The Vimes 'boots theory' sounds like a retelling of an article/study where higher earners didn't understand or blamed lower earners for their own predicament in the context of buying a car. A lower earner needed a car to work, to earn, but only ever earned enough to buy a cheap second hand car which would frequently break down, turn into a money pit and need to be replaced with _another_ cheap second hand car - getting stuck in an expensive cycle.
The higher earners solution was just to buy a brand new car at the outset which didn't break down, avoiding maintenance costs and, if it did break down, was covered by warrantee anyway. 'How,' they said, 'could low earners be so silly?'
And the blunt fact is that you have to have the capital to make that initial investment but when you're poor you're too busy just _surviving_ day to day and tracking every penny in case you can't afford food, rent, electricity, heck: school uniforms because you might be poor but you have some pride and there's no way you're going let your kids be labelled and detrimented in school despite the fact they all know where you live and you'd only be living there if you were poor.
I'd turn up in uniform on non-school uniform days because 'I'd forgotten' whereas there was a nominal 'donation' to be made for the privilege and I simply hadn't asked for the coin because I knew, as a child, what an impact it would have to my parents finances. It also avoided the social shame of wearing jumble sale clothes, two sizes too small and a decade out of fashion :)
And I fucking love that I don't have to worry about that shit for me or for my kids. As a kid who grew up in an area where you were 'posh' (and not in a good way but in that self limiting, crab-bucket, 'too good for us?' kind of way) if one of your parents had a job at all, I earn more than I could have ever have dreamed of. And the perks, as you point out, are incredible. My kids go to a fee paying school and their uniforms are astronomically expensive but we can just pay for that without thinking or worrying. I get my car basically for free because it's covered by a company car allowance which automatically buys me a brand new family sized car of my choice every 3 years AND pays the leftovers into my salary.
Whereas my mum had to work HARD to get her first second hand car which, of course, turned into a money pit. And she was regarded as 'rich' because of that (and not in a good way) amongst the fellow denizens of the crab bucket.
The difference for me? Grammar schools, the 11+, a socialist headmaster at my primary school and parents who saw and supported an opportunity for their child to escape the crab bucket.
And that's a long rambling, chippy rant so I'll stop there.
no subject
The higher earners solution was just to buy a brand new car at the outset which didn't break down, avoiding maintenance costs and, if it did break down, was covered by warrantee anyway. 'How,' they said, 'could low earners be so silly?'
And the blunt fact is that you have to have the capital to make that initial investment but when you're poor you're too busy just _surviving_ day to day and tracking every penny in case you can't afford food, rent, electricity, heck: school uniforms because you might be poor but you have some pride and there's no way you're going let your kids be labelled and detrimented in school despite the fact they all know where you live and you'd only be living there if you were poor.
I'd turn up in uniform on non-school uniform days because 'I'd forgotten' whereas there was a nominal 'donation' to be made for the privilege and I simply hadn't asked for the coin because I knew, as a child, what an impact it would have to my parents finances. It also avoided the social shame of wearing jumble sale clothes, two sizes too small and a decade out of fashion :)
And I fucking love that I don't have to worry about that shit for me or for my kids. As a kid who grew up in an area where you were 'posh' (and not in a good way but in that self limiting, crab-bucket, 'too good for us?' kind of way) if one of your parents had a job at all, I earn more than I could have ever have dreamed of. And the perks, as you point out, are incredible. My kids go to a fee paying school and their uniforms are astronomically expensive but we can just pay for that without thinking or worrying. I get my car basically for free because it's covered by a company car allowance which automatically buys me a brand new family sized car of my choice every 3 years AND pays the leftovers into my salary.
Whereas my mum had to work HARD to get her first second hand car which, of course, turned into a money pit. And she was regarded as 'rich' because of that (and not in a good way) amongst the fellow denizens of the crab bucket.
The difference for me? Grammar schools, the 11+, a socialist headmaster at my primary school and parents who saw and supported an opportunity for their child to escape the crab bucket.
And that's a long rambling, chippy rant so I'll stop there.