Signs once wealthy now in genteel poverty?

[Anonymous]

Gray Gardens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just look at online listings in nice neighborhoods. Lots of dilapidated houses in expensive zip codes that look like the family was hanging onto for dear life. Case in point: https://www.redfin.com/MD/Chevy-Chase/204-Oxford-St-20815/home/10651222

Hanging on for dear life?? C'mon. This listing just looks like making the decision in your mid to late 70s not to update your kitchen or care about decorating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just look at online listings in nice neighborhoods. Lots of dilapidated houses in expensive zip codes that look like the family was hanging onto for dear life. Case in point: https://www.redfin.com/MD/Chevy-Chase/204-Oxford-St-20815/home/10651222

Hanging on for dear life?? C'mon. This listing just looks like making the decision in your mid to late 70s not to update your kitchen or care about decorating.

Agree. I loved the dog in the kitchen photo, however.

[Anonymous]

My more important question is: why is DCUM so endlessly obsessed with class and status???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just look at online listings in nice neighborhoods. Lots of dilapidated houses in expensive zip codes that look like the family was hanging onto for dear life. Case in point: https://www.redfin.com/MD/Chevy-Chase/204-Oxford-St-20815/home/10651222

Hanging on for dear life?? C'mon. This listing just looks like making the decision in your mid to late 70s not to update your kitchen or care about decorating.

Yes, that house was in fine shape, just not glitzed up like the neighbors. They bought it for $157,000 in 1981, lived in a good house in a good neighborhood for decades, now are selling it for a large profit.

[Anonymous]

I don’t want to post too many details because of privacy, but I worked with a woman who was from a once very wealthy family and the granddaughter or great granddaughter of a famous rabbi. Two generations of the family were ravaged by severe mental illness and the wealth was lost. They still had houses and stuff, but her generation had to marry well or work. She would talk about all of the china and table silver she had in the same conversation that she complained about our hours being cut.

[Anonymous]

Just read any novel by Henry James

[Anonymous]

Mr. Bronx himself.

Years ago met an old man who still owned multiple run down buildings in the Bronx all rented out. But mostly crap.

Story goes he is from the Bronx Family and they have been going downhill the last 150 years.

His idiot relatives for instance owned the land under the original Yankee Stadium built. One relative decided to make a quick buck and sold it rather than rent it to Yankees. That decision alone was like a one billion dollar loss.

Over decades they sold off one by one more valuable plots and buildings as generation cash out.

Leaving this old man with a bunch of run down rent stabilized buildings

[Anonymous]

Future generation have no interest or know-how in growing money, preserving money, investing money. They also think one day ahead only and think the money lasts forever. Nobody considers bills, taxes and upkeep. Unpaid taxes and bills and loans that pile up are very common in the family I know. None of them have zero know hos how to make more money other than some low wage job. None are uneducated or stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just read any novel by Henry James

Or the Dashwoods of Sense and Sensibility. Coming from extreme wealth; they had to move to a rented home on the estate of a distant cousin and ration their beef and sugar purchases, but still had TWO full time, live-in servants. Because any less would not be proper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just look at online listings in nice neighborhoods. Lots of dilapidated houses in expensive zip codes that look like the family was hanging onto for dear life. Case in point: https://www.redfin.com/MD/Chevy-Chase/204-Oxford-St-20815/home/10651222

Hanging on for dear life?? C'mon. This listing just looks like making the decision in your mid to late 70s not to update your kitchen or care about decorating.

Yes, that house was in fine shape, just not glitzed up like the neighbors. They bought it for $157,000 in 1981, lived in a good house in a good neighborhood for decades, now are selling it for a large profit.

Agreed, such a strange description. Sure they could have spent $250k redoing the kitchen and decorating more, but they probably didn't care and knew it wouldn't increase the home value commensurately. Seems like a good move to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In books, genteel poverty seems to mean you couldn't afford updated clothes but you weren't so poor you had to actually get a job.

I think the modern equivalent would be an Ivy legacy who became a ceramics artist and lives in a geodesic dome. Has really good (inherited) kitchenware but the hot water is iffy.

+1

Or someone that was married, was rich, but the divorce settlement made them poor - not always women, by the way!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For society in general:

High percentages of young people who can no longer realistically aspire to the American dream of home ownership as their parents did

High levels of student debt

Falling life expectancies

Youngish adults not being able to provide the same advantages in life to their children as their parents did for them.

Hmm...to me that seems different than genteel poverty. You're talking downward mobility/falling standards of living for entire class of people x generational cohort.

Genteel poverty is kind of about being too poor to keep up appearances.

If you rent a nice apartment in the city and can't afford to own a SFH in suburbia like your parents, that's falling standards of living but not poverty of any sort.

If your parents were rich but lost all their money in a crypto collapse and you live together in a foreclosed mansion in an unfinished development where your utilities have been cut-off for non-payment, that's genteel poverty to me.

It has to be very apparent that one is living far below one's social class or lacks resources to avoid detection of limited means.

OK I see your point.

My DH and I both come from UMC families and live a fairly UMC life. However, I am concerned for our children, and for the younger generation in general, as it is so much harder for them to attain similar home equity, job stability with benefits, remain debt free from student loans. and even attain the same level of good health and dental insurance.

You should be concerned about the next generation who will certainly be displaced by automation, have to accept jobs without health insurance, and be tempted by the easy allure of drugs, porn, escapism.

You don't have to be concerned for YOUR children. If you provide a solid education with solid technical skills, they will never be poor (unless THEY chose to be).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I worked in a cell biology lab and all the postdocs would have qualified. They all made between 30 and 40k (10 years ago) but from their speech and habits were clearly not low class.

Academia is such a scam. I’m glad I got the hell out of there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I worked in a cell biology lab and all the postdocs would have qualified. They all made between 30 and 40k (10 years ago) but from their speech and habits were clearly not low class.

But that's partly a phase of life issue. They won't be living like this 20 years from now. Someone sinking ever-deeper into genteel poverty will be in worse shape in a couple of decades.

Genteel poverty is somewhere a family lands after generations. You still have the house, but you've closed off rooms and maybe sold off some heirlooms. You still get invited to the right formal parties and fundraisers, but your dinner jacket or tailcoat doesn't fit very well, and it's kind of shabby.

If you can't afford to attend a key fundraiser, you arrange to be out of town that weekend. You'd never admit that you can't afford it -- talking about money is vulgar.

You also have strange priorities: You wouldn't think of not paying for your daughter's wedding, but if you can't afford engraved invitations and champagne, you have engraved invitations and punch. You're not savages, for goodness' sake.