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Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

fullstackeconomics.com

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Re: Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

#31

Post by drzaiusapelord »

kureikain wrote: post #7

off topic but in many stories of Agatha Christie why husband and wife never slept in same room? Is that how English people in the old day live, sleep in separate room even after marriage?

I read this is surprisingly common especially with older couples. People like to have their own space and when you get older comfort is more important because your body isn't what it used to be. Snoring, keeping separate hours, stealing blankets, freezing feet, etc. It all adds up. People don't need to sleep all night together to be a couple or to have sex. If anything, its kinda weird we are expected to share a bed and a room with someone else.

I'll be honest, if I had this setup, I think my previous relationship would have lasted longer. Its not for every personality and attachment type, but I think its for many.

What's the better relationship? The one where they each have their own personal space and aren't resentful over being kept up with snoring? Or the couple that toughs it out because they're supposed to?

I also think the long-tail economics of capitalism is about shrinking worker entitlements to enrich capital holders. Not too long ago you'd have a house with a spare bedroom or two or three. Now you're huddling in a condo or apartment that's 1bd or two, if you have kids. So we romanticize having less because its easier than challenging the system.

Re: Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

#32

Post by buescher »

Television's "The Brady Bunch" depicted an upper-middle-class household with a live-in maid and a nice house in an LA suburb that did not otherwise live extravagantly by the standards of a decade or two later, when basically no one in the US except maybe the out-of-sight-rich had live-in help any more.

Re: Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

#33

Post by beerandt »

jerry1979 wrote: post #28
freddie_mercury wrote: post #16

Agatha Christie's quote is well-known but the exact same situation still holds today in many countries. Here in Viet Nam it is extremely common for middle income families to have a maid or nanny (or both) but not a car. The cars themselves are quite expensive. A Honda Civic is $33,000 by itself whereas a nanny (6-days a week, 10 hours a day) is $400-500/month and a maid who works 9 hours a week, i.e. 3 days a week, 3…

Plus, I imagine if you can find a maid at that price, you can certainly find a driver.

Depends on training, licensing, and liability costs. Which vary wildly between countries.

Re: Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

#34

Post by divbzero »

addaon wrote: post #13
sgarman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always feltin Diamond Age they were basically describing the iPad. We have that now but it's still not quite there. Maybe it's not personalized enough or comprehensive enough?

Well, it's describing the iPad... with off-shored real-time tutoring providing most of the value. Even for the niche that can afford that (which should be larger than the niche that can afford in-person tutoring), I'm not aware of any services.

> with off-shored real-time tutoring providing most of the value

Yes, a critical part of the Illustrated Primer was that it was paired with real-time tutoring by a remote human, and turned out to be most effective when the remote human was regularly the same person who cared for the child on the other end.

Re: Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

#35

Post by paxys »

jerry1979 wrote: post #28
freddie_mercury wrote: post #16

Agatha Christie's quote is well-known but the exact same situation still holds today in many countries. Here in Viet Nam it is extremely common for middle income families to have a maid or nanny (or both) but not a car. The cars themselves are quite expensive. A Honda Civic is $33,000 by itself whereas a nanny (6-days a week, 10 hours a day) is $400-500/month and a maid who works 9 hours a week, i.e. 3 days a week, 3…

Plus, I imagine if you can find a maid at that price, you can certainly find a driver.

You'll still need to give them a car to drive.

Re: Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

#36

Post by paxys »

walrus01 wrote: post #24

Being able to afford a full time housekeeper is really dependent on the local economy - in any major city in Pakistan if you were to convert 330 USD a month to rupees that would be a very competitive market rate salary for such a position. To the extent that I met a number of people who had 2 or 3 full time domestic staff but if they had decided to emigrate to the UK or USA would not be able to afford any, and based…

Heck 330 USD is also probably on the higher end. In India (which is considered the "expensive" country in South Asia) it is pretty easy to find full time household help for $200/mo even in large, expensive cities. Stuff like iPhones and imported cars, however, cost double their price in the states.

Re: Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

#38

Post by beerandt »

mherdeg wrote: post #3

I stopped reading this about four paragraphs in and did a bunch of web searches to try to find the phenomenon it reminded me of. Once I had successfully found it with my second search ([economics name for effect raises orchestra]) I came back and found Baumol in the very next subhead. Whoops. All a great read though! In retrospect every year at the student newspaper when we ran the "here is how much tuition is going…

Isn't this just another way of saying that original assumptions about how to define the market and potential participants were wrong?

Or at least that definitions need to include info about competing markets?

Re: Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

#39

Post by csours »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #16

Agatha Christie's quote is well-known but the exact same situation still holds today in many countries. Here in Viet Nam it is extremely common for middle income families to have a maid or nanny (or both) but not a car. The cars themselves are quite expensive. A Honda Civic is $33,000 by itself whereas a nanny (6-days a week, 10 hours a day) is $400-500/month and a maid who works 9 hours a week, i.e. 3 days a week, 3…

Is there one single most common way of getting around where you are or is it a mix? I assume a lot of motorbikes. What about e-bikes?

Re: Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car

#40

Post by kingcharles »

pcurve wrote: post #25

Live in maid is fairly common in other countries still including Hong Kong where you can hire one for less than $1k / month with allowance, other expenses included. It's not just for the riches. Many dual income families have them even if they're little above middle class.

My girlfriend is Qatari and it is almost universal there to have a live-in maid.
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