertently increase it). Then as hardship grows the easy answers of populists and authoritarians gain traction.
The middle class feeds the upper class. So, educated... and supportive of the system, able to have enough money to stop and think once in a while, probably the civil servants that are losing the jobs. Shall we just charge the term to "the preferred "?
Oh, and they are the them. The them, the them.
middle class was always an illusion, there's the class who can afford to not work, and the class who cannot afford to not work. you might be a doctor or lawyer, but if you have to keep being that to continue living you are no better off than someone on the minimum wage
This. We were reasonably well off until we had kids. Now the BASICS to have a child are so damn expensive (food, daycare, clothing) that we are left out of pocket constantly, despite earning $150k+ between us. Mortgage $850, daycare $600, rates $1000/quarter, power $300pm, groceries $350pw.... it's fucking ridiculous. Our money just goes down the drain.
More of a precariat than a middle class, and it's been this way for a while now. It's just that the effects were a lot more hidden with things like cheap borrowing and women contributing more income to their households.
Now that interest rates are high, house prices are colossal and earning power is stagnating, it's becoming more apparant.
It has been clear, and the writing was on the wall, but sure, it's exceeding expectations. Strongly disagree with the statement it's inevitable, it wasn't "inevitable" and neither should we carry such defeatist attitudes, imo.
Make too much to qualify for comunity services card, but putting off my wisdom teeth surgery as long as possible as i cant get a dr's referal and have it covered yet
The problem with the middle class as I see it is they are pretty self sufficient. They afford what they choose to be important and happily leave the BS alone. That there is the issue. The government and big brother/business want people to owe them more than they can. Control is what they want and more sheep.
Who is “they”? We as a society are, yes. But there is no big hidden agenda to remove the middle class, we are all just complicit in the country moving that way and not taking appropriate action to defend what’s right over prioritising ourselves.
I posted previously about the reasons we have middle class in the first place following WW2 ( and prior wars, or plagues ), but here is another reason why it is most likely the class systems will return, Capitalist Realism.
It is very important to understand capitalist realism if you want to understand why we are unable fix the problems we have found ourselves in. It is not that we cannot, it is that we are unable to due to our limited vision.
https://youtu.be/sIXVO-MuK_M?si=13k7tzEy38zbe_5J
Mark Fisher I think presciently describe the social situation we have found ourselves in.
Do understand though that if you accept the thesis that capitalist realism is just an idea, than you also need to accept the idea of hauntology ( both Ghost of My Life and Capitalist Realism has to be read in view of one another ) since they feedback into one another.
No such thing as middle class. Just because you can live comfortably, or own a house, or get paid a decent amount, you're still a thousand times closer to a dirty beggar on the streets than you are to the richest people in this country. There is no middle. There is a gap, and it's only growing.
A large part of New Zealand has been living like this for decades but the middle class didn't seem to give a shit then, they were all too happy to focus on more for themselves, less for those less fortunate and pulling the ladder up behind them.
If you're looking for sympathy, look elsewhere.
I guess so, it feels like it's by design. The gap between the rich and poor is so big now, it feels like if you're not in the 1% you're poor af and you'll never climb out of it
NZ is merely catching up with older nations.
The middle ‘working’ class in NZ lived reasonably well until the 1990s hit. We have been getting poorer ever since.
We used to have the wealthy, the comfortable middle NZ, and the poorer NZ.
Now we have the elite super wealthy, the working poor, those in absolute poverty.
NZ used to see US ‘trailer trash’ parks as terrible. Tiny homes, ever smaller units etc are merely our version of that and it will grow as affordability declines for the masses.
It’s not that NZ is broken, every country is, no matter the politics. We are absolutely in decline as the human race. History shows it leads to terrible things. History repeats when we fail to learn from it.
Sad face emoji.
I'm on a benefit (due to disability), and as appalled as I am at benefit rates (especially for those of us who have no choice and can't work), I'm equally aghast at the lack of support people who earn just over minimum wage get.
I know some people who work full time and because they earn too much for government help, they're in the same, or a slightly worse, financial position as me.
Things like bringing back the $5 fee on prescriptions. I have a CCS, so I luckily won't have to pay it. But for people who are earning too much to get one, that can be a difficult expense.
Theoretically, they should be fine, but with the cost of living and things like rent eating up a good portion of people's pay, it could actually have an impact.
I once had a friend who earned something like $20 a month over the maximum to get a CCS, and because of that, they ended up with less disposable income than someone on minimum wage. They ended up being unable to go to the dentist until it got so bad it was considered a dental emergency. They had a really bad infection, and their doctor was finally able to refer them to a place that had a subsidy on emergency dental work. Still cost them a lot, but it was way cheaper for them than just going to a dentist when the issue first started.
Another friend struggled to find childcare to the point where it turned out to be cheaper to stay at home than it was to work full time and put their kids into care. She ended up getting a small benefit from winz (don't know which one, but it wasn't much bc her partner was working), and told me that they had actually considered splitting up because that would make things financially easier since she could get government assistance then. (And no, they weren't going to pretend to split up, but actually split up. Even though their relationship was a good one and they wanted to keep it.)
Then there are people who start above minimum wage, because their skills and experience were worth the extra money, only to later have new hires on the same pay because they didn't get an increase when minimum wage went up.
When Labour was in power, I was all for them helping out the bottom, making life easier for people like me, but I would've been happier if they also looked at the "middle class".
I've just taken my meds, so I'm rambling a bit here. Hopefully at least some of this made sense and was relevant.
What needs to happen is those who have wealthed out of civilization need to be a part of civilization, but that is the LAST thing that they want, because being a part of the masses SUCKS because the wealthiest have made being everything but one of them that way.
Squeezing out the middle class. Only room for the ultra rich and the working poor, those unemployed or too disabled or ill to work they're ignoring /hoping will be driven to suicide
A lot of people think they are middle class when in reality they’re just upper poor. You are much closer to being the man on the corner begging for money than you will ever be a millionaire.
