Who is the meanest of them all?

[*Bob*]

Buried in the bowels of a few recent threads (all class-obsessed, naturally) there's some indirect chat about which 'class' (financial and/or social) is the meanest.

Are the poor more generous than the well-off?

[Jah Lush]

Yes and that's why always I'm skint. Spare enough for a cup a tea guv?

[Keef]

Yes, I buy loads of rounds in the pub, and end up poorer than any other bastard!

[Rolo Tomasi]

Yes

[Brendan]

It brings to mind the parable of the rich man making a show of his huge donation to charity and making sure everyone sees him. Then a little old lady is embarrassed by her meager contribution. The moral being that the fat cat gave less than he would ever even notice not having and the little old lady gave all that she had.

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

Yep them rich tw@ts don't get rich by giving it away, prefer hanging wiv the chavs any day

[*Bob*]

I think (except for a small number of noble exceptions) human nature is to look after number one and get away with as much as possible - regardless of how much you have. A spot of tax evasion here, a bit of cash-in-hand there.

'The Poor' always say it's because they aint got naaffin' and life is 'ard. But when any of them 'make it' they retire to enormous new-builds in Surrey, realise that their tax burden is actually now around %50 of their income and immediately hire a clever accountant to give away as little as possible - cos they bleedin' earned it, didn't they?

[citizenED]

*Bob*, surely you answered this in your own "cock" quote in another thread. There are mean rich people and mean poor people, generous poor people and generous rich people.

citizen

[*Bob*]

Probably, ED..

Reading a few threads here and there I was just struck by how the less well-off generally like to see themselves as being uber-generous, whereas they are in fact just as stingy as everyone else.

I feel better now.

[jim_the_chin]

are we assuming that the middle-classes are the most generous? they were conspicuously absent from the original post

[*Bob*]

The poor believe themselves to be the most generous because they haven't got much.. so if they put 10p in a tin they're a saint.

The rich believe themselves to be the most generous because without their grand donations to charity and higher tax contributions the country would be on its knees.

The middle classes worry and debate endlessly about whether they're generous enough with their cash or not - and err on on the of caution by just keeping as much of it as they possibly can (like everyone else).

[Brendan]

hmmmmm. In my observation as an outsider to this horrible little thing known as the british class system the divide between middle and working class is not clearly defined along financial lines anymore. It seems more about how people see themselves or more importantly how they want people to see them.

[Jah Lush]

Ha! I was wondering when someone was going to bring up the dreaded C word again. The middle classes in general I have found to be as tight as two coats of paint. But let's put it this way, CitizenED's post got it about right IMHO, although in my experience and I have friends who are extremely rich and friends with absolutely nothing but on the whole it's the latter rather than the former who I have found to be more generous with their time, money and spirit. And if I can quote the late Jeffrey Bernard here "you meet a better class of person in the gutter."

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

Jah - couldn't agree with you more. When I moved into my new house in Feb, my next door neighbour, the only other council tenant in my row of houses, gave me a welcome present, has given me stuff for my granddaughter and bones etc for the dog, they invited my daughter to their granddaughter's birthday party and helped me clear the jungle that was my back garden.

The rest of my neighbours are all nice as it goes, but these ones who have been the most generous aren't working.

I have friends with money but more friends who are broke (like me), and I find the ones who have little, care less about hording their money and tend to live for the day. When I had my own business and started making serious money (it's all gone now!) I helped everyone I knew, because I'd been broke before and knew how it felt. When I was later on my @rse, many of the people I'd helped were there for me.

If my neighbour needs help with anything that is within my power to help with, I've got her back.

Thats how you survive at the bottom, but people who have never had to struggle don't understand this way of banking.

[Alan Dale]

Whilst I agree that rich people are the tightest I think it's important to note that 'this way of banking' relies heavily on the giro.

Being generous with other people's money is of debatable merit and giving up time when you are out of work is probably preferable to staying up all night watching jobfinder on Ceefax.