Agatha Christie could afford a maid and a nanny but not a car • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by igorkraw » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:27 AM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #205

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?

50 years ago, Germany also still had a popular saying "Eigentum verpflichtet" which I would translate as "ownership creates a duty". In short, people who owned companies, large plots of land, or other infrastructure were expected to spread their wealth by creating jobs. 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…

"private property is subordinate to the common good" is even in our "Constitution" (grundgesetz, literally foundational law), although it has been neutered by precedent and other laws.

The right of way is a concept which is still strong in a bunch of countries, including England and famously Norway where "Allemansretten" allows "all men" the right to camp in public spaces.

I personally find these habitual rights an interesting expression of positive freedom, laws and customs limiting the power of those that have a lot of it (i.e., property owners) to monopolise and exploit, thus creating a public good. I think we should have more of it, especially in the physical but also the digital realm.

Particularly, the concept of adversarial interoperability https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interopera... is connected, it would be a different world of Google, Facebook and any other platform were obligated to make their internal APIs and documentation available at cost+a legislated profit margin do anyone can be compatible with them.

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

#222

Post by roel_v » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:30 AM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #31

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…

"Not too long ago you'd have a house with a spare bedroom or two or three. "

Uh, not too long ago it was absolutely normal for a family of 10 or 14 to share 3 or 4 bedrooms.

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

#223

Post by saiya-jin » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:30 AM UTC

elcritch wrote: post #105

mattwad wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Funny, I found shop vendors from some Arabic cultures would almost become offended if you _didn't_ barter with them -- at least if they knew you weren't just a tourist. For the (American) tourists wandering through they'd suck it up and just charge them 10x the price. ;)

Very true in India too. You stick out as backpacker very clearly, the prices are set accordingly. I found it extremely hard to haggle with my european mentality, and ended up agreeing on still too high prices. It took some time to get better.

Then you come back to western world (or anywhere else for that matter) after 6 months of such training and you find out you haggle harder than any locals, sometimes to the point of offense.

The most important point in haggling is to not show too much interest. It helps to have an idea about real local prices of items, otherwise its just shots in the dark.

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

#224

Post by leoedin » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:31 AM UTC

R0b0t1 wrote: post #174

adrianN wrote: post #92

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.

Maybe this is my naive European view, but taking a yearly vacation doesn't seem like a "rich person" thing here. You don't need to be earning vast amounts to afford a weeks package holiday in Spain.

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

#225

Post by saiya-jin » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

biztos wrote: post #113

dustintrex wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many attractions in Thailand have dual pricing, with foreigner pricing in Arabic numerals (100 baht) and local pricing in Thai numerals (๒๐ บาท). The price differential is often 5x or more.

I was visiting some temples in Bangkok recently and was amused to find there was no dual pricing; rather, there was an admission charge for foreigners and no charge for Thais. (I don’t mind this system actually, but if I were paying taxes in Thailand and still had to pay foreigner entry fees everywhere it might bug me.)

Same was for Taj Mahal some... 13 years ago. Foreigner price (apart from few neighboring countries) was at least 10-20x the price of local one. Still, well worth seeing that marvel

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

#226

Post by dustintrex » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:35 AM UTC

Arnavion wrote: post #190

dustintrex wrote: post #111

Interestingly enough, I'm typing this in Singapore, where in 2022 it's quite common to have a "maid" (helper/domestic worker, in the current local lingo), but no car. Singapore imports domestic workers for poor neighbouring countries like the Philippines and Myanmar, which keeps wages very low, on the order of US$450/month, not too far off Christie's inflation-adjusted US$220/month. Even the fully loaded cost with go…

Sure, the cost of a car is one factor, but the bigger factor is that Singapore is small and well-connected with public transport. It's quite normal for someone to live in one end of the city and take bus / train to the other end for work.

It's not just a factor, cars are straight up unaffordable for much of the population. One local politician was roundly criticized for a gaffe where he said that "everybody has a car, we have two".

The public transport system certainly does make live easier without a car though, as does the ubiquity and low cost of taxis and Uber-style rideshares.

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

#227

Post by miniwark » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:37 AM UTC

Snoddas wrote: post #192

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?

Anecdata : My wife's parents worked in Kenya for a few years in the 70s and they where advised that having a maid and a nanny was expected. (we are Swedish)

I have heard of the same in Ethiopia around the 90's. For white worker it was expected to:

- rent a house

- hire a house guardian

- hire at last one maid

- hire a chauffeur if you own a car

It was also recommended than they come form the local neighborhood.

It was a social norm, and if you do not do it you can expect the local policemen to "fine you" every time you take the car, the food cost to be x5 the price (or more), and many other additional costs and life inconvenience than just made more easy and cheaper to just hire the people.

That said the work was real. A good chauffeur, will negotiate prices and bribes for you, and recommend you the good places. The house guardian was also your speaker with the neighborhood committee (with was in fact a government organization). (I will avoid the more complicated subject of the maid...)

This was OK if you where a man, a couple or a family. If you where a young woman... good luck with this.

There was a way to avoid all this: living in a flat in the city center and use taxis.

(For Addis Ababa this may not be true anymore because the city was changed a lot from the big shantytown it was then)

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

#228

Post by radu_floricica » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:37 AM UTC

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'm in a moderately ok country, and I still see buying a new car as a luxury. It's something you do much later in life/career, when you can't be bother to take care of the extra management a used car comes with. And definitely not for everybody - there's quite a few people I know that are middle age with kids and don't even think about a new car. They just have chose other tradeoffs

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

#229

Post by BlueTemplar » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

TomK32 wrote: post #153

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…

Here in Austria we still have building codes from the Nazis that dictate a parking space for every new unit built. This is absolutely ridiculous in cities where car ownership is going down but underground parking is built. A sad result is that many of those expensive underground parking spaces are empty because house owners are not forced to rent out units and parking spaces separately while at the same time the over…

Sounds like they are just leaving money on the table ? (So there must be other reasons ?)

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

#230

Post by thriftwy » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:41 AM UTC

01acheru wrote: post #209

thriftwy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think he meant "one or more vacations per year" not "one or more years long vacations" (it also confounded me when skimming)

That would mean that Russia is a country of very rich people, since even the blue collar workers here can afford a family vacation per year, going to e.g. Turkey or Egypt - these tours come pre-packaged therefore really cheap. Middle-class youth routinely have 2-3 of these, going to more exclusive destinations. A lot of these will never buy a car, especially a new one, since a new car costs 10 years worth of vacations.