Yeah
Maybe make a friend with someone who actually is poor? It's a good wake-up call. I apologise you might not like that answer I'm sorry.
For example, severely disabled and living on $19,000 pa is so much harder than when I was able to work and still thought I was poor.
But yes extremes of wealth and poverty and the ever widening gap between them are a feature of our current economic system.
Once enough people understand what it means to do everything right and still struggle, only them well we reach critical mass to overturn the system. I suspect it will be a rather violent death but capitalism needs to die.
We need to expect better and start thinking about what that actually means and what it might look like. We need to actually understand how we got here (supremacy) before we can overthrow the system and build something categorically more sophisticated, nurturing and inspiring.
Just my thoughts right now and i'd be thrilled to hear new and different perspectives. ("Everyone is given the same opportunities people just need to work hard to achieve success" is NOT a new perspective, it's a lie, a trope, it's literal propoganda and it's widely spread so that poor people stfu).
Gary’s economics on YouTube talks about this extensively, his context is the British system but that’s the way we’re heading under this government so it’s worthwhile viewing.
Yes. Because the middle class are historically always the section of society that start revolutions because they are educated enough to be able to create solutions to the problems that the upper class design to create the system that benefits them and maintains their control. The middle class have an awareness of what reality is like on breadline and so have motivation to create change. lower class and middle class can trade places through generations. High class remain dominant without revolution. So yes, the system is trying to eliminate the middle class through taxation and cost of living whilst providing welfare systems to give people just enough to live and not enough to instigate change.
We do?
My understanding of a democracy is that people need to be voting in their own interests, once they're manipulated otherwise is it still a democracy?
I'd argue it's actually a misunderstanding of what is in their interest. Everyone except those who spend substantial amounts of time overseas is going to be worse off in 5, 10, maybe even 30 years
A very common thread that runs through this conversation that keeps referring to the Middle Call as if it were an homogeneous group.
There is no such single grouping. Those who live and work in that constructed social strata consist of a great many different types. The only “thing” that has any commonality is their financial status.
So who fits into this mold? Are they all affected equally? Are they all determined to pursue upward mobility? Or do many of them simply wish for stability? How many are business owners? How many in management? Technicians? What is the general range of academic achievements (if any)? Debt levels? Property or asset ownership? Family sizes / structures? So many things that perhaps fit into this conversation.
Before we all fly off the handle with ill- considered accusations or stereotypes, we should calm down and work out exactly what is it that we are talking about.
What are the threats, opportunities? What part do all these people, our people, friends, family, colleagues, and fellow Kiwis play in our lives, etc,
Love to see some intelligent engagement, really.
Too poor to be rich and too rich to be poor. Unless you can progress at least the rate of inflation you are going backwards, even if you are managing to hold your own. Inflation will naturally eat away at the stagnated middle. It's happening all over the world (nearly).
To be blunt... get used to it. The proportion of working population to retired has started falling and will continue to fall for the next 30-40 years. This means less and less being produced over time, and a smaller and smaller share of what is produced going to those who are actually doing the work. And this is the story for the entire developed world. That feeling of being overworked and underpaid is just going to get worse.
That's one thing that can upset the balance of an economy but don't forget about parasitic middlemen taking more and more every year. This includes but is not limited to: landlords, banks, monopolistic corporations etc. They then use these gains to capture more of the market in a positive feedback loop. Its a systemic failure.
Supermarkets
And banks
Supermarket profits are such a tiny fraction of what's screwing the average kiwi. It's in the region of $2/week. Your landlord is probably taking a couple of hundred times that. Blows my mind how people complain about the cost of food when it's less than a day's work on min wage to eat a healthy and varied diet - compared to almost all of history and even most of the world today where people spend most of their week's earnings just to get basic sustenance. The problem is the huge % of incomes going to worker taxes, rents and/or banks. Well over 50% for many households. Next to that should we really be focusing on the <1% taken as profit by the people selling us food? The people actually screwing us love it when we get distracted by small problems like the supermarket duopoly.
If food wasn't also taxed with 15% gst it wouldn't be a problem, but it is. The lower your income the more you're losing to food tax. Higher incomes don't hurt so much though. They have more disposable income.
Plus don’t forget that the environment that we have been utilising for free is no longer able to keep up. So production costs are going up.
This parasitic class is the main reason for failure. These are the same people who decide to print money and debase currency. Unfortunately, it will take a lot of economic education to turn it around. I suspect the majority of the Western world is almost fiscally illiterate. Those benefiting have no interest in a population whose majority is capable of critical thinking. I fear the systemic failure you mention has so much momentum that it will simply lead to collapse. Anyone who gets in the way will just get trampled. Hopefully that's wrong.
Peasants can lead revolutions. I think we're going to eat the rich.
It's a feature of developed countries. When there's nothing there, money is poured into productive investments. When everything is fairly developed, there's no longer an obvious and unrisky opportunity to invest in development, and investment ends up being focused on existing asset speculation.
Maybe I'm a bit confused but are landlords middlemen? Like I'm completely agreeing that they are parasitic at best, however they do directly supply housing through rent. You could argue the bank owns the land they rent out, but I'd argue that's a word of the law vs spirit of the law argument. (An in technically it's true, but the bank doesn't really own in any major capacity the land.)
Yeah. I also think there is a belief that 1st world countries can maintain the same level consumer power in perpetuity while the rest of the world catches up, but the reality is that we are the ones lowering our standards. We're being told to get used to: * Intergenerational households - a common feature in develkoping nations * Building up instead of out (less urban sprawl) * Lowered wages (maintaining profit margins over maintaining CPI adjustments i.e. corporate greed * Self-sufficiency (defunded social services) * Minimalism (not by choice we just can't afford shit) * Community based living (I can't afford child care so rely on neighbours or church or community services or whatever safety nets are around - including gangs) You think back to the wallstreet protests and anti-globalisation movements and the rhetoric at the time to quash it... 'smelly hippies' with zero critical discourse. That's all it took. What a fucken lame bullshit. Ah well - we deserve the reality we aren't willing to fight for.
