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How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

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Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#61

Post by ZeroGravitas »

gaius wrote: post #58
jacobolus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly life is pretty shitty for (e.g.) rural peasants of both genders, and while in general in the past men had more independence and ability to choose their life direction, etc., I’ve always been pretty skeptical of attempts to rank the two in any absolute way. Men got killed in high numbers in war. Women got raped by invading armies. Men worked extremely physically demanding jobs that made their muscles and bones…

Men worked extremely physically demanding jobs that made their muscles and bones give out by age 40 Yes, this is kinda the little secret of Feminism. They see that men have "good" jobs like CEOs and want some of that for themselves, and who wouldn't? But they overlook that men are also collecting the garbage, working in the mines, and generally doing all of society's dirty, dangerous jobs. Where're the calls for "equ…

"When you think of a sanitation worker — riding on a garbage truck and dumping trash can after trash can — most people would picture a big, tough guy in their minds. But out of 7,000 uniformed city workers nicknamed "the strongest," 200 of them are women. In honor of women's history month, the department celebrated some of the the first females to suit up in green. Verilyn Gallo was only the third woman in the department. Now, 21 years later, she says when people see her drive the largest Sanitation truck there is they still can't believe it:

GALLO: I drive "the wrecker" — any piece of equipment that the department of sanitation has — I could pick it up. I have people in the truck - who say, you don't drive that big truck and I say, "oh yes I do."

REPORTER: Sixty-year-old Gallo says she still enjoys her job and the physicality of the work and is no hurry to retire."

http://beta.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2008/mar/29/city-hon...

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#62

Post by ab9 »

yason wrote: post #55
ab9 wrote: post #49

Allie is not "earning far more by actually working far less." That implies that working less causes her to make more money. Rather, she's earning more by charging more , and she was able to do that because she had complementary skills that she didn't know to market until price experimentation attracted a different kind of customer. As a side effect, her higher hourly rate gives her the freedom of working less. Perhap…

The point wasn't that she was underpricing herself: it was that by charging more she gradually found herself offering quite different services. For $300/hour her clients were still wishing to physically get the most out of her (and, apparently, themselves) during the one hour; for $500/hour she started to find clients who were more interested in high-class flirtation, having a wife replacement for the evening, and th…

Thanks, I've edited my comment. You're right that it's less an issue of underpricing per se, and more that she had complementary skills that she wasn't taking advantage of. The fact remains that working less did not, in itself, add value for the customers.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#63

Post by brc »

jacquesm wrote: post #17
lionhearted wrote: post #14

Problems with the article: > Throughout history, it has invariably been easier to be male than female. Yes, this is an overgeneralisation and yes, there are exceptions, but by any important measure, women have had it rougher than men. This one is a PC-friendly thing to say, the opposite point of view is not. If you haven't read it, I must urge you to check out the excellent "Is There Anything Good About Men?" essay b…

> it'd be a shame if a woman was peer-pressured to do a job she hates because "just getting married and being a housewife" is stigmatized these days. The pressure does not come from being stigmatized but from the fact that a single person income is not enough to feed a family of four in plenty of places. And if you don't have children and your spouse is out working you might as well go to work yourself, rather than t…

I agree - if anything, being a stay-at-home mother is seen as a luxurious option these days. Most of the mothers I know dream of the time they can quit their job and just be a mother, instead of having to juggle work and kids.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#64

Post by brc »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #3

$300/hour? That is one of the highest paying job i ever heard of.

So many jobs that pay that sort of cash. They're just not easy to get. It's that old 10,000 hours of practice thing again. If you're willing to build up a lot of experience in an arcane technical field that is in continuous demand, you can easily get that sort of cash, particularly in short-term fly-in-and-fix-the-thing gigs.

I know of COBOL programmers in a bank that make $150/hr because they are irreplaceable now.

Another way to look at things is that a lot of speaking roles pay in the 000's for a 1 hour talk. Assuming $2,000 speaking fee for a 1 hour talk, and say, 2 hours of prep and 1 hour of travel - that's $500 an hour.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#65

Post by loewenskind »

tome wrote: post #48
loewenskind wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what people somehow don't get. If cost of living goes down, so do the salaries. How do you think those decreases are paid for? For most any business you can name the biggest item in the budget will be human resources. If you want to cut prices this is where you have to cut to have any real effect.

