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Guest Post: Dear Person Seeking a Job: Why I Can't Hire You
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
Potential employers have to respond to the incentives and disincentives that exist in today's world, and those do not favor conventional permanent employees.
I know you're hard-working, motivated, tech-savvy and willing to learn. The reason I can't hire you has nothing to do with your work ethic or skills; it's the high-cost Status Quo, and the many perverse consequences of maintaining a failing Status Quo.
The sad truth is that it's costly and risky to hire anyone to do anything, and "bankable projects" that might generate profit/require more labor are few and far between. The overhead costs for employees have skyrocketed. So even though the wages employees see on their paychecks have stagnated, the total compensation costs the employer pays have risen substantially.
Thirty years ago the overhead costs were considerably less, adjusted for inflation, and there weren't billboards advertising a free trip to Cabo if you sued your employer. (I just saw an advert placed by a legal firm while riding a BART train that solicited employees to sue their employers, with the incentive being "free money" for a vacation to Cabo.)
The other primary reason is that there are few (to borrow a phrase used by John Michael Greer) "bankable projects," that is, projects where hiring another worker would pay for the costs of the additional overhead, labor and capital and generate a reason for making the investment, i.e. a meaningful profit.
There is very little real "new business" in a recessionary, deflationary economy: any new business is poaching from an established business. The new restaurant isn't drawing people from their home kitchens, it's drawing customers from established restaurants.
The only competitive advantage in a deflationary economy is to be faster, better and cheaper or have a marketing and/or technology edge. But marketing and technological advantages offer increasingly thin edges. The aspirational demand (driven by the desire to be hip or cool) for a new good or service has a short half-life. As for technology: miss a product cycle and you're history.
Put these together--higher costs and risks for hiring people, and diminishing opportunities for expansions that lead to profit--and you have a scarcity of projects where hiring people makes financial sense.
Faster, better and cheaper usually means reducing the labor input, not increasing it. In a deflationary economy, it's extremely difficult to grow revenues (sales), and as costs continue climbing inexorably, the only way to survive is to cut expenses so there is still some net for the owner/proprietor to live on.
Consider the tax burden on a sole proprietor who might want to hire someone. The 15.3% Social Security/Medicare tax starts with dollar one. After the usual standard deductions, the Federal income tax is 15%, and 25% on all earned income above $34,800. My state tax is around 5%. Since every other advanced democracy pays basic healthcare coverage out of tax revenues, the $12,000/year we pay for barebones healthcare insurance is the equivalent of a tax. That's 15% of our income. Property tax is also $12,000 annually, so that's another 15%.
Above $35,000 in income, my tax burden is 15% + 25% + 5% + 15% + 15% = 75%. You can imagine how much money I would need to clear to be able to afford hiring someone. The number of businesses that generate huge sums of profit are few and far between, and the number of businesses that scale up from a one-person shop to mega-millions in revenues is also extremely limited.
The potential employer is faced with this reality: the money to hire a new employee will come out of my pay, at least at first. Hiring an additional worker only makes sense if the new employee will immediately generate enough additional revenue to fund his/her own wage and overhead costs, the added expense of supervision and a profit substantial enough to offset the risks.
I should stipulate that my knowledge of hiring people and being an employer is not academic. My partner and I launched a business in late 1981, in the depths of what was at that time the deepest recession since the end of World War II. We had a very diverse ethnic workforce and did millions of dollars of work. Rather than make a fortune I lost $50,000 and had to mortgage the house we'd built by hand to make good all debts. I exited in 1987 with my personal integrity intact: nobody lost money working for us.
The losses were basically the result of me pushing the outer boundaries of my experience and thus my competence in an unforgiving, very competitive environment. The learning curve in business is steep and pricey.
I have also been involved in saving/managing a small non-profit organization that had expanded payroll far beyond what the organization's revenues could support.
What newly minted employers understand that employees rarely understand is that the overhead costs of hiring even one person do not scale at first. To hire one person, even part-time, the employer needs to set up a complex infrastructure to manage the payroll taxes and accounting, and comply with a variety of statutes. If the employer does not follow the many laws regarding labor, witholding taxes, workers compensation, liability coverage, disability insurance, unemployment insurance and so on, then the employer is at risk of penalties and/or lawsuits.
If a business does $1 million in gross receipts a year and already has five employees and a manager, it's not that burdensome to hire a seventh employee--the framework is all set up. But the cost of setting all that up for employee #1 is not trivial, especially when you realize the complex machinery all has to be overseen and managed.
In the Silicon valley model, a couple of guys/gals work feverishly in the living room/garage until they have a product/service to sell to venture capital. If the pitch succeeds, the VCs give them a couple million dollars and they hire a manager to sort out all the paperwork, management, etc.
Most small businesses/proprietors don't get handed a couple million dollars. They have to grow organically, one step at a time. Each expansionist step is fraught with risks, especially when opportunities to grow revenue are few and far between and are generally crowded with competitors.
Thirty years ago the employer's share of Social Security tax was not today's 7.65%; it was much less. Worker's compensation rates were lower, as were disability and liability insurance rates. Adjusted for inflation, healthcare insurance was half (or less) of today's absurdly expensive rates. To pay someone a modest $20,000 annual salary today would cost at least $30,000 in total compensation costs, and if the employee is middle-aged or requires family healthcare coverage, it could easily exceed $40,000. That sum many be trivial in the bloated $3.7 trillion Federal government or in Corporate America, but in millions of small businesses that $40,000 is the proprietor's entire net income.