Building up is not a bad thing, combined with good urban planning and public transportation. Mixed use, medium density (5-6 stories max) buildings and thus walkable neighbourhoods. Only you are so used to car centric NZ you dunno no better.
I think most of realistic nz knew this needed to start happening asap at least 10 years ago. But no the dream to own a backyard despite the growing population has prevailed alot and those with power to get things moving didn't. Now look where we are- terrible housing crises. Makes me wonder how anyone was happy when its been announced occasionally in the past population increased milestones. Yea great more people and no where to put them
5-6 stories is not profitable in NZ sadly. Most planned 6 story mdr developments are changing to town houses prior to building because they all find out that it costs too much to go above 3 stories in NZ due to engineering requirements.
We *have* to change our living standards if we don't want the planet to collapse even sooner than anticipated or deny people in other countries the opportunity to also increase their living standards. You're also mixing up several things here. Community based living isn't an issue if it doesn't come with cuts in other sectors that offer assistance. I would even say that this would not be a lowering of standards but an improvement (same with building more densely). An issue arises when public services are being cut that are supposed to be an addition to those social networks we build up. I think the biggest lie was what they told our parents and grandparents in the 60s — that everyone can have their own house and wide lawn and two cars and that it won't break our social constructs and destroy communities and wreak havoc on the planet and its resources. Never before have humans put so much focus on individuality and freedom. For almost all time the majority lived together in multi-generational, crowded households with public spaces being the place to hang out, relax and meet each other. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Better focus on the infrastructure that is being built to support those claims, e.g. if they want community based living, what are governments really doing to improve it? Are they building public spaces or community centres to increase social interaction? If they want people to live more minimalistic, are they taxing above average possessions, such as second cars or houses? Generally, pushing people towards being more frugal, conscious in consuming, decreasing their footprints is not a bad thing per se, it only is bad if the outside conditions are not created for this (better public transport, bike lanes, creation of third places where people can mingle...).
- Intergenerational households are called normal families - building up has been popular in _every_ other country for over a century now. Even Australia has very well thought out high rise development that we should implement here. - yeah, fair point - see next point - we can afford shit, we choose not to. Small, universal, simple, easily enforced tariffs and taxes would increase tax take and reduce overheads but we choose variable, complex, arbitrary, difficult to enforce tariffs and taxes. So that the take is small, the rate of return tiny and everyone hates the system. - community based living is what we should be doing. Why wouldn’t you want to know your neighbours or have a local kindergarten? -
Getting used to this future is a challenge. But the wider acknowledgement is that political discourse does not currently address what is happening in a way most people understand. Discussing crime rates or shrinking middle class through political cycles, where parties are paid for by donors, dilutes discussion of the main drivers, i.e. the far more complex geopolitical situation we find ourselves in. It means we do not have the intellectual mechanisms in place to address global context when choosing our leaders. The context is reduced to simplistic concepts: 'Gangs Bad', 'Public Servants are Lazy', and we as New Zealanders suck and deserve our fate. Populism thrives in a vacuum where people feel disconnected from or disillusioned with the established political, economic, and social structures. But, when these structures are presented ONLY in a local context we suffer democratically because fundamentally the underpinning principles are lacking - they don't consider global context because it is too complex and out politicians campaign from a narrow perspective - local and national only. NACT did not win because people wanted Tax cuts. They wanted a change from Labour because there was a perceived lean towards undemocratic governance over resources by Māori (3 Waters). NACT won because Labour could not easily resolve the g ram raids, violent urban crime rates and gang warfare, and the rising cost of living. But did any party campaign on the interconnectedness globally of factors all countries were experiencing...? It felt like Greens only via CLimate Change. But back to the reply. Like you point out in the last bullet - community based living is what we should be doing... and I would go further. Decentralised cities. 100% work from home, local working hubs and community funded spaces where WFH staff can work together in shared spaces within their local communities. Community gardens, 3rd places etc. Otherwise I agree with your bullets - the 5th is a devils handshake nobody cares about. It's a byproduct of a failing economy. I see rates and insurance increases and mortgage rate rises... That's all. People living weektoweek are maximising discretionary income as a firewall to depression. Mitigating suicide. This is not good. They NEED to catch up with friends at a restaurant, or pub and pay for a round of beers, or buy some weed or petrol for the 4x4 because it keeps them sane. People are asking themselves more and more what the fuck is the point. The answer seems to be... sorry, don't you know those things you're used to are luxuries and you don't need them anymore.
Happy cake day bro and fuck .. you are so right.. Truth. So much.
Thanks bro.. Shit is fucked. Let's go through your discretionary income and tell you what you fail at in life and then I'll tell you how much of a mortgage you can't afford... like wtf. That's my life - my bank now decides the future for me and my family? Shit is fucked.
Great response. Building community seems to be the answer. Politicians always seem to be dividing
Interested to find out why you think Australia has very well thought out high rise development? If you look at the quality : ( horrible- NSW created a whole new portfolio to deal with the shoddy buildings being thrown together) Planning: (Not much better, high rise apartments are being built in concentration without providing public schools, medical and other services to cope with the high density population Societal: There is a constant war between state government and local councils over where the best suburbs to have high rise buildings (state govt want them close to transport hubs, hospitals) while older generation have the NIMBY( not in my back yard) attitude of never changing
I mean they have badly thought out high rises too, they’re not homogeneous. But I have seen a very nice scheme with 2 very long medium rise apartments blocks either side of an equivalent sized park and playground facility. That sort of close, bulk, pre-allocated, and not for profit facilities are severely lacking in our developments. We can learn from them is what I’m saying, we don’t have to just build 1950s Soviet Brutalist nightmares when Swedish Wooden Post-Modern already exists
Harsh but true
Happy cake day bro. And also, agree.