How do you think those decreases are paid for? I would have thought they would have been paid for by increases in efficiency (largely due to new technology).

There are efficiency explosions now and again that create huge shifts, but mostly you just get little tweaks here and there (e.g. increase factory output by 5% or even 50%). Not numbers that can touch sacking half your staff or replacing all of them with a production provider in e.g. China.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#66

Post by brc »

aresant wrote: post #11
zaidf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is a soul crushing business for 99/100 prostitutes How is that conclusion much better than the one you're attacking?

Fair enough. Me vs. Professor of Economics Steven Levitt: Levitt: 1 hand-picked prostitue that was a guest lecturer in his college class. Me: - PROSTITUTION IS THE MOST DANGEROUS JOB IN AMERICA. The murder rate is 1 in 490. Compare that to the fishing industry, where the death rate is 1 in 775. - Eighty-two percent of prostitutes reported having been physically assaulted since entering prostitution. - Women trafficke…

If you read the whole book you'll find much of those statistics in there. They explore the high cost escort option as a way of looking at economic principles.

I don't find the book anything but an easy read and a different take on subject matter. The authors didn't murder any prostitutes.

If you want to complain, try your state government and ask for legal brothels.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#67

Post by loewenskind »

roel_v wrote: post #53
loewenskind wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what people somehow don't get. If cost of living goes down, so do the salaries. How do you think those decreases are paid for? For most any business you can name the biggest item in the budget will be human resources. If you want to cut prices this is where you have to cut to have any real effect.

In absolute terms the cost of living (when comparing with a constant standard of living though!) has decreased significantly vis-a-vis median salaries over the last 30 years. Most of the gains were made in increased production efficiencies. I think you severely underestimate the amount of gains that have been made there over that time. Total food budget is 5 to 10% of middle class household income in most of the West…

I think that's a little trickier to pin down than that. Yes food costs less. Housing? Maybe. But now things you didn't have 100 years ago are requirements. For example, if you don't have a phone today you're going to have a hard time finding and keeping a job. Keeping someone from 100 years ago alive would certainly cost less than it did then but you have to also consider if they could function in today's society on that money, otherwise it's not a realistic comparison.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#68

Post by varjag »

aresant wrote: post #11
zaidf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is a soul crushing business for 99/100 prostitutes How is that conclusion much better than the one you're attacking?

Fair enough. Me vs. Professor of Economics Steven Levitt: Levitt: 1 hand-picked prostitue that was a guest lecturer in his college class. Me: - PROSTITUTION IS THE MOST DANGEROUS JOB IN AMERICA. The murder rate is 1 in 490. Compare that to the fishing industry, where the death rate is 1 in 775. - Eighty-two percent of prostitutes reported having been physically assaulted since entering prostitution. - Women trafficke…

> 1 hand-picked prostitue that was a guest lecturer in his college class.

Actually, two. One's higher-end, another a street hooker.

> PROSTITUTION IS THE MOST DANGEROUS JOB IN AMERICA.

Levitt actually says right there in the text, that street prostitution is the worst job in America.

I don't quite understand what you argue about. The article is not about morality, cruelty or whatever. It's on how social pressures shape the economics of prostitution.

Re: How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less

#70

Post by megablast »

caf wrote: post #60
todayiamme wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>but I'm hoping society will adjust to a point where traditional femininity can peacefully coexist as a respected choice for women on how to live their lives, because I think it can be a suitable, powerful, happy, and meaningful for choice for many women That's the linchpin you see. The truth is that femininity and masculinity are a continuous spectrum of variation and almost all such statements tend to prescribe s…

Aye - being a stay-at-home husband and father ought to be as equally socially acceptable as wife & mother.

No, I am sorry it is not. Anybody can stay at home. Not anyone can start up a company, or work at a senior level, or even work at a technical level. There are plenty of people who could never achieve that level of competence, they can stay at home.
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