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

#381

Post by themeiguoren » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:09 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #365

malwarebytess wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Builds relationships, can arrive at an optimal price, involves human contact. It doesn't take that long either. There are positives even to things you deem useless.

>Builds relationships I don't get this one.

Through the conversation, you learn the idiosyncrasies of the other person. In a culture where haggling is normal, their “style” gives you insight into their personality and how they might act in other scenarios. And it identifies you as an insider or outsider to the culture. At the very least, you’ve learned their name and face.

I also hate haggling, and since I’m not from a culture where it’s a norm I can’t use it to read deeper into a person. (Or them into me.) But it’s not too hard to imagine how it helps to build relationships.

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

#382

Post by CSMastermind » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:09 PM UTC

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've been all over the US and lived in two of the cities you mentioned. Dated and been friends with many different hispanic people and I've never seen this happen.

That's true of my friends and romantic partners of all races by the way. I can't think of a single time I've seen someone be given a racial discount here.

There were a few times at restaurants and grocery stores where they had access to items I wouldn't have, but that almost always came from speaking the right language and knowing what to ask for. I'm sure those places would have been equally happy to accommodate me if I know what to say.

I do have stories of those friends and romantic partners being discriminated against a few times.

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

#383

Post by apohn » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #246

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?

I can't speak to the social expectations to have a housekeeper or cook as a domestic employee, but in many developing nation environments with high income disparities between the working class and those who hire domestic staff, there's another thing to consider. In some places that don't have supermarkets the process of buying groceries for a whole family is much more time consuming and labor intensive. For example,…

Your post is spot on. I'm an immigrant (to the US) from one of these countries. It's easier to get domestic help because people are desperate for money and there is no social safety net. A lot of the domestic help typically has no/little education (maybe only elementary school), so they are trapped in that situation.

Grocery shopping is a huge effort compared to the US. Also, with smaller homes, kitchens, and smaller fridges, you have to go grocery shopping multiple times a week.

Cars and Gasoline are also heavily taxed. Even "rich" families will typically only have one basic car, so you need a driver to drop someone off at work, come home to take somebody to the various grocery stores, etc.

Over the last 10-15 years as job and educational opportunities have improved, more and and more of the people I know complain that it's harder to find "good" domestic help. Lots of people who would typically go into basic construction jobs or domestic help jobs are finding other opportunities. Basically, what is going on in the US right now.

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

#384

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

hnlmorg wrote: post #328

ejb999 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But we (rich white people) don't exactly have a good track record in these types of situation Wow, nice generalization - do you get all your 'facts' from the movies?

I don't watch movies. Bare in mind I'm not suggesting an entire race is frequently abusing their maids to this day. What I'm saying is there is recorded history of it happening. You only have to dig through some of the abuses that happened during the slave trade to see evidence of this fact. So we do indeed have a bad track record in this regard. It might be an uncomfortable truth for some of us to hear but it doesn'…

[deleted]

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

#385

Post by CSMastermind » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

bradknowles wrote: post #193

danans wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Hospitals in Belgium charge you by your income level. We know this because my wife had to be briefly hospitalized in Brussels during the nearly 8 years we lived there, and the hospital made it very clear to us that we were being charged in this way. Ironically, we still paid less out of pocket for that week-long hospital stay without insurance than we would have paid for a single day hospital stay here in the US with…

> Ironically, we still paid less out of pocket for that week-long hospital stay without insurance than we would have paid for a single day hospital stay here in the US with insurance.

I'm curious about this one. I've been to the hospital one time in my adult life. Stayed overnight, got multiple tests including an Xray and an MRI. Got medication, etc.

Having heard the horror stories I was ready for a big bill.

It was like $140.

It was cheaper than a hotel room would have been.

I can't tell if I just have exceptionally good insurance or if people who make a big deal about the US healthcare system are leaving out critical details.