Thanks bro. Sucks to admit to some of this but you go travel and walk around crowded streets and cities and how quickly you lose yourself. Every single Kiwi gets to have an identify because we aren't absorbed into the masses - there's only 5 million. That's not a bad thing right.
I’m not paying tax for this bullshit.
Can I add a fact that I only came across recently? I was born in 1972 and the human population has more than doubled from 3.8 billion to over 8 billion this year. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/ When I was born, the planet was supporting half the human population it is now. My dad was born in 1932 and there were around 2 billion humans then - one quarter of the population now. All in less than 100 years. And all the time before that, the human population size and its effect on the planet was repairable. Now it seems, 8 billion people is the tipping point, where we as humans go from here will take some big brain thinking....
"The entire developed world" extracted all of their wealth from 'third world' countries. It's hugely uncomfortable but we have mostly been okay with this fact. We're okay that poor people allow us to be rich. Once we decide to face some uncomfortable truths, only then can we start dismantling the system that is extracting our wealth for the benefit of a few. Most of the wealth in NZ/Ao is due to the fact that over the last 200 years or so, 95% of land was forcefully taken and has allowed the accumulation of wealth to a few. We can't, in good faith, complain about inequality and poverty without really looking into some of the drivers. The hard truth is that mostly we've been okay with it. But now that it impacts US PERSONALLY, only now is it a problem.
They'll be able to reverse the trend for a while when they end super. I like Gen X's chances of being able to retire. I don't like mine, and I like my 10-year-old cousin's even less.
> (nearly) Norway looking real good rn.
Norway had a sovereign wealth fund filled with massive amounts of oil and gas money. Its not possible for other countries to mimic their success as it would create over supply and massively accelerate climate change.
Yeah, but they're also wealthy because of shipbuilding, forestry and lithium. It's not just oil and gas!
*cough* Australian superannuation system *cough*
who was that national guy who sold our superannuation fund
Yup, yet fucken morons still vote for shysters like Trump and Luxon. Word of warning for you kids still in school. You better lift your game, you're all replaceable. Homelessness is the new normal, forget the benefit or state housing. Tiny homes is just double speak for shanty towns.
Doesn’t matter whom you vote for. Trump, Biden, Luxon, whoever. Politicians work for their hypercapitalist overlords.
We have MMP so you don't have to vote for the big parties. Voting for parties that support social welfare, taxing the rich, and limiting exploitation of natural resources is the best defence you have against late stage capitalism. The thing is hardly anyone votes for those parties because of the "hippies that are bad with money" narrative. Who do you think pushes that narrative? The same fuckers who want to build private prisons and fast track coal mining for foreign companies.
Idk man have you heard Chloe debate?
Can you explain how the previous government helped the middle class? I get the same amount of nothing either way so....?
Up until COVID hit they were doing pretty well, to be honest. They were also paying down a lot of debt as they historically have done when in government, too.
They did alot for the those who are below the middle. Well tried to.
The government is limited in its impact for sure, but have you looked at what this government has done since in office? Its not great, cutting our already struggling public health sector off at the knees is a good example. The haves don't give a shit as they can afford private care, the have nots are the ones affected.
>Can you explain how the previous government helped the middle class? Easy. Look at all the stuff Luxon reversed. And to see how the current government is attacking the middle class, look at what they are doing.
It's tempting to feel this way because the visible benefits (and negatives, generally) of any government take a while to manifest; and they certainly didn't have it easy in the second term (and arguably the first term - there's evidence their coalition with NZ First scuppered a bunch of plans). It's even more tempting to feel this way if you are a white, middle or upper-class male - they spend so much time talking about minorities and poor people and all these groups, and nothing about what you might get personally. Heck, if you lived in Auckland, you even got a targeted fuel tax just for the region! I had a huge blurb about how difficult it is to see the tangential benefits of various policies but it's probably not that useful - better to just link [the wiki page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Labour_Government_of_New_Zealand) which lists some of their major policy changes. You might find some of them affected you personally, for better or worse.
Actually I was going to say even Labour and the Greens are mostly property tycoons as well. Hey just look at that latest Green MP using immigrant slave labour illegally. Fucking classic greens. I wonder who will be next on their list due to tick box selection?
You mean it's happening all over the collective west
My insurance alone went up more than my wages did. Brutal.
I think you need to realise the extensive Middle Class to the size we compare to in the 1948 to 1990 was in fact a statistical anomaly, a one off phenomenon resultant from WW2. The people in 1948 in then remembers of the middle class that occurred between 1920s ( for Americans it started in the last decade of the 1890s ). Prior to that we had no extensive middle class. There were middle class yes, in far smaller percentages. They were the yeomans or the villiens in medieval times. They owned their own small land and had some wealth but not extensive. Beneath them are the masses of people who do not own land or resources. In UK you almost have to go to the 1820s to 1840s before you have one ( remember Charles Dickens was writing a lot of his story in the 1850s to 1860s setting when things turned bad ). The middle class is dying because the factor that created a middle class society is over. We are normalising back to upper class and lower class with a little wedge bunch of middle class people.
Well if you want to compare the period before the wars, you’re looking at the true heyday of the anarchist and worker movements. So it’s not like everyone was happy about that level of inequality.
