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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

#351

Post by bluGill »

newyankee wrote: post #47
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…

Same in India. For a lot of people Car is more of a status symbol and in some crowded cities it is much easier to take a 2 wheeler.

India is building a lot of public transit now. I will be interested in seeing how that changes the culture of such cities. This is long term - transit needs to go close to where you are and where you want to be before people will use it, so a large part of the change depends on if/when they build more lines after the current ones open.

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

#352

Post by bluGill »

andi999 wrote: post #301
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can transport your family on a motorcycle or scooter in the US too. You'll just be on a first name basis with all the cops everywhere you go regularly because even if the cops themselves dgaf there will be no shortage of people calling them on you.

So not a realistic option, isnt it?

I wonder about speeds. The only places I've seen a lot of people on motorcycles is in heavy traffic where the speed is only slightly faster than you could ride on a bicycle. In the US most traffic is at higher speeds on residential roads, and you are expected to jump over to the freeway with very high speeds to get around. As such the practice is much more dangerous if you drive like you are in the US (not that it is ever safe)

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

#354

Post by jeromegv »

bregma wrote: post #302
MandieD wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The train between Machu Picchu (Aguas Calientes) and Cusco had three classes, the lowest of which was restricted to Peruvian citizens and residents. To be clear, Peruvians were free to use the second and first classes if they were willing to pay, too, but only they were allowed to use the very cheap third class. If I recall correctly, the second class one-way was about US$35. It struck me as being a bit fancier (and…

I knew I was being milked everywhere in Peru. It didn't bother me because extortionate prices in Peru are still cheaper than prices in my home country. The only exception was where people insisted on being paid in American dollars. I'm not American so it never occurred to me to buy and bring American dollars to any country outside of the USA. We treat American tourists with a certain amount of eyerolling when they tr…

Correct, I'm Canadian but when travelling anywhere out of the western world, stashing a few USD bills will be helpful in many ways.

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

#355

Post by gavinray »

fvdessen wrote: post #283
wbobeirne wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I was in the USA a few years ago with an hispanic looking friend, he was often offered a steep discount at the various shops and restaurants. Often enough that we would ask him to do all the shopping. This happened to us in multiple cities (NY/Miami/SF)

I live in Miami and when going out with Cuban friends, have never seen this.

But I also don't go out often, and if I do, it's just to eat usually.

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

#356

Post by dahfizz »

tbrownaw wrote: post #350
dahfizz wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many / most corporate negotiations are legitimately necessary because every contract being negotiated is unique. Negotiations allow both parties to set terms and come to an agreeable price when there is no preset price. A market vendor who knows an apple should cost $2 but charges $5 in the hopes of screwing over a tourist is just an asshole. I can't imagine how that builds relationships.

How exactly would that "should" work if there just isn't a standard set price?

There is a standard price, or at least there could be. It would be trivial for the apple seller to calculate the average price he ends up negotiating, and setting that as the published, firm price.

That is what's frustrating about negotiating for commodities like food. The seller is taking advantage of information asymmetry. They know what the standard price is, and they hope that you don't. It's scummy.

It is different when there isn't a set price, i.e. if you are trying to buy a one of a kind item. In that case even in the Western world some negotiation would be acceptable, (buying an original painting from an artist, for example). But this does not justify having to haggle for everything you want to buy, every time.

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

#357

Post by Loughla »

Blahah wrote: post #324
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?

Very true currently in Kenya, if you integrate at all. People don't usually live in isolation, they are part of a local community and it's natural and expected that they share opportunities and risks with their community. If you can afford to, you are expected to hire other people to do things that save you time and energy, distributing your wealth in the local economy. Having a housekeeper, one or more people respon…

That's genuinely interesting. Here in my part of the states, you're expected to do it all yourself, and in my area (exceedingly rural and exceedingly low income) having anyone do some of those things would be seen as being stuck-up or snobbish or something to that effect. For example, I still catch grief for being a "rich bitch" from my neighbors because I hired someone to put a roof on my covered porch on the back of my house 6 or 7 years ago.

This may sound naive, but I had legitimately never considered that it's a valid and useful way to spread my opportunities through the community.

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

#358

Post by bluGill »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #229
TomK32 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?)

They probably are leaving money on the table, but the hassle of renting out your unused parking spot isn't really worth the money you could make. There is also the convenience on when a guest arrives with a car you can give them your parking spot (this would typically happen only a few times a year)

The landlord could make a lot of money by collecting all the unused parking spots, but that is probably either illegal (those are for the residents and can't be separated from the units) or technically legal but they fear it would be made illegal if they tried.

The real money left on the table is secondary effects: residents pay for parking they don't need/use; and that parking takes up space that could be used for something else thus making the area more dense and public transit because of the additional people in dense area can afford to be more useful.

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

#359

Post by KptMarchewa »

Jaruzel wrote: post #248
jmnicolas wrote: post #243

TIL that Starbucks is a luxury experience (I'm not a coffee drinker and there's no Starbucks in my town). I thought it was the McDonald's of coffee, I mean if it's luxury why are they using Styrofoam cups instead of glass?!

If you are in city with lots of 'premium' coffee shops, Starbucks is generally considered the worst of the 'premium' brands. However, every other shop in large city is a Starbucks, so for many convenience of locale wins over.

If Starbucks is a premium shop, what is the lower quality, non-premium one?

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

#360

Post by bluGill »

Aeolun wrote: post #271
jseban wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my conclusion as well, everything was simply insanely cheap then compared to today. A car today cost much more than 3 months salary, and to rent such an apartment would be basically impossible. The rent was 12% of his income only. Which means a bachelor with a middle class job could easily rent an apartment with 4 bedrooms and 2 sitting rooms. LOL Everything was much much cheaper. Except exotic food grocerie…

> A car today cost much more than 3 months salary Depending on where you work, not that much more. But you don’t get to spend all of your gross salary on cars.

I wonder how finance worked. Today a car might cost 3 months of salary, but I can get a loan to pay it off over 6 years. If I had to buy a new car without a loan I couldn't afford it because I don't normally keep that much savings. (Ignoring retirement savings which technically I could tap into)
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