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

161–170 of 500 posts

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

#161

Post by dr_dshiv »

baron816 wrote: post #143

It’s crazy to me that the Democrats haven’t made increased immigration a plan for helping mitigate inflation. More immigrants means more construction workers to build housing, more nannies, more nurses, more truck drivers, more meat factory workers, etc. I guess they haven’t done that as labor groups also don’t like immigration. The whole position of the left with regards to immigration is about race anyway, not abou…

Is technology and software a deflationary factor? Aren't there so many parts of the economy that get mach cheaper over time?

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

#162

Post by grandinj »

mcorning wrote: post #160
telesilla wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people expect him to do this. Right, it's part of how society works. In some places, having a housekeeper is a critical part of the economy and its incredibly impolite not to have one, if you are part of the expat class.

I'm surprised to hear that it is impolite to not have a housekeeper if you are an expat. To which places are you referring?

That's a fairly common attitude in poorer countries - there is an expectation that if you are wealthy, you have (at the very least) an obligation to provide employment.

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

#163

Post by alasdair_ »

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.

The only part that was off-shored was the voice, because apparently a computer couldn’t simulate one well enough. The voice actors just read from the provided script and didn’t change anything.

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

#164

Post by pkaye »

anovikov wrote: post #127
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's not a surprise - today's Vietnam per capita GDP is same as U.S. (and probably UK since the countries were close in their economic development) in 1919 (13-14% of today's U.S. level). Interestingly, in societies with several "tiers" made up of people of different origin (many of them full-on citizens anyway, it's not about legal rights but about race/class which is perceived to be same thing), it can work even on…

I think its common in Singapore too from what I've seen.

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

#165

Post by AussieWog93 »

dmz73 wrote: post #126
AussieWog93 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still doesn't seem like an "easy" comparison. Rents tend to be tied to the infrastructure/facilities and earnings potential within a given radius of the property. 1919 London was dirty with terrible air quality (far worse than Beijing or Mumbai today, literally choked my great grandmother to death on a bad day) and with nowhere near the infrastructure or work opportunities it has today. A fairer comparison to 19…

Sure, there are many ways that my simple (not easy) comparison is short changing current London but if you want to live there now and make the average wage then it may not matter to you so much that air quality is better or that streets are cleaner (because everywhere in the UK that is also true) when you cannot afford an apartment in the location that you would have been able to 100 years ago.

For sure. I was just trying to make the point that it's not such an easy comparison.

Comparing 1919 London to 2022 London really is like comparing a Model T to a Model S.

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

#166

Post by greggman3 »

ezconnect wrote: post #103
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Thailand I can say this isn't the case

They have different prices for foreigner and locals in Thailand and Indonesia.

Plenty of places in the USA have the same. Disneyland is discounts for Southern California residents

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/offers-discounts/southern-c...

In Hawaii many business have discounts for locals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discounts_and_allowances#Speci...

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

#167

Post by Rebelgecko »

asdff wrote: post #149
Rebelgecko wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My TV works fine without either of those, and I get at least 10x more channels than someone would have just 50 years ago.

Are you watching more TV though? Probably not. I had "modern" cable maybe 4 years ago. 500 channels or however many in the package, not really sure, but it was pretty much the works. It looked really impressive on the bill seeing all those channels, but in reality you are only using like the same few dozen or so major channels you've been coming to since the 90s and you just scroll on past the remaining 470 channels…

A lot of the channels are definitely not useful for me. Probably 1/3 of them are in languages I don't speak, and then there's the junk you mentioned like QVC.

I mostly use it for sports and local news. The quality is actually pretty good. Even though I can stream through the ESPN app, I'll watch a football game on ABC when I can because the picture quality is significantly better.

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

#168

Post by kube-system »

Thorrez wrote: post #112
kube-system wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt a live-in maid has a husband.

That is what I mean by “presumed not to have their own household”

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

#169

Post by jiggunjer »

grandinj wrote: post #162
mcorning wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised to hear that it is impolite to not have a housekeeper if you are an expat. To which places are you referring?

That's a fairly common attitude in poorer countries - there is an expectation that if you are wealthy, you have (at the very least) an obligation to provide employment.

But expat doesn't automatically mean wealthy.
Post reply on HN