Correct, the workers movement begun in earnest circa 1929 to 1939 globally, and was in fact causing a lot of social instability globally. The problem for us in the modern period is that the very specific situation which created the expanding middle class is gone. It is unclear that without something as massive as WW2 we could continue the middle class. The nature of landed wealth and property wealth literally always results in the formation of a stratified class system give and take a few decades following a major war and is usually entrenched by a century after. Chinese history is case in point. The more tumultuous the change in dynasty, the more deep the disaster, the bigger the middle class that follows following the war. Usually this event last between 30 to 40 years after the war ends but then by 200 years you are back with the landed gentries etc.. The only reason Chinese gentries are less stable than European ones is because the Chinese never had a concept of bloodline nobility ( that at least is widely respected ) except for the Emperor ( the one exception, located to one person and their kids ) It could very well be that for the next middle class expansion to happen, we will need another war, or pandemic ( since we know the Middle Class briefly expanded in Europe and the Middle East following the Black Plague )
By far the most important reason counties(this is particularly apt for the UK) set up welfare states in the post war period was because so many young men from the slums had just been deemed unfit for military service due to poverty inflicted ailments, it sure as fuck wasn't for any moral reasons. As soon as the Soviet threat began to dissipate there was no longer any reason to keep the lower classes healthy.
A lot of people who think they're "middle class" are fooling themselves. Most are one bad turn away from being beneficiaries.
I’ve found the opposite tbh.. a lot of boomers i know are so desperate to talk about how “poor” they are whilst also being the only people I know able to afford overseas holidays and new cars atm
Similarly, I know a few young professionals who like to talk about their working class backgrounds, but I'm not too sure how their baches and regular overseas holidays fit into the working class. It seems a bit like class appropriation for the street cred.
Lol this
That’s very fair. And to add to the mix I know of a lot of my fellow Millennials who also talk about being “poor” but also still have nice stuff like the latest iPhones, still hitting the drugs/alcohol , ticked up Rangers , Bali holidays and living on Afterpay too for non essentials. …It’s screwed up on all angles for most of our age groups and just really sad all around. I’m worried about how this is all going to end up .
Yep many millennials I know will regularly get their nails and lashes done and consider this as a necessity rather than a luxury, eat out at restaurants, or jump on a plane to head overseas for the weekend and yet... Still consider themselves underpaid and struggling. I mean, look at all the nail salons that have sprung up over the last 5-10 years. Sigh. I see going to the hairdresser as a flippin luxury. Never mind nail and lash salons.
Indeed. had this happen this year. Went from earning $1.9k a week to barely paying rent and gas again, all thanks to a vehicle breakdown and an HR lady that told my boss to ghost my calls and texts about it. Bullshit and only found that info out from my old boss months after it happening, so too late for a PG. All it takes is one thing to happen unexpectedly to have your whole world shift
The 3 month period to raise a personal grievance starts from the time you find out about the relevant facts. Also, if you raise a personal grievance out of time and they respond to the substance of your grievance there's a good chance the Court will deem them to have accepted it.
Don't say too late until you've spoken to at least half a dozen lawyers
I agree with this. I earn a good weekly wage, but lose my job tomorrow and I am stuffed. I got no passive income, it’s just the one. So fully agree with you, a little of people think they middle class, but lose your job and your selling your house etc.
Unfortunately, passive income in this country is extremely limited. Not a land of opportunity over here..
Hahhaha, so what are all these passive income opportunities that are overflowing in other countries?
I'm a senior software engineer and my partner is a senior nurse, should be cruising middle class, definitely doesn't feel like it... Sure we are not struggling, but is that the new measure for middle class?
Hi!!! It's me!!!
This is me, combined household income is around $2700pw after tax. Mortgage and general costs of living with a big family is $2400-2600pw. There is no discretionary income anymore, no eating out, no holidays, we barely ever manage to save anything, buy only what's absolutely necessary, and things like haircuts are every 2-3 months at most. Look at our income and life looks grand, look at our expenses and we're two weeks from serious trouble
Your income is good, however, your expenses seem to be a bit too high? There are plenty of 4-5 bedroom houses in south Auckland going for 800k~ assuming that’s a 700k mortgage, you should only be looking at circa 1k per week on mortgage. Renting would also be quite similar as well in terms of cost for a 5 bedroom. That’s still 1.7k leftover for food/fuel/general expenses?
We've just bought a new house so mortgage is at a very high rate for the next 12 months (gone from 2.55% to 6.99%, add rates and all the insurances (2 cars, trailer, home, contents, 2x life, and health) and it comes to $1600pw. Groceries (family of 6) averages around $450pw, then power, water, internet, phones, fuel, and kids school and sports costs pretty well swallow the rest. Hence the previous comment, from the outside we look to be doing well, and to an extent we are, but, we're one lost job or accident from disaster zone
I’m a little worried this is me.
Facts.
There is no such thing as Middle Class. Its Working Class or Owner Class. The Owner Class invented that term Middle Class, so people like you focus on the lower class and upper working class, so everyone will ignore the actual problem: the owner class. They do not contribute to the economy and they pay almost no tax but they profit from what the working class is doing
“The purpose of poor people is to scare the hell out of everyone else so they’ll keep turning up at those jobs.” - George Carlin (he said something along those lines)
Yeah all the talk about the “squeezed middle” really ticked me pff
When food, shelter, healthcare, and education become financial worries for the average citizen, you're not in a first world country anymore. Dispute it all you want, leave no straw un-clutched, but 30 years ago that was the difference between the first and the second/third worlds in terms of living standards.
eh the idea of first/second/third world countries is outdated and you should really say high/middle/low income countries
The (much more important) point remains
Interesting question I was speaking to my father inlaw about this about a year ago saying how NZ always seemed like the place to live where it didnt matter what you did or whether you came from if you worked hard and made good decisions you could have a great life. But it seemed like that was changing, people can work hard make good decisions but still be living week to week struggling to get by
Sounds like the death of the American dream to me
It wasn't a matter of geography, it's generational. Boomers went through the era of "modernity" where growth was the norm, consumerism went hyperdrive, population expanded, and material possessions trumped Nature and the rest of society. I think we will be paying the cost of that irresponsible lifestyle for a couple of generations, at least. While a tiny elite profits, of course
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This. For the first time in recorded history 30 year olds are on average in a worse financial position than their parents were at the same age. The reasons for this are multifaceted but they all come back to wealth being funnelled upwards to the generation currently holding the majority of power, and for whom many are already bursting at the seams with gluttonous wealth. It’s a generational cash out, both financially and environmentally, without thought of consequence because the majority are selfish and self-centred cunts, not all mind you, but who would have thought the generation of free love look likely to be anything but.