In other words, as costs of hiring anyone to do anything have climbed while revenues have stagnated, the threshold to hire an employee keeps getting higher. Back in the day, I could hire a young person out of high school for a modest cost in overhead, and the work-value they produced to justify the expense was also modest. I could afford to hire marginal workers and as long as they didn't get in the way too much and ably performed basic tasks then I could afford to have them on the payroll.
The same was true of older workers, veterans living on the beach who wanted work, etc.--I could afford to give all sorts of people a chance to prove their value because the costs and risks were low.
That's simply less true today. The costs and risks are much, much higher.
Liability has become a lottery game where anyone with assets or income is a target for "winner take all" lawsuits. I would have to be insane to hire someone to work around my property on an informal basis: if the person injured himself, I would face the risks of losing my property to the legal defense costs and potential settlements that exceed the homeowners' insurance policy.
In an office environment, I could be sued for harassment or for engendering a "stressful work environment." If you think these kinds of cases are rare, you need to get out more.
Simply put, the feeble hope of increasing revenues does not even come close to offsetting the tremendous risks created by having employees.
There's a Catch-22 aspect to all this; small business can't expand revenues without employees, but the costs/risks of having employees makes that a gamble that is often not worth taking. The lower-risk, lower-cost survival strategy is to automate everything possible in back-office work and free up the proprietor's time to grow revenues that then flow directly to the bottom line.
Managing people is not easy, and it's often stressful. Once a proprietor hires an employee, he/she must wear a number of new hats: psychiatrist/counselor, manager, coach, teacher, to name but a few. Frankly, I don't need the stress. I would rather earn a modest living from my labor and avoid all the burdens of managing people. (In my case, that included bailing workers out of jail, loaning them my truck which was subsequently rolled and destroyed, and a bunch of other fun stuff.)
I am not embittered, I am simply realistic. I enjoyed my employees' company, even the one who rolled my truck and the ones who managed to get into trouble with the law. But I got tired of meetings and all the wasted motion of office management, and I got tired of taking cash advances on my credit cards to make payroll.
If anyone out there thinks being an entrepreneur/small business proprietor is easy and a surefire pathway to the luxe life, then by all means, get out there and start a business and hire a bunch of people. I applaud your energy and drive, and sincerely hope you are wildly successful.
I hope you now understand why so many businesses only want to work with contract labor/ self-employed people: having employees no longer makes financial sense for many small enterprises. What makes sense is paying someone a set fee to accomplish a set task, and that's it, the obligation of both parties is fulfilled. If the task isn't completed, then the fee isn't paid.
Revenues just aren't steady enough in many cases to support a permanent employee. When the work comes in, then contract labor is brought in to get the work done. When it's done, they're gone, and all their overhead costs are theirs.
It's extraordinarily difficult to generate revenue in a deflationary economy, and extraordinarily difficult to scrape off a net income as expenses such as taxes, insurance, healthcare, etc. continue climbing year after year.
Self-employment places a premium on professionalism and results. Unlike offices filled with managers and employees, nobody cares about your problems, conflicts, complaints about the common-area fridge or your attendence at meetings. Once you've been self-employed for a while, and you only hire/work with other self-employed people, then you look back on conventional work places as absurdist theaters of schoolyard politics, tiresome resentments and child-parent conflicts acted out by self-absorbed adults.
Once you're self-employed, your focus shifts to nurturing a productive network of clients, customers and like-minded, reliable, resourceful self-employed people who will give you work/work for you when you need help. Building trust and following through on what you promised to do become your priority.
The economy is different now, and wishing it were unchanged from 30 years ago won't reverse the clock. We have to respond to the incentives and disincentives that exist in today's world, and those do not favor conventional permanent employees except in sectors that are largely walled off from the market economy: government, healthcare, etc.
But these moated sectors cannot remain isolated from the deflationary market economy forever, and what was considered safely walled off from risk and change will increasingly face the same market forces that have changed private-sector enterprise.
If you want security and a steady income, it may be more rewarding to build it yourself via highly networked self-employment.
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do people whistle while they work where you live, too?
No, they're too busy working and planning to just sit back and whine.
Oh Goody , they will buy a case of apples/ cigarettes etc and stand on a corner and sell them one by one with a mark up.
The unemployed are lacking only one thing as they try and survive in a Capitalist society.
CAPITAL.
Without it you can't sit at the table and play with the big dicks.
So you're saying Say's Law is wrong. And here I thought it was the LAW...!
Its fairly easy to figure:
No new customers = no new jobs.
No new jobs = no new customers.
Customers don't create jobs, products do. Products are created by creative people. Creativity requires freedom, freedom is killed by government. Therefore govt destroys jobs.
if that was a troll, that was a +100. If not, lol. you really need to stop reading them fancy books son, or at least branch out a bit. Try some Thoreau. Or Emerson. Get your mind out of the gutter of capitalism-raunch you clearly have hidden betwixt yer matresses.
Heh, Thoreau was a bit of a joke.
He squatted on someone elses land and had Mommy bring food regularly while he wrote Walden. Not exactly a man who hauled his own weight, more of a proto slacker.
He did use language well though.
why does it always come down to imagery of a man cowering on someone else's property and being brought food by mother-figures for you guys? Jeez. It's like the same insult over and over and over.
Deal with the reality you are an uncultured brute, and enjoy your brutish life, I do not begrudge you it. But fuck with Thoreau and I cut you.
It is the reality of what Thoreau did, the fact that you are such an effete little idiot that you are offended by it certainly is not my problem.
And if you are a white male over 35 your chances of getting hired are as good as those of a camel passing through a needle hole.
