I work in technology and would be considered by some (not myself) a Linux expert. I am most certainly not upper class, but I am by no means lower class. I have several friends who also work in tech in similar roles for financial companies (like myself). One of them drives a BMV M5, one of them drives a used porsche 911 turbo. It isn't that a porsche or bmw is more or less expensive. It is something that they save up to buy for themselves. A normal car or a tesla both solve my needs, but a tesla is sure as hell a lot cooler for the sheer amount of tech and engineering. I don't really see where you think I claimed to see any money would be saved by a model S. I never alluded to anything of the sort. But I think this is OT and isn't really productive. Lets focus on tech here at HN and leave the flames for /., where they belong.
Without looking, I'd like you to guess what the median personal income in the United States is, and then guess what the median household income is.
Then go look up the real numbers.
I suspect you're in for a surprise.
This is why politicians use "middle class" to describe who they're fighting for; it's a term that nearly everybody thinks of themselves as belonging to.
Roughly, middle class is <50k. You don't buy BMWs or Porsches when you do 50k$. Or at least, in most case it's not a wise idea to do so.
You're either being disingenuous or your perception of reality and normality is really skewed.
You certainly can buy a BMW or a Porsche if you make $50,000 a year, especially if you're single and living in a cheap part of the country. A used BMW 3-series will in many cases be less than a new Honda Odyssey minivan. But you'll be shopping on the used marketplace.
You are far, far better off than you think you are.
You'll probably see the posts saying this to you as condescending, but if you can even think of purchasing a Model S you're in a very exclusive group of people.
Not being among the richest people you know does not make you middle class.
You're pretty clearly upper middle class. The difference between upper middle and lower middle is the difference between a Tesla and a Hyundai.
Re:Model S Fire
by toomuchtodo on Saturday October 05, 2013 @06:29PM
(#6502320)
Fun fact: 6% of American Express Centurion (Black) cardholder's own a Hyundai: http://www.autoevolution.com/news/hyundai-is-a-favorite-of-c...
I'm not really sure what you being a Linux expert has to do with your opinion about the income of the middle class.
I'm really confused by "average, middleish class people who normally would have bought a porsche or a tesla" - is that a typo? Did you mean "would not normally"? If not, your idea of "average middleish class people" is really oddly out of whack.
Many people by homes because of a calculation that owning a home is cheaper in the long run than paying rent over that same period of time. Many people buy homes not based on such a calculation and simply because they have disposable income and owning a home is nice. Many people also buy homes based on neither financial decision-making nor disposable income, and I seem to recall this having some negative impacts on our economy a few years back, which may make it a poor analogy to why it makes sense to buy a Tesla (or a porsche?!) without disposable income.