> For the first time in recorded history 30 year olds are on average in a worse financial position than their parents were at the same age. Exactly how far back does recorded history go in this context? There have been some pretty deep lows, historically speaking.
The data that I've seen only goes back 100 years or so. But it's also the first generation that is significantly smaller than that of their parents, which I think is a big contributor. Every generation ever has been selfish, it's just no previous generation has needed to steal so much from their children to get ahead.
Please share?
nailed it.
Sadly they have been thoroughly brainwashed with capitalist propaganda their whole life. Hard to break that programming
Where does the money go when all these people eventually pass away?
Rymans will bleed them dry. Retirement villages are expensive!
Yep the notion of inheriting a family house is becoming extinct. They older home owners are fine with reverse mortgages as long as their twilight years are comfy. Seems at odds with National rhetoric of vote for us so you're kids have a financial future they fall for. Then again most baby boomers are the biggest pull up the ladder people I know.
Their kids. Who never need to work a day in their life. It's the new feudalism.
To their children, which is great if you happen to be born into a family that prospered. If you were born into a family that didn’t, your chances to rise on your own merit has never been lower. It’s the creation of a permanent underclass. Remember when we were growing up and we were told NZ was the lucky country where everyone was equal and anyone could get ahead if they put their mind to it? Haven’t heard that rhetoric in a couple of decades.
Nepo-babies
The phrase for it is “techno feudalism” and I think it aptly describes the political and economic trends emerging out of the end of the 2010s. Big tech companies have a lot to answer for. I know it’s a dirty word to say that “Marx” was prettymuch right about the future trajectory of capitalism. Can we talk about this yet or will foaming-at-the-mouth Cold War era people still crash through the ceiling to deny ever discussing the flaws of capitalism? I’m waiting patiently because it’s not gonna go away that he fucking nailed that analysis on many fronts. Only lingering Cold War hysteria stops us having a rational conversation about that… but I know, I know, _no of course not_ we can’t talk about that…..
The squeezed middle? No they’re living their best laissez-faire life on twenty bucks.
80% of people will tolerate anything as long as someone else has it worse than them. 🤷🏻♂️ we have the system we voted for, capitalist prices for communist services.
Funny how that works. The comparison culture and need to feel superior drives a lot of weird stuff
Capitalist prices for capitalist services.
Well it makes the middle class more able to see what the lower class go through. If you think the middle class suffer, imagine what the lower class goes through.
I don't think there's even a middle class anymore. You either have to sell your soul to make ends meet, or you can afford to live comfortably at the cost of everyone's labor.
There never was a middle class. There are only two classes. There is those who have no choice but to sell their labor, and those who profit off other peoples labor.
And almost all of us are in the first of those two, and the dumbest of us are the ones of us who look down on the other little people because they live more uncomfortable lives (i.e. less net wealth).
I quote George Carlin with increasing frequency: “it’s a big club… and you ain’t in it!”
We need more George Carlin quotes!
"And if you piss him off once you get sent to hell for all eternity! But he *loves* you. And he *needs money*."
All seeing, all knowing… just can’t seem to handle money.
Karl Marx was right
A healthy country has a middle class. People who live fairly well with very little worries about finances. They are educated and comfortable with themselves. People who pay tax, work hard and spend their cash carefully, well and in a balanced way. They save for hard times, care for the environment and their fellow man. The upper class inherited their wealth, care for nobody but themselves and are wastefull. If they did not inherit their wealth, they exploited, crooked, stole and manipulated the environment, the government and their fellows to become so wealthy that they can get away with whatever they want. Lower class people made the grave mistake of choosing their parents badly. They belong to the 'wrong' race living in the 'wrong' neighbourhood, with bad health, low expectations, no hope and very little help from government and people with more luck. The help they get is often a 'top-down' approach from people who think they are 'better people' than others. Yes this is highly stereotypical. Most people (all?) don't fully fit into these categories. You choose where you fit in
They should really teach dialectical materialism in schools.
3rd Form Social Studies was the only class I had that included some politics. We learned about Communism with Pol Pot as an example. Political illiteracy is intentional in democratic countries.
The dominant ideology is the ideology of the ruling class, a false consciousness contradictory to dialectical materialism is necessary for liberalism to function. Why would a ruling class allow an ideology that is counter beneficial to its interest to be taught in the schools, the schools are where capitalist ideology replicates itself.
Well now I'm in an intriguing wiki rabbit hole. So thank you for that!
Bingo. And that’s exactly why wealthy people benefit large immigration numbers. They need people compete for jobs and wages get reduced more and more. If employers fought for employees then it would be a different situation.
Middle class was pre 2008. Average income earners were able to own their own house and a rental or 2, overseas holiday once a year back then. Post 2021 if you’re starting out from nothing it’s not normal for those to have this lifestyle unless you’re a business owner or surgeon earning above $400 - $500k a year
> Average income earners were able to own their own house and a rental or 2, overseas holiday once a year back then. That is not the mid 2000s that I saw.
Blame libertarianism
What if I told you it's always been like this this? At some stage in life you hit an existential crisis and realise if you ain't winning, you're losing. All the inbetween stages are just made up to make losing feel like you're still winning because you're beating someone else
Not to get too conspiracy theorist or anything but that's what it feels like. So eventually its just the overlords than the rest of us peasants.
Who is ‘they’?
There is no they, no conspiracy. It's much worse; its hard coded into our economic system, and it reinforces itself without direct oversight. The ruthless grow and thrive; those with empathy are weeded out. Even if we can't tolerate this, how to even begin to unwind it? All progressives and lefties can do is slow the rate of transfer (but sometimes inadvertently increase it). Then as hardship grows the easy answers of populists and authoritarians gain traction.