Logan's Run.
ha, ha, yeah, I'll be 49 in August and just shutdown my business. As self employed I don't join the 99ers and will not take any type of gov assitance. I've done many things in this amount of time and don't care about the rat race any longer.
Have fun, Bitchez!
Right there with you boss, just a year younger and out of the race for almost three years now.
I highly recommend getting out and using your time to become self sufficient.
I still make money on rentals I left behind when I was forced to 'follow the work' in IT, but I don't spend much, mostly on taxes & insurance & such
Enjoy!
I would say even for those less landed, as it were, learn a trade, and be willing to be a journeyman and free as the wind, and that's gonna be a fine life. If you can do a trade well, and are willing to be aware enough to know nwhere your trade is needed, well, that's a fine way to "cruise" as well.
I'm assuming "low overhead" is god for this kind of life. Maybe someone wants to retire with lots of property and liabilities and costs, not me. When its time to go mobile, I will, and it will be light.
Unless you're gay and are constantly the squeaky wheel.
+100 Logan's Run reference )
this complaint exists only because for multitudes of decades you've been in "favoured nation status" with the only competition being amongst yourselves,
now that employers are looking for "better bargains" when considering new hires, some of those whining aren't willing to get down off that pedestal and dirty their hands for less fiat - something the majority have been doing all their lives, as they've never had that "special" sense of "me first" bred into them.
I wasn't going to bother with a reply, but francis_sawyer posted this downthread, how could I resist. . .
hat tip francis.
I'm against discrimination.
many are. but you'll have to also realise that "white men" had the benefit of decades "discrimination" in their favour, which was perceived to be the norm because it went on for so long.
there are many more "flavours" of humans competing for the resources to survive, including jobs for income - the previously favoured demographics must learn to adapt in the way that the previously discriminated against have always done.
why do you think corporations are not hiring "white men over 35"? I'll hazard a guess: corporate is paying less, because the bottom line is always money, and they desire more compliant workers - non-white humans are more accustomed to being seen as "less than" and perhaps fit the bill better? it's more likely a combination of things, but simply being "white man over 35" doesn't disqualify everyone.
this is all about competing for resources (income) hence the recently "most favoured" are entering the fray.
Highly recommend self-employment as a consultant, which I did as a bridge until my partners and I started a clinic.
Which brings up another point: it's MUCH easier to go it alone, or start your own business, when a system like the ACA is available. Today, the right is chanting "Obamacare hurts small businesses". Bullshit. One of the most daunting aspects of ditching your corporate job, and heading off on your own, is that you're jeopardizing your family's healthcare. What if one of your kids gets a serious illness, God forbid?
The advantage I had was that my clinic is in Mass, so I didn't have that worry. In Mass, insurers can't consider a pre-existing condition (they can only know age and town of residence, in pricing your policy). And even if my business utterly failed and I got disabled for some reason, we'd have the universal Mass plan (MassHealth) to fall back on. This is the same advantage entrepreneurs in all of America's G20 competitors enjoy.
So, next time some right-winger starts claiming ACA "hurts small businesses and startups", hope you consider this other viewpoint - the one that 99% of the developed world has.
Oh dear, more liberal versus conservative drivel.
The notion that there is a difference or that voting matters is a hamster wheel pulp.
Both sides work for the banks and corporations; welcome to the plantation.
Slave/victim mentality. No one is going to fix the situation for you - your Mom can't make this all better.
If no one will hire you - get off your ass and make money on your own. Or starve - either way's fine w/me.
Here's a novel fucking idea.. STOP TAKING 50% OF WHAT I MAKE AS A SELF EMPLOYED PERSON!!!!! then maybe I can deal with the health care costs. Yeah. I tried this self employment bullshit in NY state. Yeah. holy fucking hell, I paid 47% (to be more accurate) in income taxes. I MADE LESS at the same rate as when I was employed. FUCK THAT SHIT! and fuck you if you support income taxation.
And for kicks.. fuck the rest of you who don't vote for Ron Paul.
Well, maybe you should have got a tax advisor. Between writing off my house and car and employing my kids and having a self employed 401k, I paid pretty close to zero when I was doing it for 7 years.
I'll starve.
You are talking up the benfits of a government safety net, then in the next breath using the Mom line?
What a Masshole. Considering your state is one of the top per capita recipients of flat out government grant money, thats amusing.
Check your facts, Teabagger (bet you've heard that before).
The red states are the sponges - particularly the Deep South and the interior West, and the blue states pay more in to the federal govt than they get - particularly NY, Mass, CT, California, Illinois and Ohio. It's not a big deal, our economies are so much stronger than yours, because we've made investments in education and promoting long-term innovation. And we're used to you confused assholes - no biggie.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/states-federal-taxes-spending-charts-maps
If you're talking about Mass getting more research grant money, that happens because we're smarter and harder-working.
And the success, as in Europe, are just spectacular!
Europe's problems are due to the banks being over-leveraged (aka, too lax regulation of banks).
You're flat-out wrong that their way of doing things hasnt' worked: look at the facts. Right-wingers have been screaming "The French economy gonna collapse any minute now!" since the 1960s. Instead, France has continued on as the world's 5th-largest economy, while enjoying one of the world's best universal healthcare systems (including housecalls!), free world-class university education, retirement at age sixty, and six weeks of vacation. BTW, France has one of the world's highest personal savings rates - Oh, Rush neglected to mention that? During the same period, America has gone from single working-parent families pulling ahead, to two working-parent families falling behind.
Had enough trickle down, yet?
