Phnom Penh

[QUOTE=JesseJames;1319469]These guys will spend $60 to fill their gas tanks to drive around and look at the shopping malls where they come from. They'd have to pay at least $100 for a HJ, where they live. They pay $1000s on airfare and hotels and cry about $30. Give me a break. Be thankful for what you can get for such small money.[/QUOTE]I don't have a gas tank. I'm from NYC. I pay $2 to go anywhere in the five boroughs. 24 hours a day, on an air conditioned train. I also don't go to shopping malls. Again, I'm from NYC. Is that why people pay a lot in PP? Because they are suburban suckers, conspicuous spenders, show offs? So the same reason NYC is getting ruined by bridge and tunnel assholes applies to a far flung end of the world location like PP?

A HJ in NYC in Chinatown attached to a 1 hour massage runs me exactly $35. I paid $950 to fly to Hong Kong. $135 from there to BKK. $105 from BKK to Phnom Penh. All round trip. How any of this is relevant to girls who were born and raised in Cambodia and need less than $100 a month to live above the local standard is beyond me.

Anyone will work for the highest rate they can get. That's obvious. The issue is why foreigners are paying such high rates. Of course the people would work for a lot less if such rates weren't on offer, because they need a lot less to live, then say, an escort in Manhattan.

And when I say I pay 1000 be LT in Pattaya, that's not for beach road or Soi 6 hags. Cute girls with flat stomachs no stretch marks nice tits and asses from Soi 7 and Soi 8 go with me at the rate without a problem. They are as good as any girl in PP. It costs them a lot more to live in Pattaya than it costs a girl to live in PP. They have to bang more guys to earn the same standard of life. Why is that?

If you like paying the Hong Kong rates in a country where most people lack electricity and toilets, more power to you. Just don't promote the place as a world historic value for mongering, because it's not.

[QUOTE=Rick Rock;1319616]Anyone will work for the highest rate they can get. That's obvious. The issue is why foreigners are paying such high rates. Of course the people would work for a lot less if such rates weren't on offer, because they need a lot less to live, then say, an escort in Manhattan.[/QUOTE]I thought you said the issue was why they charge that much. Anyway, the reason foreigners pay that much is easy to guess: because at that moment they're probably a bit drunk and looking at a gorgeous girl, and eager to move on to the next stage of things. And they're on holiday. And they have plenty of spend money on hand. And this is the time to spend it. And they're horny. And they know when they go back home, the same thing will cost a lot more.

I'm not going to get into a discussion on economics, especially on this forum of all places. I'll just say that in the final judgement value of a commodity reflects the amount needed to reproduce the work embedded in it. Supply and demand and the market only helps this process along, it doesn't supercede it (that's why a garment worker in Vietnam is paid 1/100th of what his counterpart in Vermont would be paid for the exact same work; it costs a lot more to house, feed, and raise a new generation of garment workers in Burlington than it does Hanoi at the current time. Of course this doesn't matter for international corporations based in place like New York, which are playing with USA dollars and exporting the final products to the West). This goes against the "common wisdom" of the American School of make believe "free markets" and "supply and demand," which reflects the rise and dominance of fictitious capital that caused the 1973-2008 credit bubble and crisis from which we haven't and won't recover, but it's none the less true. If you read any of the founders of political economy, those who formulated the ideological basis of capitalism and discovered its processes, you'll find what the reality is. Some economists are now doing precisely that, in an effort to discover a way out of the current impasse.

The End.

[QUOTE=Rick Rock; 1319693]I'm not going to get into a discussion on economics, especially on this forum of all places. I'll just say that in the final judgement value of a commodity reflects the amount needed to reproduce the work embedded in it. Supply and demand and the market only helps this process along, it doesn't supercede it.

The End.[/QUOTE]Wrong. For a start the girls are not 'commodities' in a marketing sense. They are discretionary purchases. Like a pair of Nike trainers or a Timberland shirt. The price of the Nike trainers is not determined on cost plus a small profit, as would be the case with true commodities like gasoline or milk. The Nikes have a higher perceived value due to advertising and brand perception and the high price reflects this.

This is similar to the prices the girls ask for. They initially try to get the highest price they can from punters on the basis that the punters may believe that they are worth that. Some punters do believe this and agree straight away. Most will negotiate down a bit and then think they are getting good value. A few punters with more local knowledge, or just a harder attitude, will keep negotiating the price down, but be willing to walk away.

So it is very much supply and demand that determines the girls prices here. Believe me, prices would drop if the girls weren't getting any business at all. Plus a lot of them are happy with just being bought about 80-100 lady drinks a month (a typical total that yields them $80-100) plus about $30 in tips plus their $70 salary. About $200 a month in total.

Also many of the more beautiful girls already have between one and four overseas guys each sending them between $100-500 a month. Of course each guy thinks he is the only boyfriend, but the girls are expert jugglers. So why bother with cheap ST's when they are making several hundred dollars a month for sitting around.

I have lived here now for several months and constantly see girls sitting in the bars calling up one boyfriend after another on a Skype video call and telling them how much they love them and could the guy possibly manage a few more dollars for rent / sickness / new dress etc.

The girls are not commodities. The service they sell is. And the value of it, like all other commodities, is based on expended work and reproduction. Period.

