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Sometimes that cost isn't exploitation but just taking advantage of lower cost of living - like hiring offshore devs. This still has negative impacts such as re
by giantg2 3y ago
Sometimes that cost isn't exploitation but just taking advantage of lower cost of living - like hiring offshore devs. This still has negative impacts such as reducing domestic employment and even driving down domestic income. For example (which sometimes includes exploitation), it's easier to buy brand new shoes manufactured in a third world country and shipped halfway around the world than to find a shoe repair shop where a rebuild costs less than the new pair. Now that art is comparatively dead domestically.
- willcipriano 3y ago> lower cost of living Lower standards of living, lower cost would be like the difference between a budget hotel and a 5 star at the beach, lower standards is vacationing in Iowa instead. You'll hear people say things like "culturally they like to live ten to a single room tin shack" but that wouldn't be the case if they had wealth. It's not a choice, they are just paid less and that is being used as a justification for continuing to do so.
- gosub100 3y agoI don't think thats entirely true. Lets pick India. Do you really think the only reason the grandparents stay attached to their adult children is economic?
- willcipriano 3y agoYes. All societies used to be like India is before they finished becoming industrialized. Ask young people in India today if they want to live with Grandma, more and more say no compared to a generation ago. The wealthier they get the more this will continue.
- vouaobrasil 3y agoExactly right, and this is how technology destroys communities. By one thread of one human needing another at a time.
- gosub100 3y agoyou could use that logic as to why daycare is better than parenting too: "get out of my way, you pesky family! you are getting in my way of making money - i.e. servicing the industrialist society".
- giantg2 3y agoIt's both. Price out a house of the same size and it will still be cheaper.
- willcipriano 3y agoNow do the same amenities in a house the same size. Same water quailty in the taps. Price in schools and other public utilities or the cost to obtain them on your own where not offered or high quality.
- giantg2 3y agoThen why are ex-pats retiring in those places with a higher standard of living than they would have in the US? Why is there medical tourism to places like Thailand, where some of the hospitals have high percentages of US board certified physicians? Standard of living is an input for cost of living. You can go to a lower standard area and have above average quality of life for yourself because the competition is lower (you're effectively rich there). Sure, maybe you need an RO filter on your tap (there are places in the US where you may need this too), but even if the filter cost is the same, the water cost will generally be lower as would the instalation labor, etc.