Well, the US, as the world's bully, of course has a much larger MIC to subsidise, which doesn't help, but just because we're going broke lining the pockets of the rich doesn't mean the French have a sustainable model either. As a result of all its wealth redistribution and employee-related regulation, France consistently has much higher structural unemployment throughout the business cycle. Sure, if you're employed in France, you've got it good, but chances are much greater that you won't be employed.
You're flat-out wrong that their way of doing things hasnt' worked: look at the facts
You remind me of someone who thinks that quitting their job and spending a fortune on luxury goods via credit cards is onto a good thing.
Sure they are - until the credit gets pulled.
If we instituted even more French-style wealth redistribution things would just get even worse. Or are you incapable of understanding the thrust of CHS' post?
So, with Obamacare given the OK by SCOTUS, we are sure to be entering the GOLDEN AGE OF ENTREPRENUERISM, since God knows we have never experienced that in this country in the past since it was hindered so much without the cradle to grave nanny state.We need to follow the lead of the wise Europeans.......oh wait, too late, already are.
BigJim, liberals are pretty much incapable of understanding anything that requires more than 10 seconds worth of analysis and goes beyond like 25 years of history. They excel at talking points and slogan though. Until the reset that is, then they will be forced to live in reality one would hope.
Maybe it's not sustainable but it works pretty damn good fo the average person now. Whereas in the US it's also not sustainable and pretty bad.
Well, yes, if I spoke French, I'd probably rather live in France than the US.... if I had a job.
However, pointing out that the French system works better for the average person 'now' is irrelevant because there's no way we can get to their system from where we are now, and, even if we could, it's all going to fold within a few years anyway.
The average French citizen has historically been poorer than his counterpart in the US, largely because their debt levels and yields on sovereign debt reflected the shenanigans the French governments routinely played with the value of their currency.
Once reality re-establishes itself in the Eurozone, you can expect history to repeat itself. The best thing going for the French is that I can't see them putting up with an outright fascist police-state, which I think is what the US has to look forward to.
Rush Limbaugh is a fucking idiot whom I wish would just hurry and die already. But France isn't exactly the bastion of market capitalism, either. A lot of entrepreneuers leave places like France to come to the US or the far east. Running a startup in France makes people go insane. Also, I really think their "success" at running a mixed economy is on its last legs, unless they truly lack the oligarchy that sucks the lifeblood out of the majority of working people. Americans are having their pockets picked by government and big business--that, above all, is what needs to stop.
Much more people trying to move to France than away.
The same is true of the US, sophist, but that's only because there are a multitude of countries that are far poorer than either.
And the more generous the welfare offered to these immigrants, the more they'll attract people who are unable to flourish any other way. That's got to be good for the overall productivity and work ethos in a nation, right?
As you noted, much more percentagewise and in absolute numbers move to US so 'capitalism' is no better in this regard. Meanwhile French still get health insurance, lots of vacation, short work week, early retirement.
Yeah, those North Africans are working wonders for their society.
But savings are BAD- aren't they? That's what MMT dictates, and that can't be wrong, can it? Debt is your friend........
3 words for you - fuck the french .
Mr. PulpCutter,
Please, for your own sake, find out about something called the "broken window fallacy." When you indicate that "free" healthcare is great, you lose credibility. If armed guards come and take your stuff, and my stuff too, and then give a piece of the spoils to you, then you sing the praise of "free stuff from the government is great."
Also, don't even try the left versus right thing. It's a laugh.
MassHealth means you, me and the baker down the street are much less wealthy than if we could own property and trade with each other with no coercive force taking our stuff and then parceling it out.
I've got great news for you. There's a place with zero taxes, and zero government, already. Should be a PARADISE for you, according to your own carefully thought-out philosophy:
Somalia.
Yes, and Somalia's current woes are a direct result of the kind of socialism you appear to favour - they're a failed state after the collapse of communism there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia#Communist_rule
You want wealth redistribution? Why don't YOU head on over to North Korea? Should be a PARADISE for you, according to your own carefully thought-out philosophy
It's pretty hard to tell when an African country has socialism or capitalism. Either way the ruling tribe/clique steals everything and kills anyone who complains. No Socialism in Zimbabwe and that was rich. North Korea is a dictatorship run for the benefit of one family of crazy people.
The real problem with Somalia is that everybody and their brother are sponsering their own strongmen to try to set up a government that no-one there wants. That is the source of the violence there, including al-Qaeda and the UN-backed prime minister of three and a half city blocks.
Picking Somalia as an example of how bad libertarian or anarchic ideas are is like picking Yugoslavia to point out how bad Democracy is.
The real problem with Somalia is that it's full of Africans.
Thank you for that analysis, Mohammed Longshanks.
a much more efficient solution would be to offload some of that affection you have for your children, no? Seems you just made some *huge* course decisions based on something that happened no doubt to a much younger -- and more naive -- you, and moreover grows increasingly untenable as a long term put.
Offload the kids dude. The pang fades, and anyway, eventually they even stop talking to you and you just move on.
Dear prospective employer,
If all you have to offer is a few measly clownbux for my pay then forget it! :i quit: :P
But I thought Flipping Houses is the future? Steady income and they "never go down."
You would see growth in economy if the IRS would allow 'employees' to be 1099 indy contractors OR W-2.... W-2 doesn't make sense for my biz, but, it is the only 'option.'
I required all of my employees to establish their own LLCs. I paid for the paperwork trail. They are all 1099.......forever. I refuse to feed the beast.
Why LLCs? Why not S-corps and then have the ability, if possible, to avoid a portion of self employment taxes?
But yes, this is where it's going... everyone has their own J6P, LLC (or other limited liability entity) and they just do independent contractor work for their previous employer(s)... many, many fields are like this already... and only getting more prolific.
