Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

fullstackeconomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 500 posts

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

#71

Post by smnrchrds »

metacritic12 wrote: post #56
jacknews wrote: post #49

The point is how much money does it take today to have the equivalent wealth status in society as Christie. It is almost certainly far more than $50,000, which is a tradesman's salary these days. So, irrespective of what that money now buys, the true inflation figure (how much does it cost to live at a certain level in society) is far greater than the official figure.

Inflation is defined based on utility, not a certain level of society. The second would be something like GDP growth, much higher than inflation, and definitionally a zero-sum game. Inflation says that you would rather prefer to live it today's society at say $60,000/year (with smart phones, cars, Internet TV), than yesterday's society at say $50,000/year (with two maids, but none of the technology). Introspecting, I…

Don't forget about healthcare. Few people would prefer the comforts of the past if it comes with infant mortality rate of the past.

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

#72

Post by kccqzy »

mannerheim wrote: post #53
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While apartments have gotten smaller over the past decade (and I can't find anything on apartment sizes in decades past), only about 20% of Americans live in apartments, and houses are way bigger than they used to be. > In 1950, the year Time magazine estimated that Levitt and Sons built one out of every eight houses in the United States, the average size of a newly built single-family home was 983 square feet — slig…

I bought a house from the 1950s and it was barely bigger than that average of 983 square feet you cite. It's not tiny; it's adequate for a couple and a kid.

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

#73

Post by jandrese »

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.

It seems like it will be a popular option in any country that has abject poor you can hire for a pittance but also a middle class.

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

#74

Post by fouc »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #50
csours wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Overwhelmingly combustion-engine motorbikes. Something like 7.5-8 million of them on the roads of Ho Chi Minh City. There are e-bikes around but they aren't very common, at least in the south. Like, I see a few every day so they're not super rare. But...I see one or two a day compared to the thousands of regular ones. There's also a bit of toxic masculinity around them; I'd say 99% of the people riding them are women…

> There's also a bit of toxic masculinity around them; I'd say 99% of the people riding them are women. Most often high school or university age.

I disagree, I saw a great many male students driving electric bikes back in 2020 (Hanoi, Da Nang, HCMC). I would say of the particular model of e-bike that I tended to notice (the often black or black&red ones with large footrest area), easily 20%-50% drivers were male. I think the reason it isn't more common yet is probably because of range.

http://image.vietnamnews.vn//uploadvnnews/Article/2016/7/4/0... https://xedapdien.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/xe_may_dien...

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

#75

Post by em-bee »

fnord77 wrote: post #2

that chart shows the price of TVs as basically approaching free over time, but that doesn't include cable or internet, which in earlier times were not necessary to have a functioning TV

just the other day i was walking through an appliances market and was astonished how you could get huge TVs for less than what i spent on my phone. of course they probably all come with some sort of advertising that you can't turn off, but still...

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

#76

Post by refurb »

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…

It pretty much comes down to labor costs. I spent some time in VN and anything that requires unskilled labor is incredibly inexpensive.

Delivery? Sure, someone will bring it across the city, in the next hour for 35,000 Dong ($1.50USD).

Want to buy shoes? Msg a store, they’ll send pictures, choose a few and they send a store employee over to your house to try them on.

That is changing though. Covid completely messed up the labor market and rather than get locked down, losing your job and still having to pay rent and food, people just went back to the countryside with family and are staying there for now.

As a result labor shortages, even nannies, and wages are going up. I think it’s a good thing, it’s the bottom moving up.

I expect you’ll see a similar transition as the UK eventually. Maids and nannies becomes something exclusive to the rich. Unless of course they continue to import them from lower income countries - a la Singapore.

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

#77

Post by mattwad »

joe_the_user wrote: post #41
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…

I had a fellow American friend who lived in Bali for a year in the mid-70s. When he arrived, he shopped for his own food and cooked it. But he found that, since the merchants charged people by their social class, he could hire a housekeeper and have them buy and cook his food for the same price as buying his own found. And people expect him to do this.

In Egypt, that's true unless you haggle. You can always haggle to get close to Egyptian prices, but if I didn't have my friend with me to show me how to do that, I would have paid American prices the whole trip. I'm sure a lot of places work similarly. At the end of the day, they want to make a sale, doesn't matter who you are just what they think you'll pay.

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

#78

Post by kube-system »

notfbi wrote: post #51

" The couple’s annual income was around around £700 ($50,000 in today’s dollars)—£500 ($36,000) from his salary and another £200 ($14,000) in passive income. They rented a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in London with four bedrooms, two sitting rooms, and a “nice outlook on green.” The rent was £90 for a year ($530 per month in today’s dollars). To keep it tidy, they hired a live-in maid for £36 ($2,600) per year, wh…

That's because being a maid wasn't even seen as an equal to the idea of a "working class job" as we see it now. Someone who had to support a family at that time would have been presumed to have an income from a man's job. Someone working as a maid was presumed to not have their own household to support and had their housing provided.

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

#79

Post by johnchristopher »

joe_the_user wrote: post #41
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…

I had a fellow American friend who lived in Bali for a year in the mid-70s. When he arrived, he shopped for his own food and cooked it. But he found that, since the merchants charged people by their social class, he could hire a housekeeper and have them buy and cook his food for the same price as buying his own found. And people expect him to do this.

Does the housekeeper pay less when s/he buys for her/himself ? Or does the seller asks the same price ? Wouldn't be in the housekeeper's interest to say he/she's buying for someone else, to cash in a bit extra ? Wouldn't it fit the seller ?

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

#80

Post by barrkel »

notfbi wrote: post #51

" The couple’s annual income was around around £700 ($50,000 in today’s dollars)—£500 ($36,000) from his salary and another £200 ($14,000) in passive income. They rented a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in London with four bedrooms, two sitting rooms, and a “nice outlook on green.” The rent was £90 for a year ($530 per month in today’s dollars). To keep it tidy, they hired a live-in maid for £36 ($2,600) per year, wh…

Income well above average, but that's a flow, not a stock. She probably didn't consider herself wealthy because she didn't have a lot of wealth, like wealthy people have.

Wealth, especially pre-World Wars, in the UK as elsewhere in Europe meant owning land and collecting rents. You didn't get wealthy by having a high income. You had a high income because you were wealthy.

Post reply on HN