The middle class
Sir,—P. A. Van Dugteren, in his letter about “the privileged middle class” (February 3), hit several nails on the head. New Zealand can feed its people, house them and partly clothe them, but it cannot afford the spending habits of its affluent middle class. If one postulates that there are in this country 50,000 adults whose surplus income allows them to spend $30,000 a year each on luxury imports and overseas travel, one is halfway towards explaining our colossal balance-of-payments deficit. As one who owns a bicycle but not a car, my contribution to trade imbalance mainly stems from the number of bananas I eat. The solution of our problems, as Mr Van Dugteren points out, depends on
getting genuine political representation for the lower paid, possibly by working to reverse the take-over of the Labour Party by representatives of the wealthy class. — Yours, etc., MARK D. SADLER. February 12, 1986.
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Press, 14 February 1986, Page 16
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154The middle class Press, 14 February 1986, Page 16
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