Another reason I quit the rat race. They were slowly stripping away any reason to stay, without increasing pay. When they dropped my healthcare they gave me a pay bump to make up for it, but as they stripped away everything else they were trying to decrease pay too.. I finally said fuck it when they wanted me to go LLC and take a 5k cut.
"Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else..."
~Tyler Durden
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/13485882/dead-market
Yes, keep offering these explanations. It will just end, sooner or later, with your face being eaten by unemployed hungry zombies. The first and final act of every democracy is the massive use of the guillotine.
Indeed, as Plato, Polybius and all those other guys observed, democracies collapse when the productive get tired of having their property confiscated by the government on behalf of 'the people':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyklos
Right, the people favor policies and personalites that reflect their own untamed and supressed desires. So they love the little man who shouts freom the balcony, or, the little man who promises them happy dreams into forever land. etc.
And right, this nonsesnse -- and it is nonsense, when it is so grossly relentless and unchecked -- eventually proves so unworkable, so maddenly unrealistic, and yet, the half sensible individual, the sober person who can reckon basic math I fear, and who is also generally well-skilled and talented and hard working, and of course also lucky, well, they get tired of having to be asked, in effect, to foot this nonsense in perpetuum.
And so they give up, as you say. "The best lack all conviction..."
So the system breaks down. But what exactly went wrong? Where is the cockup? Is it... democracy itself?
<gasp>
the end game of the 40 year ponzi (or perhaps 99 years)
Small business owner. IMHO this long tirade should be distilled down to "without clear (and reasonably forecastable) demand for my products & services, it's too risky to hire you."
All the chaff about lawsuits and taxes and whatnot are just emotional distractions: if customer DEMAND was there, those would not be gating factors to hiring -- and furthermore, "solving" those factors does not result in demand (and thus hiring).
I'm not sure why this is so hard for people to grasp. Perhaps it's because they live in the world of theory and academics, rather than in the "grind it our as a business owner" reality.
Demand is not a binary state.
True, but the most recent rate of change sure makes it look binary.
Customer demand would increase if the employees were giving less of their compensation for working to bureaucrats.
and most defiantely do NOT ever hire minorites or women with big breasts........those are lawsuit ticking time bombs
once worked for a fortune 100 outfit that gave us booklets once a year that detailed our compensation and the cost to employ us. the firm was justified in their education efforts but undermined employee goodwill given that the firm made front page wsj news for their notoriously low compensation versus industry metrics. not saying that employees were justified in their attitude. i'm simply relaying the response. of course, it was a different era: dot bomb era. still, employees need to know the cost of compensation even if they don't like inconvenient truths about the tremendous costs of doing business in the usa.
Once was handed a booklet detailing the new retirement policy. Anything less than 5K cashed out.
Anything OVER 5K were converted to a Annuity.
Workers had no say in it.
Except one who was elevated to a position of managing these annuities at a rate of 56K a year salary.
Now here's a man (CHS) who knows how shit works!
Something I noticed being self-employed for 12 years, ended this June 30th. The products I purchased from manufacturers to resell to clients, has gone downhill since the depression started in 2008. I noticed that the products I purchased after 2008 are breaking more often and using cheaper parts. This made my job more difficult and stressful as I'm the one getting the blame from my clients for the manufacturers coming out with inferior products. I'm glad to be getting out now. I don't need the stress.
Edit: By the way, you should see the closing form I have to submit to the taxing authority to close my business. It's like trying to quit the Mafia.
Fuck it. Just stop sending shit in. That's what I did.... twice.
That gets you a couple thousand a year in fines in my state if you had employees.
yep, I read post on here or somewhere, where the state of Cali went into someones bank account without aurhtorization from the account holder and stole money from them. Even when they didn't owe any taxes. This has happened to I don't know how many people. I'm closing my Wells Fargo business account before I leave, going back to my Credit Union.
Edit: By the way, you should see the closing form I have to submit to the taxing authority to close my business. It's like trying to quit the Mafia.
Holy shit isn't that the truth, you have no idea how embroiled you become in the macanations of the state untill you run your own Business.
"business" is their domain, you only operate within their licensed reality, and pay for the privilege of doing so.
sftrue on this
I played poker for primary income for 2.5 years; it was a pain in the ass, but it taught me fiscal responsibility and patience because, luck is so much of a factor in a negative sum environment, which poker is. And to a point, even self employment. You never know when the bad run is going to hit, so when you get that big score, pay down, save, and stick to your bankroll management.
Unfortunately, most players move up in stakes (and not rolled for it; or even worse, go into debt to do so) or overspend (you really don't need that Ferrari).
The office-serfdom really kills me; especially since the Baby Boomers who are now the "Manager" class were taught to spin the hampster wheel as hard as they could (with a smile on their face).
Work has changed (complicated due to logisitics, timing, globalization, internet); people have changed (stressed; personal issues that are really out of their control); and the legal (trial lawyers) and income (stagnating wages, deflation->inflation) environment has changed. Plus, nepotism is a HUGE problem in corporate America, and creates not only office divisions and spite, but also fail (only 30% of nstitutions who used nepotistic hiring practices succeed....and exclude the mom-and-pop restaurant and stores, I'm talking publicly traded LLCs).
A buck just doesn't go as far as it used to.
I always find it hysterical that employers in the pirvate sector that don't deal with any security or high-level product/jobs, drug test, however. It's detrimental b/c a) you are payign fo the drug test and B) the majority of your IT professionals, America.......they smoke pot.
And if they don't; they are probably Indian.
