Are Maids That Necessary?

"Thats a shitload of sand to vacuum."

In the blue corner, we have a maid whose face was branded with an iron. In the red corner, we have a maid who took off with half a million worth of luxury goods. Ready?

Fight.

This issue has been dragging on long enough to affect Malaysia and Indonesia's political dance; which has been devoid of any romance since the day Malaysia was formed. On one hand we have the Malaysians who actually need the assistance of maids to do the daily chores while the parents get off for work whereas on the other, Indonesians who are in dire need of a job - any job. But let us ask ourselves this one question first before we go deeper into the topic;

Do most Malaysians who claim that they need the service of maids actually need it, or are they just blatantly lazy? Or perhaps the main question is; because the services cheap enough, Malaysians have developed this perception that the price in which they pay can is worth the free time and hassle they receive in return? Fine, I lied; there's more than just one question.

Looking through the articles in which I've gathered, here we have issues such as maids getting ripped off by agencies, and making agencies reimburse clients due for unsatisfactory service provided, at the same time protecting maids' rights.

Yesterday I bumped into this article, where towards the end, it mentioned a very good point on how hiring maids results in children growing up without knowing how to perform simple tasks. I couldn't agree more or this; the over-reliance on maids has resulted in Malaysia developing a mentality where having maids in each household is the norm; without it a family becomes dysfunctional - ridden with simple tasks. Now can you categorize this as a form of "outsourcing" ? or do you reckon its just a way of dealing with laziness?

Personally I don't think its a form of outsourcing; laziness would probably be the primary driver. Much like how the industry would rather source cheap foreign workers (at the same time higher productivity) compared to hiring local staff. Can we blame them on this? Doubt it; but to the least there should be some control over the amount of maids being brought into the country, in order that we can curb the over-dependance on maids.

Question is; are we capable of doing it?

Diasporas; Benefits on Having Immigrants

I used to work as a Hooker - as in a person who hooks things.

I love how they titled the topic of the article which I was reading - magic indeed. Based on the article I was reading, migrants to a foreign country can actually be beneficial based on several key reasons ( map source can be seen here ) ;

1. The "diaspora network" - where one could actually benefit in terms of the networks in which the migrant has to his/her country of origin. In other words, companies/institutions hiring them may not be limited to local networks alone but also be given the opportunity to expand its operations outwards.
2. Spreading money - it is a fact that in general the migrants will be earning more than they would compared to working back home; repatriation of their monies to their homeland therefore would benefit both the domestic and foreign country.
3. Innovation carriage - upon returning to their country of origin, apparently many would set up companies carrying with them the knowledge and experience in which they have gained overseas; allowing their countries to develop.

If we were to exclude Hong Kong (although they have that two government one country thing) from the map; Malaysia would have the second highest number of Chinese emigrants overseas. Although technically speaking, this is entirely wrong - its too apparent that these figures take into account Malaysian-born Chinese (but in reality, as a result of having a large number of dumb Malay politicians they're still treated as China-born Chinese).

But to be fair bringing immigrants into a country is not all that well - if you examine the article earlier, it talks mostly about high skilled immigrants, and by right they would benefit any country they go to. What I believe is meant to be of much more concern is low-skilled immigrants (particularly evident for Malaysia) and how it depresses local wages for works in similiar category, carrying market distortion effects. How would labors of this category be beneficial overall for a country? Repatriation of wages back to their home country is applicable, but what about carrying valuable contacts, innovation or creativity? Even if there were to be any, the amount would be minimal.

High tide for change?