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

#386

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

throwhauser wrote: post #380

lotsofpulp wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Because the better way to spread opportunity is to use that money to pay for poorer people to get an education so they do not have to do menial tasks for richer people.

> Because the better way to spread opportunity is to use that money to pay for poorer people to get an education so they do not have to do menial tasks for richer people. ...and then a data scientist with an advanced degree spends the day hand-crafting SQL to root-cause a customer complaint after Bezos sends a one-byte email, "?"... (EDIT: I may have focused on one aspect of the parent's point at the expense of the o…

How is that relevant?

Is there any question that a housekeeper is better off if they were able to spend their time studying or training for something that offers a higher probability of earning higher incomes?

Or should society continue to perpetuate the relative socioeconomic class you are born into by having you spend your time washing other people’s clothes and homes?

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

#387

Post by dgreensp » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

It’s consumerism and society being shaped for profit. It doesn’t actually cost much money for everyone to have a place to live and food to eat, but our economy (in the US) is considered healthy when people are shopping a lot and spending money on relative luxuries. Paying big mortgages on houses built by real estate developers to maximize profit. It should be a lot easier to live on not much money than it is. We exalted the “middle class” and their spending. That seems like part of it, at least.

I can’t believe people still repeat the old “productivity” canard from economists. There was this idea that technology makes workers more productive, raising wages, which hasn’t been true since the 1970s, because it’s just wrong. Technology makes companies more productive, and the workers make the same. Economists hold their wrong theory above reality and act like this gap is some kind of mysterious “dark matter” that defies the known laws of the universe. As I always say, when a company upgrades their copy machine to one that is twice as fast, they don’t pay the person who makes the copies twice as much. Also, without unions, and with an abundance of people to do the unskilled work needed, there is no force pushing wages up.

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

#388

Post by technothrasher » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:19 PM 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…

> When the land was privatized, the government made it a condition that the hiking trail would remain for the general public to enjoy

Here in Massachusetts, our trespassing laws only apply to "improved" land. So you are free to transit any wilderness areas, even if they are privately owned, and even if "no trespassing" signs are posted. Of course, nobody knows this or follows it. People regularly call the police, who are just as ignorant on the law, because people are on their land.

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

#389

Post by FooBarBizBazz » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:19 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #372

Loughla wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

> 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. Because the better way to spread opportunity is to use that money to pay for poorer people to get an education so they do not have to do menial tasks for richer people.

You must be playing the provocateur?

"Step 1: Everyone gets a Ph.D.

Step 2: Meals cook themselves!"

(I suppose we could all live on MREs?)

Knowledge isn't zero-sum, but credentials are. Educating everyone doesn't make "menial" jobs go away. Better, really, to recognize some of those jobs as more important, and be willing to pay for them.

Also, there are gains from trade, and economies of scale. The time to cook two meals is less than double the time to cook one. And the person who specializes in it is probably better at it than the person who specializes in some other thing. When things are working correctly, these gains are then distributed across society by exchange.

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

#390

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #389

lotsofpulp wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Because the better way to spread opportunity is to use that money to pay for poorer people to get an education so they do not have to do menial tasks for richer people.

You must be playing the provocateur? "Step 1: Everyone gets a Ph.D. Step 2: Meals cook themselves!" (I suppose we could all live on MREs?) Knowledge isn't zero-sum, but credentials are. Educating everyone doesn't make "menial" jobs go away. Better, really, to recognize some of those jobs as more important, and be willing to pay for them. Also, there are gains from trade, and economies of scale. The time to cook two m…

I wrote education, not credentials. That includes learning how to farm, be an electrician, a crane operator, a researcher, learning how to cook, it could be anything.

It is obvious that a society with widespread use of personal drivers/housekeepers/nannies is simply one with a wider income/wealth gap.

One option is to spend multiple generations slowing bringing the housekeepers kids up the ladder with the housekeeper’s meager savings, and then their kids, and so on. Or we can cut the crap, and redistribute wealth more quickly and directly via a public education/training system.