How a call girl can earn far more by actually working far less • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by dLuna » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 1:29 PM UTC

dennisgorelik wrote: post #38

zaidf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. An assistant at my Dad's work figured she was paying almost her salary in babysitting costs and other expenses for things she could do herself if she had time. So she quit. My dad calls it the pay-your-neighbor-so-he-can-pay-his-neighbor phenomenon. Uncle Sam makes the most money in that relationship. He makes nothing when you babysit your own kid; he makes plenty when you hire someone to do the same thing(and…

So high taxes make people more likely to maintain traditional family (husband works and wife runs the household).

High taxes have a tendency to mean cheaper child care. In general countries with high taxes have subsidised child care.

I believe that high taxes would rather put a stop to the one-earner household since marginal effects on two incomes at X is usually a lot less than the tax on one income of 2X.

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

#92

Post by stcredzero » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 1:35 PM UTC

lukesandberg wrote: post #30

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…

you make an interesting point and clearly not everything about the modern situation for women (or men for that matter) is a clear gain over the past. However taken as a whole you have to ask whether or not the life of an average woman is better due to additional education, legal and voting rights... I would say it probably is, i don't think increased suicide rates or depression rates are high enough to actually effec…

I think that additional education, legal and voting rights, and all of the other benefits of modern society are a net good for women. That said, I think that society's support systems for women are still playing catch-up.

In general, young people need some form of emotional support and mentoring as they grow up. Young men and women need to be protected from the emotional and sexual depredations of other men and women. I'm not saying to lock them away in single-sex institutions, but there is an actual function performed by the over-protective father and mother in traditional society. Truth and decency should be the order of the day. There is room for that and freedom. In fact, I would say that without truth and decency, one only has a false freedom.

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

#93

Post by aswanson » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 1:38 PM UTC

dennisgorelik wrote: post #38

zaidf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. An assistant at my Dad's work figured she was paying almost her salary in babysitting costs and other expenses for things she could do herself if she had time. So she quit. My dad calls it the pay-your-neighbor-so-he-can-pay-his-neighbor phenomenon. Uncle Sam makes the most money in that relationship. He makes nothing when you babysit your own kid; he makes plenty when you hire someone to do the same thing(and…

So high taxes make people more likely to maintain traditional family (husband works and wife runs the household).

Or hold back on having children, or lowering the number of children that they have.

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

#94

Post by stcredzero » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 1:39 PM UTC

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…

Women trafficked to the United States have been forced to have sex with 400-500 men to pay off $40,000 in debt for their passage.

I knew a couple of individuals in college who, through their time as a student, had sex with about that many people recreationally. (In one case, it was in the biblical sense, and yes I have been tested and cleared many times since then.)

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

#95

Post by dLuna » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 1:40 PM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #3

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

These are the billable hours. I would guess that the time spent finding good clients is about the same again. So make that $150/hour. Still good, but in the same range as a technical consultant with 5-10 years experience.

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

#96

Post by parenthesis » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 1:51 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #80

duairc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is inaccurate and a strawman. Feminism is about destroying the concept of gender.

If that were true it would be called "equalism".

If `civil rights' means `equal (to whites) rights for non-whites' and `gay rights' means `equal (to straights) rights for gays', then the civil rights and gay rights movements are both `equalism'.

A group which sees itself as oppressed can't just wishy-washily campaign under a banner of `equalism' if it wants to effect change. It must first identify itself as a group of people with something in common, and which is somehow oppressed according to that something. This way it can articulate the problem it sees, and what needs to change. After that change has come about, then we can all just be equal people.

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

#97

Post by hugh3 » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 1:54 PM UTC

ryanlchan wrote: post #47

JacobAldridge wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between 'charge-out hourly rate' and 'hourly rate of pay'. Even high end lawyers are unlikely to be paid more than one-third of their charge out rate, unless they're partners (ie, business 'owners'). You probably took that into consideration with your response - I'm not disagreeing with you, just making it clearer. And yes, there are many jobs where the pay rate exceeds $300 / hour. In my field…

I find this true for just about every professional services field. Hiring a lawyer, an accountant, a doctor, or a consultant often comes at a rate multiple times their own salaries. But the difference is that the lawyer was probably working 50-60 billable hours a week, whereas an escort (or a business coach, presumably) will work significantly less than that.

If you can bill $craploads per hour, why work 50-60 hours a week? I'd work 30. Maybe 20.

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

#98

Post by billybob » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 1:55 PM UTC

stoney wrote: post #28

tome wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Is this true? Surely the cost of living has decreased over the last 100 years, so it must be easier for a single breadwinner to feed a family than it was back then.

Increasing the size of the workforce will tend to put downward pressure on wages. So if you double the workforce I expect you'd see pretty serious downward pressure on wages, maybe to the point where previously one partner working could support the family (historically the norm), but now you need both partners working. Though of course adding women to the workforce has had lots of positive effects, so maybe the overa…

"Increasing the size of the workforce will tend to put downward pressure on wages."

I am also not an economist, but you're only covering the supply of workers. Do more workers = more money being spent = more products/services demanded = increased demand for workers? In other words, does it even out?

I have read that wages have decreased in the last few generations while dual income houses became normal, but I don't know whether those are cause and effect or have common causes.

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

#99

Post by wake_up_sticky » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:05 PM UTC

todayiamme wrote: post #50

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…

>>>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…

While I agree that we shouldn't put people into boxes (figuratively or literally), the problem with what you're suggesting is that people become depressed when they don't know what society expects of them. This may be inconvenient, but it's true. Telling someone, "You can do whatever you want with your life; we're not going to tell you what to do" is effectively telling them, "We're not going to tell you what society values and expects from you; you won't get any guidance from us." It can be almost as bad to have too much choice as it is to have too little.

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

#100

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 2:22 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #86

zaidf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. An assistant at my Dad's work figured she was paying almost her salary in babysitting costs and other expenses for things she could do herself if she had time. So she quit. My dad calls it the pay-your-neighbor-so-he-can-pay-his-neighbor phenomenon. Uncle Sam makes the most money in that relationship. He makes nothing when you babysit your own kid; he makes plenty when you hire someone to do the same thing(and…

That's true until your children hit school age, at which point child care becomes radically less expensive.

Now why would that get modded down, it is a well known joke that school is 'cheap daycare' amongst people that have both parents working full time. Once the children hit school age they are in school for the same amount of time that they would have been in daycare otherwise, and schooling costs much less than daycare. Which is weird, because daycare effectively is a school (one adult supervising a bunch of youngsters) without any obligation or license to teach.