I used to think the a certain strand of literature, about people dealing with downward mobility as their claims on land rents dried up through the generations (think English novels of a certain period), were really, well, of a certain period, but now I see that for our chattering classes this is their ongoing personal sagas. Navigating their way through life, struggling to maintain their positions among the class of Manhattan real estate owners.
Our discourse switches between asserting that it's tough to live on $400,000 per year, and lamenting the greed of those complaining about $60K.
The only way to reconcile this is the obvious fact that "we" have a hard time living on $400K, and "they" should feel lucky to have $60K.