I've read quite a few poker books and many of the authors will tell you to move up in stakes as quickly as you can. I think that's crazy. Poker is the god damndist hardest game I ever did play. Maybe what they should be saying is don't play the game at all. But then I'd miss out on all that misery.
"There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. It is enough to make one ashamed of our species." Mark Twain
pity those "drug tests" don't include amrka's favourite pharma drugs - mood altering / managing, anti-anxiety, depressants - all those phama cattle prods designed to keep people in line, unquestioning, "happy face" drones.
there's yer drug habits, "pot" is for law enforcement profits, and all the parasites that hang in/on their clubs.
this too will pass.
with central banking and fiat money, what you get is: growth -> growth -> growth -> growth -> total collapse. (again and again). its not "fair" - but there's really no such thing as fair. the last generation in (people born 1965-1985) who were the last generation to buy assets get wiped out as assets plummet and debt remains - but that's just how it works. you just never know when the music is going to stop playing and the buzzer goes off.
20 years or so from now - once the collapse is over and dust has settled, there will be a new cylce of growth. Then, people, and business, and governemnts will start borrowing again and - shazam - a new cycle of growth -> growth -> growth .... until it collapses again. there is no use complaining about it now. and it is uselss to "blama obama" or anyone else in politics. what do you want him to do - go out and explain to the public that it was all a ponzi scheme the whole time and they got tricked fair and square?
better to prepare for economic collapse - and use it as an opportunity to purge waste and inefficiency from the system. so long as you're debt free, and have a couple $ million in cash saved up, and not dependent upon "income" - you're going to be okay. the collpase isn't permanent. 50 years from now, this will be viewed as just another "depression" - and most people will forget about "growth -> growth -> growth -> growth -> total collapse"
So what you're basically saying is that there will be "growth in the spring"
~~~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgGvd1UPZ88
The American Spring.
I like to watch.
...so long as you're debt free, and have a couple $ million in cash saved up, and not dependent upon "income" - you're going to be okay.
LOL. Reminds me of the recipe for rabbit pie: First, catch a rabbit...
Couple million $ in cash saved up? You think that'll still buy you much after our lords and masters wear out the "print" button?
Those who know how to make stone soup never go hungry.
That's gonna take way to long.
In my mind, I think this coming collapse will usher in the New World Order and one world government and it ain't going to be pretty.
Cost of doing business>< Productivity squeezed to the hilt... The makings for angry masses!
In the future, and even now, one must add value to their employer or for their clients, in anything one does, whether a lawyer, banker, doctor or an engineer or a plumber or a construction worker etc. If one does not provide more value to an organisation than one is paid, then, he/she will be laid off, if it has not already happened, because costs are very high of not only overheads but HR/Finance/Operations etc to just run the show and becoming increasingly unprofitable for big and small enterprises alike.
All landlords who have no leverage or mortgage, are unwilling to bring rentals down any further and due to foreclosures and severe reductions in real estate valuations globally, more property including office space becomes even more 'stuck' on a fully cash basis, at higher rental values since cost of holding such as property taxes and maintenance etc continues to remain high and hence restricts business formation due to high rentals, for example.
This is a drag on the future economy and will create a moribund economy which will neither be alive nor dead. They call is stagnant, these days, which is politically correct!
The drag on the economy is a bloated and tyrannical government. Wear your many colored parachute, I threw mine away.
Stay focused and stay in your own area of expertise....
imho, I think that used to be true. I think now, one has to be flexible and mobile. Even in my own time I held many different types of unrelated jobs as needed.
The drag on the economy is a bloated and tyrannical government.
Only on the middle class, which I believe the government is trying to destroy, destroying middle class incomes by sending middle class jobs overseas, letting foreigners come in and undercut Anerican middle class workers, giving employers incentives to reject American workers and hire foreigners, putting small businesses out of business, then destroying middle class wealth with heavy taxes, financial frauds and ripoffs at every turn like MF Global, while debasing the currency, stealing middle class wealth right out of their pockets.
Even if you're making 200k a year, you're still gonna watch your wealth drain away by currency debasement if nothing else.
Only by keeping your wealth, however much or little it is, in some form Bernanke can't debase with his printing press, do you have any hope of keeping what you have.
But your paycheck is in dollars. Steadily debasing dollars. Debasing faster than any raises you get. So your income is dropping in real terms.
There's nothing you can do about that. Unless your income rises faster than the currency is debasing. But then you pay higher taxes.
You're fucked on the income side. Just plain fucked. And it's gonna get worse as time goes along.
There's a little you can do on the wealth side to keep what you have. Until they figure out how to steal all of it.
You can kiss your 401k, IRA, etc goodbye. They're gonna grab it sooner or later. Any wealth you have in a government controlled investment, account, etc, is gonna be stolen sooner or later.
You can kiss social security goodbye. In a few years it'll be gutted down to nothing, and what little you do get will be debased down to nothing.
You can forget healthcare. In a few years Obamacare will destroy the healthcare industry. You'll spend big bucks for it and get nothing for it. Obamacare is just another insurance scam, making huge bucks for insurance companies while service is steadily reduced, just another way to rip off the middle class.
If you're in the middle class, you're targeted for looting by your own government, taking everything you have eventually.
I don't know why the government would want to destroy the middle class. Unless they wana take America into a feudalistic society of rich and poor.
equalising pay / income. . . globally.
this feedlot is ready for slaughter, others are still in the "raising for taxation" status.
assess where you stand, and reinforce accordingly.
if you want to go with the "gambling" meme, just realise the players are cashing in their chips at THIS casino, and re-grouping down the road at a casino with better "pay outs' - nothing personal, y'know.
