Overheard at the LFGSS golf club bar

So I think this whole 'squeezed middle' thing is a matter of choice.

Some people refer to it as "breaking the cycle of economic dependence".

We're basing this all looking at boomers (who earned far more relative to costs compared to us) and British upper class (that were spoon fed everything) but what if you busted a gut to buy a place then managed to buy another one maybe forgoing pension contribs or something? Why should you be forced to sell the first if that was your plan for retirement cover? I'm all for fucking off 'buy to let' stuff but there's no way I'd vote anything in that would screw me on my long term investment. Same as my old man - earned relatively fuck all as a teacher but was super tight his whole life and instead of paying my rent he bought a flat in Melbourne and I rented it off him. I can't see him fucking that off (and besides, I want it). :)

So how to fund the country?

100% inheritance tax please

I'd vote for it if it was means tested. But it won't and it'll just end up fucking people who got in on property a bit earlier and won't touch any of the truly rich as they'll find ways around it.

Why not start by taxing companies properly?

I had a child I couldn't afford private education for them.

Wouldn't the cost of your kitchen alone basically pay for a kid to go through private secondary school?

Everything is relative and huge respect for making a success of a difficult sounding background. You have clearly had to work super hard to get to where you are, and that's of course different to having it all handed to you for nothing. But if your income is off the scale, you are rich, regardless of anything else. Enjoy it!

I still wouldn't send my kids to private school.

Props to an acquaintance of ours who pulled her kid out of Tonbridge School and sent him to a Lewisham comprehensive because, and I quote, "he was starting to behave like an entitled prick".

Although to be fair, I suspect part of that is down to the fact their family is so rich that none of the kids will ever have to worry about money or education.

That's a bit nit-picking. Most of the cost of the kitchen stemmed from essential building works for the electrics, plumbing, boiler, etc. Given that I choose not to have children, and this is the first and only home I've ever owned, doing work to a decent standard isn't something I'm going to feel guilty about. Fuck it, I earned it!

But even if I had done that job cheaper, I still doubt that I could've afforded private school. Because it's not just the fees (which I could have stretched to) but there's the associated lifestyle that goes with it (which I cannot stretch to) lest your child be a bullied bottom of the class outcast, i.e. "haha, we're going skiing and screw you", etc.

Not that I would put anyone through it either.

feel guilty about

Not saying you should!

There’s a term for people called HENRYS
High Earner Not Rich Yet

Weirdly I’d consider myself part of this group but most could equally very well say I was rich. It’s the big mortgage that is the thing for me, whilst I still have that then I just think about how much debt I have

Wouldn't the cost of your kitchen alone basically pay for a kid to go through private secondary school?

Maybe for a year or two?

The problem with PE is that you have to keep paying the fees...for like twelve years (ok, a bit less if you just do secondary). And if you stop paying the fees, and send lemonade jnr to a state school you kinda drop in an instant all the advantage you might have gained from paying them in the first place up to that point.

You really have to be certain that you can make it all the way through. If you aren't certain it's a massive risk.

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100%

You really have to be certain that you can make it all the way through. If you aren't certain it's a massive risk.

This so much also!

What millenial/zoomer can say that I will earn certain salary plus inflation for the rest of my professional life?

This wasnt the case for boomers or gen x.

#rep

I think I am loading rather than loaded but yeah.

I would love to be old money though, like someone dies you now own a house! Magical.

No mortgage, just vibes.

Current levels of inheritance tax but no option to slap everything in tax efficient vehicles to avoid it would probably do the job over the course of a few generations.

Most people on this forum would be 1%ers... if you have your own computer or a smartphone etc.

If you want to tax individuals why not those pricks getting sick bonuses while the plebs are getting fuck all?

ie. I'll always think of Stephen Hester getting bonus payments at RBS while we had to bail the fucking bank out.

Nah, we need a leveller.

Kids need to be born equal, or as close to it as possible.

Kids aren't born equal with an inheritance tax, they just won't get more money when their 80odd year old parent dies when they're 60odd. Well off people live ages now, poor people die young and with nothing but debt to pass on anyway.

Indeed. Wondering aloud if you are truly rich/wealthy if your mortgage and its servicing costs are considered is immensely privileged thinking.

Obviously cutting down on rich people avoiding inheritance tax, and all the other tax, is very much worth it.

I would say there is some squeezing of the middle as I now hear colleagues discussing how they will pay for university in the same way people might of previously discussed putting thier kid through private school. Especially if the new proposed reforms come in.

My kid is getting a scholarship or a job, I couldn't afford uni when I was of that age and there's no way I can afford it for her in a 7 years or whatever it is, it's way more expensive now.

I thought the conversation was about whether 1%ers can comfortably afford sending multiple kids to private school when they are saddled with debt.

Wasn't intending to come across as suggesting that these people aren't already privileged.