Cars And Welfare Cuts

I was recently at a family reunion. I have two lovely aunts who were present, whom I and my cousins always chided for stubbornly insisting on their car as their sole mode of transport.

The only exception is holiday trips far away, and this summer they were in Morocco together. As they showed pictures and told stories, they spoke of deep poverty, of a country that doesn't know pensions - and the shock of seeing old women who spend all day sitting on the street, with one hand opened for bypassers' money.

Unto which I replied: would they travel by mass transit, they'd see similar old women (and men) at stations and in underpassages.

The thought this anecdote leads me to is that part of middle-class Europe doesn't support welfare cuts just out of cold-hearted class interest (or the for most illusoric expectations of future upper-class interest) or hypocrisy, but because with their 'modern' lifestyle they just don't see the results.