He does nail it. Due to all the government requirements and regulations, hiring is like taking a poisen pill and hoping things work out.
The right to work and anti discriminatory laws have been so bastarized by the legal profession that they are no longer workable in a capitalistic society. When a business owner can be sued for "anything" by an employee, then the risk is way too great to hire.
If these idiots in Congress want to generate jobs, then exempt small businesses under 25 employees from these antiquated, biased and BS laws and let them get back to work. If a business owner wants to pick and choose who he/she hires or fires, then they shouldn't have to worry about getting sued. Liability has become one of the main reasons that small businesses won't hire. The business owner is taking all the risks of opening and running the business and the employees should have no say in how it's handled. If their feelings are hurt, then they can quit.
Too bad the idiots in DC will never get it. They are too worried about being politically correct........
The regulations act as a subsidy for large corporations - that is why they're i) expanded yearly, and ii) actually written by... corporate lobbyists.
Act as a barrier to entry - +1
Anyone can be sued by anyone about anything. Nothing special about business owners. Probably a lot more people got sued for fake whiplash claims then employee lawsuits.
Unfortunately, this could've been my post before I was rear ended by a little old lady doing 60 while I was stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway. I have a whole new appreciation of soft tissue injury.
BTW, HD's workman's comp insurance carrier is pathetic, not to mention their Kaiser appointed, Fiji educated Indian physician trained to be purposefully blind to otherwise obvious correlating injuries. I can hardly wait for the rest of the US voting public to enjoy what I've been privaleged to endure these last 6 months.
then do all the work yourself and stop crying !!!
the cost all in for labor is "significantly" less than 30 years ago except for health insurance - people are more producitve than 30 years ago and the government is not a problem
i never was concerned about cost or lawsuits when putting a team together over many businesses and 1,000's of workers - the main consideration was "always" the same - whether the revenue was sustainable
you are a bullshit guy in a non-profit - dont call yourself an employer - you are a complete waste
All future business's will limit themselves to 50 or less employees. The work required will be sub-contracted out. You can already see this happening at all the Big Box Outlets and Grocery Stores. They no longer hire shelf stockers. Those jobs are now done by people that contract with the Big Box Outlets and Grocery Stores to provide product and keep it on the shelves. Manufacturers will do the same and some have been doing it for many years. At one time I worked in a Machine Shop where I leased a machine and contracted the job that was done on that machine. Essentially I was self employed. This will become standard practice in all business's as no one can compete when they must provide health care insurance for their (50+) employees. People in the future will "Job Hunt" by submitting bids to contract a job.
Long-John-Silver wrote:
Actually, this has already happened in France, where it has been the standard business practice for years due to the costs of having more than 50 employees. In France, many entrepreneurs have a dozen or more corporations, each of which has just 48 or 49 employees -- for the purpose of skirting France's laws, including the complex labor laws.
-- Paul D. Bain
paulbain@pobox.com
I just noticed those people with vendor vests the other day at Lowe's.
The company I worked for began doing this with local vendors 10 years ago. They would deliver, cycle count, stock, etc. Some were put on Kan-ban so we did not get billed until the parts were already in a product. Reduced cost, eliminated inventory space and expense, and improved cash flow. Anything to be better than the competition.
Here in central OH bus drivers, who average $63K per yr with great benefits, are striking and just rejected a 7% increase over 3 yrs. The contract lowered pension contributions for the company by 2%, but maintained health benefits that are growing at a double-digit rate. Nearly every picketer is overweight.
Why not just rent the bus to them each day as with a taxi driver and let them run their bus route as profitably as they can? Day 1, costs would drop by at least 30%.
Bingo, supply chain is being leased also to eliminate on premise head count as we speak.
You'd think a business-wiz, country club Republican like Romney would be able (or at least want) to articulate the huge disincentives involved in having employees.
Not only the labor market, but the nanny staters (French-like US politicians) are screwing up the mortgage markets with regulations. See California's anti-foreclosure legislation guaranteed to reduce credit to minorities.
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/california-passes-new-foreclosure-protections-harming-those-most-that-it-means-to-help/
I guess everything is relative......... Not a big deal but I'm trying to fill 35 openings for skilled forklift operators, I guess we could train but we run such a low profit margin we can't afford too. I have to screen 200-300 to find them. $11.00 per hour is better then unemployment is it not?
Contract those Forklift jobs. Fire all current Forklift operators and offer them to submit bids for contract operation of those Forklifts. You'll also need to lease the Forklift to the person that submits the lowest bid to operate that Forklift. If they don't like it they can go somewhere else. You'll have many people more than willing to operate your Forklifts.
I wonder why people are junking me? Because I have job openings?
This.
So because you (or your management team) failed to plan for necessary human resources, failed do any form of risk assesment regarding talent acquisition, or failed to invest in a skills-development plan or traing program, now, suddenly, you expect the market to provide you with a "needed" skill-set at a price-point which is acceptable to you?
Get a clue: "Somebody else" is not going to train your workforce for you. Develop a training program for new-hires, offer more money to attract existing talent, or do without.
As a business person I see us as doomed. The longer we deal with what would seem impossible odds, it is used as an indicator of how utterly corrupt and insane we are. We must either be megalomaniacs secretly wanting to rule the world or just so insanely greedy we will take any risk and endure any hardship to make the almighty dollar. The liberals only tolerate us as they need access to the money, products and services we provide, but never the less see us as corrupt and will not respect us for the same reason many of us would not respect a beggar. We will humiliate ourselves to suffer the illusion of freedom that self-employment provides. I don't think i can take much longer. Its time to change from the ant to the grasshopper, as the majority demands.
