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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

#131

Post by glitchc »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #81
johnchristopher wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

The way I understood your parent comment: - The vendor charges every customer according to the customer's social class. A white guy pays through the nose. A servant-class local pays a modest amount. It doesn't matter who the food is supposed to be for. - Thus, it is cheaper for the white guy to hire a housekeeper than to buy and prepare his own food. The white guy's food, if he has a housekeeper, will only cost as mu…

The poster got the OP’s point but you didn’t get his. Presumably the expat is giving the housekeeper a grocery allowance, she’s not spending her own money. The merchant could certainly make a deal with the housekeeper to charge expat prices and the two could split the difference.

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

#133

Post by brigandish »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #64
tomrod wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philippines as well. If you don't speak the language you are paying a premium for food, travel, communications, and potentially rent.

In Thailand I can say this isn't the case

It was certainly the case when I lived in Thailand, as I could read (the numbers aren't difficult and you get a lot of practice) and often anything with a published price up front would be different read in English than in Thai.

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

#134

Post by franciscop »

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…

Something conveniently ignored is that the maid probably had the room, food and basic necessities included in the deal (and possibly the nurse?). It's absolutely not the same paying X for all expenses vs paying X PLUS all expenses.

We like to demonize the past, and sure it was rough but let's not try to make it look even worse than it was.

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

#135

Post by Talanes »

wmf wrote: post #10
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

You can still get a lot of TV free with an antenna. It's a small fraction of what's available, but in absolute terms it's a lot.

This might also be a small town to major city thing, but I have about as many channels OTA now as we had with pre-satellite basic cable twenty plus years ago.

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

#136

Post by wbobeirne »

danans wrote: post #96
joe_the_user wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But he found that, since the merchants charged people by their social class, The same thing happens in developed countries like the US too. It's just done a different way: We have high end grocery stores and low end grocery stores, and ones in the middle, each catering more or less to different social classes. If you are really low on the totem pole, you may have no grocery store. Although they differ in the qualit…

I get what you're going for, but this simply isn't comparable. I pretty much can't walk into the same store and purchase the same item but be quoted a different price than anyone else.

There are rich areas and poor areas, touristy areas and off-the-beaten-path areas. But in US retail you won't find sellers discriminate based solely on the look of the customer in 99% of cases.

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

#137

Post by onion2k »

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…

having income 25x that of the working class

A live-in maid would have their accommodation, food and bills provided, which would be reflected in a lower wage. The UK average wage at the time was closer to £100 a year for a woman (£200 for a man).

The equivalent today would be like someone earning 7 * the UK minimum wage, which would be about £120,000 a year (US$160,000).

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

#138

Post by asdff »

paxys wrote: post #36
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.

Seems there is a huge business opportunity just mailing things like Apple products from Oregon, where you don't pay sales tax, straight to india to be sold far below their market rates for that same product.

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

#139

Post by fredliu »

I would assume that chart is for the US or Western/Developed world. Maybe a more easier explanation for the phenomenon is: everything that can be oursourced/built in lower cost regions are getting cheaper (not many toys, cloths or to a certain degree, cars, are still built in the US), while services, by nature, are not able to be out-sourced. With limited supply and more demand, cost of services would definitely go up.

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

#140

Post by Talanes »

glitchc wrote: post #131
thaumasiotes wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I understood your parent comment: - The vendor charges every customer according to the customer's social class. A white guy pays through the nose. A servant-class local pays a modest amount. It doesn't matter who the food is supposed to be for. - Thus, it is cheaper for the white guy to hire a housekeeper than to buy and prepare his own food. The white guy's food, if he has a housekeeper, will only cost as mu…

The poster got the OP’s point but you didn’t get his. Presumably the expat is giving the housekeeper a grocery allowance, she’s not spending her own money. The merchant could certainly make a deal with the housekeeper to charge expat prices and the two could split the difference.

That not being the case is the system that got the housekeeper her job though. It's probable that she knows that "not paying the foreigner tax on food" is part of the value she brings, and that overly messing with that system could put her out a job.
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