dagblog - Comments for "Yglesias smackdown alert"

So, like Charlie Sheen, you

Donal — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:15:46 +0000

So, like Charlie Sheen, you really aren't paying her for the cleaning. You're paying her to go away when she's done.

I'm hesitant to defend

Michael Wolraich — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:05:20 +0000

I'm hesitant to defend Yglesias here, but what the heck. Not many maids in the U.S. resemble the house servants featured in Downton Abbey. Instead, they service multiple homes and rarely spend more than a couple hours a week at each place.

I hire a maid. She comes once every three or four weeks and cleans my one-bedroom apartment for $80. I don't have a lot money, but I hate housecleaning, and before I used a maid, I would procrastinate cleaning until my place was a pigsty. A maid also avoids what would have been inevitable domestic strife with my partner. So for me, it's well worth the cost.

OK, so that's great for my partner and me. What about the maid? She was a doctor in Russia but was desperate to come to the U.S. for the sake of her son. For a long time, she didn't have papers and worked under the table cleaning houses. She's legal now but still cleans. Her teenage son helps out. I expect that he will go to college and become some sort of professional.

My partner, incidentally, is also a Russian immigrant. Her parents were both educated professionals in the Soviet Union--an engineer and a physicist. They immigrated here in the early 1990s. Her mother found work as a nanny and babysitter. Her father never found work. But they came to the U.S. for the sake of their two daughters. My partner is a doctor, finishing up her training. Her sister is a software engineer.

Should maids be paid more? Yes they should, as should every low-wage earner in the country, including grocery clerks, waiters, dishwaters, gas station attendants, and (ahem) writers. But caricaturing Yglesias as some modern-day nobleman who secretly dreams of a new servile class is unfair. Paying someone to clean your house is not so different from paying someone to bag your groceries or deliver your pizza. And the people who clean houses are not bound by social constraints to generations of servitude. Many of them are just trying to earn a living so their kids can do something else.

We can just lower benefits

Resistance — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 05:31:48 +0000

In reply to We can just lower benefits

We can just lower benefits for old people and make school not mandatory, so we have a bloc of cheap labor to do these jobs.

Imagine the prosperity then; if that were to occur?

There would be so much competition for available jobs.

Prices would come down.

Who says the American worker can't compete in a world economy?

Corporate controlled America: "They sure as hell, can when they're forced to, with a little prodding, and an influx of desperate workers more profits can be had."

With Citizens United and now the neutered 1070; we have the best SCOTUS, money can buy..... for Corporate America.

Papers please? .....screw that; how cheap will you work..... American corporations need you to break the backs of American workers.

Screw America; the democratic party needs you.

We can just lower benefits

Anonymous pp — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 04:44:42 +0000

In reply to Why not just open the border,

We can just lower benefits for old people and make school not mandatory, so we have a bloc of cheap labor to do these jobs. There's a nig conversAtion we're not having re our real workforce. how many on low pay internships, 'self-employed' (mostly unemployed), reduced wages... Black unemployment is what, 15%? But we're more interested in illegal immigrAnts than our lack of a real jobs program. guess that's what hppens when you have a huge influx of new hispanic voters you have to win over with identity politics.

Thanks for those Emma. Spot

cmaukonen — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 03:24:19 +0000

In reply to Along the same trains of

Thanks for those Emma. Spot on !

Why not just open the border,

Resistance — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 02:25:29 +0000

In reply to Yglesias smackdown alert

Why not just open the border, and we tax these new low wage earners enough to cover expenses, and we cut our work week to 20 hours a week?

With this new ~~slave~~ worker class, we can all retire and live a life of leisure.

What do you think?

Say we allow 20 - 40 more immigrant workers, per existing American worker, would that be enough?

We wouldn't be taking advantage of them in a bad way either.

They'd be happy, because it pays better than back in their home country and us American workers would be happy too.

A win/win

More time, to do the things we like to do.

Why should the rich get all the fun.

BTW; I saw a movie once; I wonder can we train APES?

Along the same trains of

EmmaZahn — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 02:24:48 +0000

In reply to Slightly but not very OT,

Along the same trains of thought:

Where Was the Left's "Permission Structure" Wrecking Ball? | The Moral Sciences Club | Big Think »

Why Are American Kids So Spoiled? : The New Yorker:

I saw and skipped it thinking

EmmaZahn — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 02:14:09 +0000

In reply to I saw that Yglesias piece,

I saw and skipped it thinking here is just another of his make whites a minority blogs. I still read his finance/money blogs but skip more and more of the other stuff.

Slightly but not very OT,

cmaukonen — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:35:56 +0000

In reply to I suspect he grew up that way

Slightly but not very OT, this brings up a major point. That there is a very large disconnect between these people and a large par of the country in their personal history as well as their incomes.

I think this will have and even more profound effect than the income gap alone.

I suspect he grew up that way

artappraiser — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:24:17 +0000

In reply to Ah...the return to

I suspect he grew up that way (in Manhattan, father a screenwriter & novelist, went to the elite private Dalton school,) doesn't need to get it from historical teevee. Plenty of people do still live like "Upstairs/Downstairs" in Manhattan, as they have for a very long time, nothing recent about it. Not saying it's right for the whole country, nor that Yglesias doesn't have myopia on this because of his upbringing, but it is true that servicing the wealthy of Manhattan does happen to provide a lot of business for the rest of New York. And it's not just maids but people like contractors tearing apartments and townhouses apart and rebuilding them with the latest thing this week like a thermo enviro heating system or whatever, followed by craftsman floors, master plaster work, the latest in invisible technology from the screening room to the refrigerator, all serviced by umpteen specialist workers charging big bucks (they have to pay those double-parking tickets on the van somehow, which do contribute to the city's coffers.) There are more than a few plumbers living in Staten Island McMansions with swimming pools and a big boat in the nearby dock because of working for wealthy Manhattanites.