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by paleogizmo 2001 days ago
Western USA, far from the coasts

Asian vegetables. South Asian, southeast, Asian, east asian, whatever. Bitter gourd, drumsticks, curry leaves, kang kong. I really hate broccoli but it's hard to escape.

Having a maid. While common for the middle class in SEA, US labor laws preclude this. This would also help the majority of needs for the commenter seeking a pre-packaged lifestyle for sale.

Foreign programming. Sometimes I want to watch a shitty cop drama or the news in french without getting the super duper directv package.

Public transportation that runs more frequently than every hour, and fare cards for buses. In Singapore, bus 851 has run every 12 minutes between the north and south of the island for the last 20 years at least. Try getting that level of consistency here.
1 comments
codingdave 2001 days ago
> Having a maid. While common for the middle class in SEA, US labor laws preclude this.

I'm curious what you mean by this - there are certainly maids in the USA, but if you are envisioning something that our labor laws preclude... you probably have something else in mind when you say that?

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paleogizmo 2001 days ago
I'm referring to cost. A maid in Singapore will run on the order of $10-20k per year. Cost depends on standard of living and the maids country of origin, with discounts given if there is an elderly dependent in the household. This is an amount of money well within the ability of US dual income households to afford. I'd go so far as to say that economically it's a no brainer if such an option were available.
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f1b 2001 days ago
You're considering low-paid workers a product? It's not economically a no brainer to the worker. It also wouldn't be legal to pay someone less based off of their country of origin.

You may have immigrated to the wrong country.

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honkdaddy 2001 days ago
I think the last sentence of this comment is a bit uncalled for.
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quickthrowman 2001 days ago
You’re sticking up for the person who wants to pay someone $27/day to be their personal servant? Just to be clear, that’s what they are advocating for.

I don’t think telling them they moved to the wrong country is out of line, move to SEA if you want live-in help for a pittance.

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