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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

#461

Post by bhelkey »

boring_twenties wrote: post #418
jccalhoun wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the Chicago law professor who made $250,000 and didn't think he was rich but he lives in a super nice neighborhood and sends 3 kids to private school https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/09/todd-henderson-we-are...

To know if he's rich or not we would need to know his net worth, not his income (or how nice his stuff is).

I disagree.

In an extreme example, Tim Cook made ~$100 Million in 2021 [1]. Regardless of his net worth, I would consider him rich.

[1] https://news.yahoo.com/apple-tim-cook-compensation-other-tec....

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

#462

Post by nybble41 »

dahfizz wrote: post #406
twox2 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It benefits nobody, because that's the price the transaction would have happened at anyway. But this is not true. Haggling is price discovery. Either way, I think this is mostly a cultural thing that's lost on a lot of westerners.

> Haggling is price discovery Yes, the issue is that the price does not need to be discovered. The seller knows the "real" price, and is just hopping to screw over the buyer.

> The seller knows the "real" price…

The seller knows the customary price, and the lowest price they would be willing to accept. The "real" price is whatever the buyer and seller agree on for a particular trade. Price discovery is an ongoing process which isn't finished just because you've determined an average price for past trades. The buyer isn't losing out unless there's actual fraud involved, even if they could have potentially negotiated a better price. And really, we're mostly talking about trades between individuals and small businesses (who may also be individuals)—why should all the surplus value represented by the difference between the highest and lowest prices acceptable to both parties go to the buyer, and not the seller?

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

#463

Post by amanaplanacanal »

SergeAx wrote: post #264

"Back in the 1960s, the economist William Baumol observed that it took exactly as much labor to play a string quartet in 1965 as it did in 1865—in economics jargon, violinists hadn’t gotten any more productive. Yet the wages of a professional violinist in 1965 were a lot higher than in 1865." This is actually brilliant and deep. We may argue a lot that music education became more expensive, violins themselves cost mo…

The invention of recorded music had made that modern string quartet much more productive. Millions could now hear that music that maybe tens to hundreds heard in the previous century.

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

#464

Post by bregma »

tristor wrote: post #425
bregma wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> good idea to have an emergency stash of the currency of dishonesty when travelling abroad I recommend that you do some research about the economics of any country you visit. As you've already somewhat discovered, many places in Central America and South America will actually prefer payment in US dollars because the official government exchange rates from their local currency to dollars is extortionately unfair and…

> I don't know why you consider dollars to be the "currency of dishonesty"

I was not trying to imply Americans are dishonest. I was trying to imply that insisting on the use of foreign currency like USD as the sole medium of exchange, or any other black market activity if it comes to that, is a dishonest way to make a living.

And sure, I understand why the black market exists from a socioeconomic point of view. I have learned my lesson about travelling in less advantaged countries. I witnessed stuff in Peru that would make suburban Karen's head explode with apoplexy, and it was just considered normal and expected stuff there.

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

#465

Post by eaxix »

bhelkey wrote: post #461
boring_twenties wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To know if he's rich or not we would need to know his net worth, not his income (or how nice his stuff is).

I disagree. In an extreme example, Tim Cook made ~$100 Million in 2021 [1]. Regardless of his net worth, I would consider him rich. [1] https://news.yahoo.com/apple-tim-cook-compensation-other-tec... .

Well, at that point it's borderline impossible to spend (on consumables, not assets) your yearly earning, so even if he's poor now, he almost certainly won't be by the end of the year (unless he has a massive amount of debt).

In contrast if you make $250k it's quite easy to spend the whole amount or close to it (again on consumables, not assets), hence your net worth stays the same in a year. You have to limit your spending to slowly build up your net worth.

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

#466

Post by woobar »

NoPie wrote: post #198

I have a different conclusion. The article mentions that the car would have cost her 3 months of income. That doesn't sound too much and is roughly about the same what people pay for cars today, maybe even more. The reason she thought about the car as a luxury and not a necessity is that then the society wasn't dependent on cars like we do today. They travelled less, worked closer to home, milkman brought milk to hom…

Average salary around that time was £70 for men and £30 for women [1]. So they [Cristie's husband] were making 10x-15x average per year.

I'd say someone that makes 10x current average (~$500K) doesn't have a problem buying a car with 1 months salary. Even with the currently inflated prices.

[1] https://www.abroadintheyard.com/todays-luxuries-beyond-avera...

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

#467

Post by pyuser583 »

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 heard in Hong Kong it was cheaper to have a chauffeur drive the car around the city than to buy a parking space.

So instead of parking the car, it would just be driven around the block again and again.

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

#468

Post by SergeAx »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #463
SergeAx wrote: post #264

"Back in the 1960s, the economist William Baumol observed that it took exactly as much labor to play a string quartet in 1965 as it did in 1865—in economics jargon, violinists hadn’t gotten any more productive. Yet the wages of a professional violinist in 1965 were a lot higher than in 1865." This is actually brilliant and deep. We may argue a lot that music education became more expensive, violins themselves cost mo…

The invention of recorded music had made that modern string quartet much more productive. Millions could now hear that music that maybe tens to hundreds heard in the previous century.

Yes, but it is totally different economy. You need producers, PR researchers, you need sound technicians, you need studios with equipment, you need cover designers, print materials, replication lines, packing lines, music shops, logistics, shop clerks, cashiers. You need playback equipment: turntables, amplifies and speakers.

This was 1960s. Today you still need half of these plus all the internet infrastructure, which is not a small deal, online advertising, rights management, social media marketing, music aggregators, phones and computers and smart speakers.

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

#469

Post by bhelkey »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #359
Jaruzel wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

McDonald's, 7-Eleven, ...

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

#470

Post by SergeAx »

iso1210 wrote: post #438
SergeAx wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very valid addition that I've skipped for clarity. But rental prices are very location-bound, and we can build only that much houses in a given location.

You can build up a lot, far more than is typical in much of London. There are 3.6 million dwellings [0] in the 157,000 hectares of London [1]. There's 14,000 Hectares of Park and Open Space [2]. If you quadrupled the amount of park and open space to 56,000 hectares, leaving 100,000 for housing, and built as dense as Islington or Kensington+Chelsea (not particularly known for skyrise apartments), at 70 per hectare, th…

157 000 hectares is a lot (pun intended). This is not one place, price of similar flat in the center and in the outskirt would be 2-3 times different just because of the location. You cannot consider those hypothetical dwellings similar.
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