I definitely get that from a reasonable perspective. But then I think about the words being used, and part of me wants terms like “upper” and “middle” to represent portions of a whole that have broadly similar sizes. But that doesn’t really reflect the realities of the meaningful differences between two different lives usually meant by the terms, so that part of me needs to take a back seat.
I’m not even sure I would say we are arguing. You provided your version I offered mine. We disagree, maybe, but I don’t think either of us is concerned enough to make a concerted effort to change the other’s opinion.
Yes, I did just argue over the semantics of argument itself. What of it? This is America the Internet, after all.
Capitalism
It was named after the sarcastic comment its early users would say to the people offended, “Try cords”.
I’d go with 20% as upper class. I think of “wealthy” as having money that lets you come and go as you please, just buy a fancy car if you want without really having to think about the finances of it.
There is a D&D-type game that measures wealth as a rating of 0 to 5, and you can make essentially unlimited purchases of items costing up to 1 below your wealth rating essentially at-will. So someone can buy a sandwich whenever, someone else could take a decent vacation/cruise whenever, another could buy a decent car without worry, one could buy a nice house like it’s nothing, and finally someone who could buy a mansion or private jet without real concern. Those in the couple-hundred-million to billions range.
I’d draw the Wealthy line somewhere in the mid-4 range on that scale. You could also consider it as “the point where safe/moderate investments could continue supplying a family plenty of comfort without working for two+ generations”.
Next: replacing the customers with kiosks
I was curious how many U.S. households earn at least $170k, and this website responded to asking about 170k by saying that the 80th percentile is $165,068.
I don’t keep up with any of this stuff, and so it just makes me think of memes like this:
The DNC seems to be fearful of losing their control of the party to younger, more progressive voices. So they keep advocating for the viability of closer-to-cenrer candidates who won’t rock the party boat, even though they lose so many votes to folks uninspired to get out and vote for “the lesser evil”. I will never “both sides” this mess, but the DNC needs to get its shit together and actually represent the median of “left” in the U.S. or it will continue to fail.
For your consideration.
I mean, “Truth Social” has all the irony of the Ministry of Truth, though I assume if it was named for that reason it wasn’t thought up by him.
“Don’t take life too seriously, nobody makes it out alive, anyway.”
Versions of that have been attributed to various famous folks, and also versions have been in movies and other media.