Consequences of an over egged middle class

I must bring your attention to this great post from Chris Dillow who examines the consequences of Nigel Stanley's piece on Middle England.

Nigel writes that the media consistently over estimates the income levels of this socio economic group and Chris Dillow says that this has a profound effect on our society.

1. Lower self-esteem. Our estimates of self-worth are connected to our income - they call them “earnings” for a reason. And we measure this worth rhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifelative to other people; This means that if we over-estimate median incomes, we’ll under-estimate how well we are doing, and so feel worth less.

2. Over-ambition. If workers feel they are earning less than others, they’ll make more effort to climb the greasy pole. This can lead to over-investment in general managerial or salesmanship skills, and under-investment in technical geeky skills which bosses can’t understand. The upshot can be lower aggregate productivity.

3. Excessive debt and consumption. perceptions of others’ wealth cause people to spend more on conspicuous consumption - bigger cars and houses - and so get into bigger debt. Spending is contagious. The more we over-estimate the Jones’ incomes, the more we’ll struggle to keep up with them.

4. Crime. When people think there’s money around, they become more selfish. So if they over-estimate others’ incomes they might become more mean-spirited and even prone to crime. Those MPs who fiddled their expenses did so in part because they thought (wrongly) that an income of £60,000 wasn’t much.

Now hands up how many of us can oint at those catagories and say yes that is me?