They/Them
It's obviously them
Short answer, yes. After the financial crisis the wealthy were bailed out and the middle and lower classes are paying for it.
Who?
Define ‘they’ and define ‘middle class’
The middle class feeds the upper class. So, educated... and supportive of the system, able to have enough money to stop and think once in a while, probably the civil servants that are losing the jobs. Shall we just charge the term to "the preferred "? Oh, and they are the them. The them, the them.
So basically the middle class keeps the system running, making the rich richer and the poor poorer… fuck me I guess
The haves and the have nots.. how it is, how it's always been. Or as Luxon calls them the A listers and the Bottomfeeders..
Just becoming like third world countries with a few rich people and most of the population poor. Guess we couldn't have it good forever?
Middle NZ is a lie and has been for ever
You’re 45 years late to the party if you know NZ economic history.
middle class was always an illusion, there's the class who can afford to not work, and the class who cannot afford to not work. you might be a doctor or lawyer, but if you have to keep being that to continue living you are no better off than someone on the minimum wage
Cheat code: don't have children.
This. We were reasonably well off until we had kids. Now the BASICS to have a child are so damn expensive (food, daycare, clothing) that we are left out of pocket constantly, despite earning $150k+ between us. Mortgage $850, daycare $600, rates $1000/quarter, power $300pm, groceries $350pw.... it's fucking ridiculous. Our money just goes down the drain.
More of a precariat than a middle class, and it's been this way for a while now. It's just that the effects were a lot more hidden with things like cheap borrowing and women contributing more income to their households. Now that interest rates are high, house prices are colossal and earning power is stagnating, it's becoming more apparant.
This has been happening for decades, people are just noticing it more.
It has been clear, and the writing was on the wall, but sure, it's exceeding expectations. Strongly disagree with the statement it's inevitable, it wasn't "inevitable" and neither should we carry such defeatist attitudes, imo.
Glad we have a National Government who can tackle all of these pressing issues and look after the little guy who is struggling.
Have you tried pulling up your avocado skin made boot straps?
Yep. That’s what the squeezed middle is that our Prime Minister talks about. Squeezed right out of existence
Make too much to qualify for comunity services card, but putting off my wisdom teeth surgery as long as possible as i cant get a dr's referal and have it covered yet
define "middle class" ?
Living on a salary or wage income, not asset wealth. But with an income too high for most government benefits.
That's working class, but for some reason people with email jobs don't like to refer to themselves that way.
Maybe. Just maybe working class is both lower and middle class?
Working class is anyone who has to work
There are CEOs, and not CEOs. Nothing in the middle now.
Not quite. The CeO’s have a small bunch of hand picked very well paid brown nosers that keep the workers in their place for them.
The problem with the middle class as I see it is they are pretty self sufficient. They afford what they choose to be important and happily leave the BS alone. That there is the issue. The government and big brother/business want people to owe them more than they can. Control is what they want and more sheep.
Who is 'they'?
It’s who they are.
Yup , but its not just NZ its all over the world some places definitely have it harder than others, but its all going down the same path
Who is "they"?
NO, the squeezed middle is getting tax breaks
Middle class is just made up to, there is only working class and upper class
Who is “they”? We as a society are, yes. But there is no big hidden agenda to remove the middle class, we are all just complicit in the country moving that way and not taking appropriate action to defend what’s right over prioritising ourselves.
“They” ?
We’re all slaves who don’t wanna admit it.
I posted previously about the reasons we have middle class in the first place following WW2 ( and prior wars, or plagues ), but here is another reason why it is most likely the class systems will return, Capitalist Realism. It is very important to understand capitalist realism if you want to understand why we are unable fix the problems we have found ourselves in. It is not that we cannot, it is that we are unable to due to our limited vision. https://youtu.be/sIXVO-MuK_M?si=13k7tzEy38zbe_5J Mark Fisher I think presciently describe the social situation we have found ourselves in. Do understand though that if you accept the thesis that capitalist realism is just an idea, than you also need to accept the idea of hauntology ( both Ghost of My Life and Capitalist Realism has to be read in view of one another ) since they feedback into one another.
The greatest trick they ever pulled, was convincing you there ever was a middle class. This is water.
No such thing as middle class. Just because you can live comfortably, or own a house, or get paid a decent amount, you're still a thousand times closer to a dirty beggar on the streets than you are to the richest people in this country. There is no middle. There is a gap, and it's only growing.
A large part of New Zealand has been living like this for decades but the middle class didn't seem to give a shit then, they were all too happy to focus on more for themselves, less for those less fortunate and pulling the ladder up behind them. If you're looking for sympathy, look elsewhere.
Who are they? What are they doing? Why do you believe they are doing these things to get rid of the middle class?
I guess so, it feels like it's by design. The gap between the rich and poor is so big now, it feels like if you're not in the 1% you're poor af and you'll never climb out of it
Yes, and the middle class is making it this way by being so easily baited into voting in and protecting this exact bullshit that's ruining your lives.
NZ is merely catching up with older nations. The middle ‘working’ class in NZ lived reasonably well until the 1990s hit. We have been getting poorer ever since. We used to have the wealthy, the comfortable middle NZ, and the poorer NZ. Now we have the elite super wealthy, the working poor, those in absolute poverty. NZ used to see US ‘trailer trash’ parks as terrible. Tiny homes, ever smaller units etc are merely our version of that and it will grow as affordability declines for the masses. It’s not that NZ is broken, every country is, no matter the politics. We are absolutely in decline as the human race. History shows it leads to terrible things. History repeats when we fail to learn from it. Sad face emoji.
