Ravi responded:
And members of this list!
How do you count top 20%? In terms of income? Net wealth? **********
See above: yes. N.B.: Owned wealth comes from two basic sources, Nature and human labour i.e. you can own land or a part of the planet or you can own the fruits of wage-labour. Working class people own their skills which they sell on the labour market to an employer for a wage. Non-working class people can sell their skills and time as well e.g. an independent tailor or an independent doctor. They are not working class because they own/ they are paid for the product of their labour, in this case a service. They are not selling their skills and time to an employer who will then own the goods and/or services of their labour.
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Bill Bartlett chooses not to include future wealth since it is uncertain. Not to put words in his mouth (i.e., this is my own extrapolation) ... does that mean that someone whose parents might leave him >= $500,000 (and there must definitely be a few such people in the "middle class") but who is currently making $30k/year with zero savings, is in the bottom 50%? ****************
Someone whose parents leave him that much dough is just plain lucky. ;D
Best (and I hope your parents are thinking of you this way), Mike B)
Read "The Perthian Brickburner": http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
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