201–210 of 500 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience in SEA in general and Bali specifically (as a Malaysian), prices are not simply a matter of speaking the language. Vendors often charge based literally on your social class/status.
In other words: your skin color.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The middle class is just very wide. Essentially anybody who doesn't starve when they're out of work for a couple of months is middle class. Upper class is distinguished from middle class whether you have to work at all. Very few people have enough passive income to afford a ~median lifestyle. Agatha Christie might not fit into middle class, but today a lot of people do.
I've seen an updated definition that kicks in at the time you can take one or more yearly vacations, so basically just doctors, highly paid laywers, highly paid SWEs, and executives.
By this definition, the only people who are rich are young professionals in Western countries who actually take those vacations and go on year-long travel through South America, for example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
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.
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.
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?
Nowadays, the spirit still lives on somewhat in the fact that we have free public scenic hiking trails through what looks like very expensive private property. When the land was privatized, the government made it a condition that the hiking trail would remain for the general public to enjoy, and so it did.
I believe Vietnam still has a similar system, too, in that the government will calculate how much jobs a foreign company needs to create, based on their annual revenue. It's one of the reasons why Korean milk tea shops tend to be crammed full with 10-20 schoolgirl employees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The middle class is just very wide. Essentially anybody who doesn't starve when they're out of work for a couple of months is middle class. Upper class is distinguished from middle class whether you have to work at all. Very few people have enough passive income to afford a ~median lifestyle. Agatha Christie might not fit into middle class, but today a lot of people do.
I've seen an updated definition that kicks in at the time you can take one or more yearly vacations, so basically just doctors, highly paid laywers, highly paid SWEs, and executives.
Interesting that he compares everything that is hard to compare but ignores one thing that would be very easy - rental pricing. You had to pay it then and you have to pay it now. "four bedrooms, two sitting rooms, and a “nice outlook on green.” The rent was £90 for a year." According to one CPI calculator ( https://www.in2013dollars.com ) "£90 in 1919 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £4,951.54 today" and "£…
Maybe that car was really rubbish by today's standards and technology-wise therefore it is expected that now the real costs have come down. But with apartments I don't think there is that much of an improvement that justify average increase from $500 to $5000.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen an updated definition that kicks in at the time you can take one or more yearly vacations, so basically just doctors, highly paid laywers, highly paid SWEs, and executives.
They usually never take those yearly vacations since it would mean lost of practice and connections. By this definition, the only people who are rich are young professionals in Western countries who actually take those vacations and go on year-long travel through South America, for example.