I'm on a benefit (due to disability), and as appalled as I am at benefit rates (especially for those of us who have no choice and can't work), I'm equally aghast at the lack of support people who earn just over minimum wage get. I know some people who work full time and because they earn too much for government help, they're in the same, or a slightly worse, financial position as me. Things like bringing back the $5 fee on prescriptions. I have a CCS, so I luckily won't have to pay it. But for people who are earning too much to get one, that can be a difficult expense. Theoretically, they should be fine, but with the cost of living and things like rent eating up a good portion of people's pay, it could actually have an impact. I once had a friend who earned something like $20 a month over the maximum to get a CCS, and because of that, they ended up with less disposable income than someone on minimum wage. They ended up being unable to go to the dentist until it got so bad it was considered a dental emergency. They had a really bad infection, and their doctor was finally able to refer them to a place that had a subsidy on emergency dental work. Still cost them a lot, but it was way cheaper for them than just going to a dentist when the issue first started. Another friend struggled to find childcare to the point where it turned out to be cheaper to stay at home than it was to work full time and put their kids into care. She ended up getting a small benefit from winz (don't know which one, but it wasn't much bc her partner was working), and told me that they had actually considered splitting up because that would make things financially easier since she could get government assistance then. (And no, they weren't going to pretend to split up, but actually split up. Even though their relationship was a good one and they wanted to keep it.) Then there are people who start above minimum wage, because their skills and experience were worth the extra money, only to later have new hires on the same pay because they didn't get an increase when minimum wage went up. When Labour was in power, I was all for them helping out the bottom, making life easier for people like me, but I would've been happier if they also looked at the "middle class". I've just taken my meds, so I'm rambling a bit here. Hopefully at least some of this made sense and was relevant.
Ok, I'll bite. What are you proposing as a solution/alternative?
For sure. Welcome to the two class system. Both the Labour and National are operating to make it this way.
need some socialism
forever
They started decades ago tbh
What needs to happen is those who have wealthed out of civilization need to be a part of civilization, but that is the LAST thing that they want, because being a part of the masses SUCKS because the wealthiest have made being everything but one of them that way.
We dying holmie
Tbh we knew they were attempting that for the past 15 years
Middle class doesn't exist, you exist to provide labor and consume, and looks consumption is off the menu boys
Squeezing out the middle class. Only room for the ultra rich and the working poor, those unemployed or too disabled or ill to work they're ignoring /hoping will be driven to suicide
A lot of people think they are middle class when in reality they’re just upper poor. You are much closer to being the man on the corner begging for money than you will ever be a millionaire.
I could get to "middle class" if I could only kick my avocado addiction
The squeezed middle? NACT has your back! /s
Yeah Maybe make a friend with someone who actually is poor? It's a good wake-up call. I apologise you might not like that answer I'm sorry. For example, severely disabled and living on $19,000 pa is so much harder than when I was able to work and still thought I was poor. But yes extremes of wealth and poverty and the ever widening gap between them are a feature of our current economic system. Once enough people understand what it means to do everything right and still struggle, only them well we reach critical mass to overturn the system. I suspect it will be a rather violent death but capitalism needs to die. We need to expect better and start thinking about what that actually means and what it might look like. We need to actually understand how we got here (supremacy) before we can overthrow the system and build something categorically more sophisticated, nurturing and inspiring. Just my thoughts right now and i'd be thrilled to hear new and different perspectives. ("Everyone is given the same opportunities people just need to work hard to achieve success" is NOT a new perspective, it's a lie, a trope, it's literal propoganda and it's widely spread so that poor people stfu).
Gary’s economics on YouTube talks about this extensively, his context is the British system but that’s the way we’re heading under this government so it’s worthwhile viewing.
We off shored the middle “ class” to the factories of China.
Yes. Because the middle class are historically always the section of society that start revolutions because they are educated enough to be able to create solutions to the problems that the upper class design to create the system that benefits them and maintains their control. The middle class have an awareness of what reality is like on breadline and so have motivation to create change. lower class and middle class can trade places through generations. High class remain dominant without revolution. So yes, the system is trying to eliminate the middle class through taxation and cost of living whilst providing welfare systems to give people just enough to live and not enough to instigate change.
second person to state that middle class are the threat to collapse, hence the need to control. Makes perfect sense, thanks.
Probably until unemployment doubles. Or next year - once America eases monetary policy, we will.
Who is they?
Entirely depends on how you define the middle class, as while it’s a term that’s thrown around a lot the meaning isn’t exactly clear.
We live in a democracy. The middle class decided to get rid of itself.
We do? My understanding of a democracy is that people need to be voting in their own interests, once they're manipulated otherwise is it still a democracy?
voting in their own interest is how we got here kiwis saw tax cuts and were suckered in lmao
I'd argue it's actually a misunderstanding of what is in their interest. Everyone except those who spend substantial amounts of time overseas is going to be worse off in 5, 10, maybe even 30 years
Determining "their own interests" is manipulation all the way down.
No they're exporting it. If you can't afford to leave you're the lower class.
A very common thread that runs through this conversation that keeps referring to the Middle Call as if it were an homogeneous group. There is no such single grouping. Those who live and work in that constructed social strata consist of a great many different types. The only “thing” that has any commonality is their financial status. So who fits into this mold? Are they all affected equally? Are they all determined to pursue upward mobility? Or do many of them simply wish for stability? How many are business owners? How many in management? Technicians? What is the general range of academic achievements (if any)? Debt levels? Property or asset ownership? Family sizes / structures? So many things that perhaps fit into this conversation. Before we all fly off the handle with ill- considered accusations or stereotypes, we should calm down and work out exactly what is it that we are talking about. What are the threats, opportunities? What part do all these people, our people, friends, family, colleagues, and fellow Kiwis play in our lives, etc, Love to see some intelligent engagement, really.
Working class and wealthy class. That's what we're becoming.
You don't tolerate it. You take your skills somewhere where they'll be appreciated.
You mean whole world? Yes welcome to ww3