The amount of time that goes into a Nike shoe is higher than the amount of time that goes into a no name shoe. Not only in the physical production, but in the amount of time used for creating advertising, the huge marketing campaigns, the training of the people who create and implement the marketing campaigns, and the cost to reproduce all of that. A commodity is everything (I. E. All the work / time, the quality of that work / time, the rate to reproduce that work / time) that goes into making it a commodity.

If guys are giving them outrageous amounts of money, buying dozens of drinks, and they have lots of overseas idiots, which I do very much believe, that explains why the market is so skewed. Like I guessed, foreign punters and the dollar ruined it. It's the equivalent of Nike packing up and setting up a factory in Cambodia, then paying the workers $10 an hour,"because that's still so much lower than where they come from in the USA". Of course they would never do that, because they are not stupid. That's why Nike is successful.

Good on the girls. I hope they get all the money they can and are able to raise themselves to a decent quality of life. Obviously the dummies dishing out the dough don't need it, or they wouldn't be doing that. But it absolutely excludes PP and a value mongering destination as there are dozens of places on earth with more quantity, more variety, all at better prices.

No mongers go somewhere and start to calculate the ST pop price vs average earning ratio. Most people are on 1-2 weeks hunting trip. When they see a cutie in Phnom Penh costing 40 USD, instead of doing the ST fee against average GDP math, they will think this gal in Bangkok massage or gogo bar will cost me total over 2800 bahts. They will think it's el cheapo cheapo in PP.

That's why all the fees in different countries regardless the GDP / ST session ratio are getting more and more similar, especially the middle upper market. Well, HK and Singapore have 10 times more average GDP than these SEA backwaters, but amazingly a ST session with a nice gogo girl or a sideline girl in Thailand (total cost about 100 USD) cost the same with a beautiful hotel booking girl in HK (also about 100 USD).

Hey rick,

Why keep thinking of Cambodia when you have already left? I think arguing is good but not to the point where it becomes an ego issue. I think many BMs would rather this thread be full of FR than the "out of your control" arguments that has been going on. Why not call it quits and everyone move on like gentleman?

Remind me to take a calculator next time I hit a bar in Phnom Pehn. Must get the economics right!

[QUOTE=Guitar7997; 1319775]Hey rick,

Why keep thinking of Cambodia when you have already left? I think arguing is good but not to the point where it becomes an ego issue. I think many BMs would rather this thread be full of FR than the "out of your control" arguments that has been going on. Why not call it quits and everyone move on like gentleman?[/QUOTE]Nicely expressed.

And it's actually a good time to be out in the field.

The hostess bar girls get paid at the beginning of the month, so from about the 20th of the month onwards many of them are running out of money and are willing to go out with customers for less than they would normally. Also from July to October is the quiet season for bars, so fewer customers and even more reason for the girls to accept less.

With all the discussions about prices and 'value', it's easy to forget how stunning some of the girls are in Cambodia. How could anyone possibly say no to LT for $40 with this girl?

[QUOTE=Rick Rock;1319761]...It's the equivalent of Nike packing up and setting up a factory in Cambodia, then paying the workers $10 an hour,"because that's still so much lower than where they come from in the USA"...[/QUOTE]I am fully with you. You are the first American with such a voice of reason that I come across. But most parts of the world are spoiled for the reasons the others mention. Also Thailand is way overpriced.

That is why I prefer to stay in Hong Kong now. In very few places you can get a session for less time of work. No hotels and no travel involved, and a good variety available.

Your sentiments are spot on. I had a similar girl from one of the bars. She was genuinely beautiful in my opinion. She asked me for USD$30 and I took her twice because she was great. No need to negotiate. GFE and stayed all night until next afternoon. In the end she needed to go do some chores. No problem at all. In terms of the sex she was great. I liked her so I didn't make her do any weird stuff but she was probably up for a bit of anal. The 2nd time I took her she tried to give me back $20. Told her to spend it on her kid.

It remains a one off special time in my mind that I wouldn't spoil with talk of lower rates.

[QUOTE=Rick Rock; 1319693]I'm not going to get into a discussion on economics,

The End.[/QUOTE]Well I, for one, am glad to see what it looks like when you avoid the topic of economics. ;.)

Every country has local venues. If you do some search around and willing take the risk, and can screw in some pig sty, you can always find places that are in line with their country's economy. In BBK, just get out of town a bit, to Chonburi, Samut Sakorn, Kanchanaburi ect, local karaoke joints or brothels everywhere for 500 bahts. It takes some guts to go to these joints usually in very dark alleys and sometimes with very rowdy and rough Thai customers (imagine 10 Thai taxi drivers or construction workers or somtam guys drinking together) When I was younger, I liked the off beaten tracks, I like adventures, also I had a few very scary moments.

In PP, you can also play local style, and pay according to their economy, but you also have go through a series of risk to save a few dollars. If you are looking for 10 dollar or less a pop, that fit the definition of average GPD salary ratio, you can go to Svay Pak. This place was never completely closed, it is just on a low key. But if you go, it's your own risk. This place has been infested with NGO lookouts, and crooked police looking for extortion since the semi-closure.

As for most of us, I know 40 USD a pop in PP, or 2000 bahts ST (plus pay bar) in Bangkok are very very pricy in their economies, but most of us are on short 7 day mission, are we more concerned about overpaying their economy value or more concerned about I may have to jack off tonight.