4/8     What defines upper class, middle class, and lower class? Income?
        Post tax income? Post tax deduction income? How about asset and
        liabilities? I mean, don't most homeowners with mortgages have
        LIABILITIES since they OWE money? If we count mortgage and
        credit card debts, wouldn't most Americans be lower class?
        \- YMWTR: PFUSSEL: Class. I personally think that is a crappy
           book, but YMMV. You cannot use income alone because of the
           "well known" "graduate student problem" ... i.e. the wealthy
           harvard/bennington classic major with no income but a lot
           of wealth. I think the Robert Nozick "life chances" approach
           is not a bad one, but ultimately these kinds of definitions
           depend on what kinds of questions you are trying to answer.
        \_ Hey dumbass, it's 4/9 not 4/8
        \_ Assets - liabilities, dumb ass. I owe hundreds of thousands of
           dollars, but my property is worth more than I owe by a long shot.
           \_ Your property is worth more than you owe the moment you sell
              it and make profit. Until then, you're just a theoretical
              paper millionaire.
              \_ Spoken by someone who doesn't have the first clue about
                 investing. Do you think that the wealthy keep their
                 assets in their savings accounts?
                 \_ Have you been keeping track of this housing bubble
                    thing?
                    \_ All investing involves risk, that is why you get
                       a premium for it.
                       \_ Homes are not investments.  They are shelters.
                          \_ "My property" is a multi-unit investment. How much
                             investment property do you own?
        \_ Upper Class - People whose daddy paid for them to go to an Ivy
                         league school and get a non-technical education
                         and/or people whose daddy was a "Lord," a "Sir,"
                         a "Duke," blue-blood from Massachusetts, &c.
           Middle Class - People who went to public school and got a
                          technical education and in all likelihood ended
                          up working for someone whose daddy paid for them
                          to go an Ivy league school for a non-technical
                          education
           Lower Class - People who went to state school for a non-technical
                         education which qualified them to make overpriced
                         coffee
           Under Class - Everyone else.
           \_ Interesting that you define it by education level.  What about
              someone who worked through a good college?
              \_ Upper Middle Class - Worked his/her way to a technical degree
                                      at a good school or a professional
                                      degree (jd, md, cpa) at a decent (above
                                      3d tier) school
                 Note: This does not include those who worked at daddy's law
                       firm, daddy's IB, daddy's congressional staff
                 \_ Those who funnel a constant supply of fresh interns for
                    daddy's consumption.
           \_ What is "public school" vs. "state school"?  Are you using UK
              terminology here?
              \_ I am using ther terms interchangably. My perspective is that
                 someone who went a public (state run/funded) school for a
                 technical education is most likely middle class, i.e. your
                 average engineer, scientist, &c. If you went to a top public
                 school (e.g. Cal), you are probably upper middle class, as
                 below.
                 I think that someone who worked their way through a technical
                 degree at a good school (public or private, i.e. Cal, MIT,
                 CMU, &c.) or worked their way through a professional degree
                 at any decent school is likely upper middle class. Basically,
                 if you are upper class, why would you have to work your way
                 through school? And if you worked your way through school, it
                 probably means you need to keep working to keep your life,
                 family, &c. going. If you are upper class, you don't need to
                 work to keep things going.  Well, unless you are one of the
                 impoverished aristocracy. But, I've already covered that.
                 \_ What if you work your way through school, get a job at
                    Google pre-ipo and are suddenly worth $40M and retire
                    at 30? Are you upper class or middle class or what?
                    \_ I think such people fall into the "lucky bastard"
                       class. But if they let the money go to their head,
                       I think they end up in the "pompous ass" class,
                       which has some essential similarities with the upper
                       class.
        \_ Family background, education, wealth, manners.
           http://www.csua.org/u/l93 (NYT)
           \- i think the appropriateness of this "quintile" model depends
              on what question you are trying to answer or what phenomena
              you are interested in. for example i suspect there isnt
              a lot of competition or rank consciousness between the students
              ranked 80-90th in a graduating class and the students ranked
              60-70th out of 300 ... compared to the people in #1-5. the
              wealth axis is the interesting of there w.r.t. to sloda people.
              \_ It should actually be the manners axis that sodans should
                 be concerning themselves with.
                 be concerning themselves with. But some people wouldn't have
                 any class, even if they made millions.
              \_ Most amusing is that in order of prestige, they have doctor,
                 lawyer, DBA, system administrator as 1, 2, 3 and 4 (out of
                 hundreds). I never knew that system administration was so
                 well respected.
                 \_ Oh, it is very well respected to people who are not
                    in tech. They think that sys adms have "root" and thus
                    are the almighty ones who rule the tech world.
                     \_ Are we not?  I'm surprised that DBA was ranked
                        higher.  DBA is even more blue collar than Sys Admin
                        in my experience.
                        \_ Wall Street DBAs are very very well respected.
                           \_ No, not really. They are well compensated, but
                              pretty far down the totem pole in Wall Street
                              firms.