The FT did recruit journalists who belonged to the CP.

The rationale is: back in the 1970s, there was a lot of industrial action in the UK, so having good reporting on labor & trade union issues was at a premium. Journalists who were also CP members had a better in with the shop steward movement (‘cos a lot of the shop stewards were CP, although more the Tankie types than your MT Eurocommies) and so produced better reporting. So most of the FT’s labor department were CP.

According to the CEO of a firm I once worked for (who, though originally a chemist, went into trade/journal editing), back when he was a Chapel Father [i.e. shop steward] at Reed Publishing, he was the only one he knew not a Trot or a Tankie.

In other words, I read reviews of $100 a meal restaurants not because I plan to go somewhere costing that much (last meal I bought in a restaurant cost $15 for 2 of us), but because I’m an avid cook and often will try some combination of food and side dish that I read in a fancy restaurant review.

I also own a couple of tools that are the best you can buy, because I use them a lot. (A couple Estwing hammers, a really good chef’s knife, a set of Japanese waterstones.)

Aspirational brand identity is the cornerstone of middle class existence (along with its corollary—anxiety about brand identity). There are versions of it in academic circles, but y’all would pshaw me if I tried to point some on them out.

The trend of median income earners buying appliances well outside of their purchasing power has increased sharply over the past 20 years.

Westinghouse introduced a line of $2,000 washer/dryer sets with the expectation that they would be targeting the $70-80K household demo. After a year, they ran the numbers and adjusted advertising down to target $40-50K households, since they were selling more there. The $80K households, presumably, were all about Miele and Bosch.

Consumer credit is a part. Another is the lack of clarity in communicating to people who haven’t been educated in the rudiments of class definition and personal economics that you can’t afford a $1,500 washer on a $45K income.

Popular television and media don’t address living within a median income, home ec isn’t really taught any more, so every grows up thinking they are, or can be like, the Huxtables. How often did the Cosby show take pains to note that they were likely in the top 1-5% of all households? Even Homer Simpson presumably draws an above median income.

And, here in NY, a disproportionate number of low (and high) level media employees are from the very families the cover. The notorious Jennifer 8. Lee gets most of her article leads (which are inevitably lifestyle oriented) by posting to her alumni board (Harvard).

College is becoming the training ground for conspicuous consumption and detachment from economic reality of America (talk to me all you want about unfair wage structures for adjuncts, but encouraging a bunch of 18 year olds that is is economically rational to spend $40,000 for a year of college is teaching them it’s okay to want a $1,500 washer the minute they graduate). Add to that the fact that the top tier colleges (which draw disproportionately from the upper classes) produce most of the media talent (a far cry from the working class, unionized newsrooms of mid century), it’s entirely understandable that this is as complex as their thinking gets. They don’t know anyone who has never replaced a broken appliance for years because it wasn’t economically feasible.

You see these people all day. Are you surprised this is how they turn out?

HTSI’s content is not completely given over to the uber-wealthy. Jonathan Margolis’ Technopolis page is certainly full of pricey goodies but they are there only because they are at the cutting edge tech-wise. Plus he always has one (cheap) novelty item per month, sorry, edition. Where else would you have read about the “Guinness Surger”? I remember reading that it was available on promotion at Tesco (not something you see in HTSI too often) but only in certain branches, presumably the very select ones…

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/guinness-surger-160488.php

Yes, the magazine in the Saturday edition has reached a frequency of almost once a week!

Surely, when you visit others in your circle
you notice a distinct lack of books on their
shelves.

But what seems to bother people the most are multiple titles on a single subject.

One time a party guest, who had been spending
time in my library, asked me why I needed to
have 6 books with the title “The Battle of
Britain”?

I countered with “What? Didn’t you notice the
63 books I have on the ‘Battle of the Atlantic’?”

5,000 seems like a lot of titles. We have
557 in our dining room alone. When she asked,
I counted them with my neice over the holidays.

Don’t even get me started on my wife’s cook book
collection. How many editions of the “Joy of
Cooking” can one person possible need?

“He who dies with the most books wins”. – anon