There is as much red tape in going to work for yourself as there is in hiring an employee. Neither is made easy. We are meant to be funneled into corporate automaton cubicle farms.
People will create Business's that provide services for the self employed worker. The worker walks into the business where they can obtain the required business licenses and will provide tax services. They will be able to work both sides by charging Business's to list open contracts for jobs. A person can walk in the business and be provided everything they need to find a contracted job and be guaranteed to be paid.
"guaranteed to be paid"
Are you joking or do you live in an alternate universe?
There are employee leasing services where they find the appropriate Workers Comp Insurance policy, make sure that payroll taxes are paid, issue payroll checks to employees and offer Human Resources Services like Group Health and Life Insurance policies to your employees, if they are so inclined -- we never did that. It's generally done for a fee that amounts to about 25% to 33% on top of payroll -- it's the Workers Comp that gets you.
As for licensing, you're on your own because local and state bureaucracy is a bitch and each must be dealt with in person.
But guaranteed payment? Not sure what you mean there.
Why the completely negative spin in your presentation? Your ultimate conclusion -- that being self-employed is actually a viable alternative to constantly seeking a "job," and the life of a self employed person is better, is actually good news. I wholeheartedly agree with it.
The whole framework of employer/employee relationships in this country has totally screwed the employees over the past three decades. It creates the illusion of stability while making people more vulnerable. Sure, it's rough being a small employer (I am one, and payroll, etc. is a gawdaweful mess from hell) but it's also utter misery being an "employee" having to depend on that one teat for your livelihood your whole life.
Look at all of the people who had "jobs" for decades, who are now being screwed out of pensions and benefits they were promised in exchange for the most productive years of their lives. Do we want to go back to that crap? Those who still have "jobs" are so dependent on this one "job" they keep taking it from behind, rather than standing up for themselves. That's no way to live.
We should stop trying to enable this absurdly imbalanced system where some people are "employers" holding all of the cards, and the vast majority are "employees" who pray every night for a good economy so they can "keep their jobs."
I must be in the wrong business. You really hold all of the cards? Employees are dependant on me for a job to some point, but on the other hand they can accept an offer from a competitor and be gone by lunch. I have had to make commitments to customers that must be met or my business, referal based, is done. Further, the worst my employee has to face is the loss of a job. If my income goes to hell, i can't just pick up and find a job. For one, no one wants to hire a pereson who has been self employeed for 30 years. Secondly I have a building and loans and taxes that i can't just walk away from. If i'm holding all the cards, its one shitty deck. Most people i know who have had their businesses fail ended up in debt for years trying to dig their way out.
Apologies regarding my mixing of two different situations.
Situation one, your situation, is a small employer/employee situation. That relationship is tough as hell for the employer, as I am well aware. Not trying to imply that being a small business owner puts you in the same shoes as Smithers on The Simpsons.
Situation two involves people who look for "jobs" rather than trying to be self-employed. The idea of a "job" as a secure postion is becoming obsolete. Even for those working for "stable" companies or the government are getting screwed. Yes, being self-employed involves risks and stresses, but at least those are out on the table. At least you aren't "hired" by someone pretending they have your best interest at heart, while they have you sign away the majority of your productive life for a fixed hourly wage. Those are the people who "hold all the cards" in that particular relationship.
Can an employee skip over to another employer? Well sure, but there's a race-to-the-bottom going on in terms of benefits and stability. You're likely just going to hop ship to another employer who's just as bad, and they're all justifying this based on being "competitive." Which is true, but it doesn't change the fact that "employees" need to get they hell out of that sick, twisted relationship for good.
Just about everyone is looking for security. I feel the self employed are grounded in the reality that personal security can only be derived from yourself, while the employee seeks their security from others (not always a good choice as you stated). The strongest society is one well grounded in risk. The greatest danger comes from the concealment of risk or dellusion of security. As Ayn Rand would say, A is A, and any turning away from that fact is willing self destruction. Trusting your security to another, regardless of whom, but especially of government, is to put the gun against your head, betting the chamber to be empty. How long can our luck hold out?
Indeed. There's a reason the vast majority of these 'downtrodden' employees never actually get around to starting a business themselves.
And with 16% unemployment, you can't find new employees? Average of 300 applicants to any job posted on the internet within one hour according to my kid's college placement "service". Even McDonalds gets dozens of applicants for every job.
There will be no competition for big employers until the small guys can cut spending on government mandated services. The big multi nationals get their competative advantage from economies of scale. As this article explains much of this advantage comes from hiring costs.
I have only had a fee ICs work with me over the past 25+ years and I don't have your experience of hiring 1,000s of employees, but I agree with the author that it is difficult to scale up in this environment. Our fees have compressed and expenses have increased ($600+ for 4 cartridges for the color laser printer) - it is easier and for the moment more profitable to do it myself... have 2 children graduating from college and I hire them if they want to take over the business, but not hirning anyone else's kids..
not hirning anyone else's kids..
Not a good sign (and I am not criticizing) but I understand.
This is not a lack of confidence your words, but a total lack of faith which is a REALLY bad sign for all of us.
(Note: I do not mean faith in the Faith sense here)
The whole damn business mind is in Hyper-Only-If-We-Have-No-Choice-Mode.
Its sad QQQ. Sad and only an algo could like it.
How many employees were you planning to hire if the cartridges cost $400 instead of $600?
Employers are going to push more into 25 hour work weeks to avoid Obamacare and other regs. Everyone will need to work two 25 hour jobs. The market will manuever around the regs -- as it should.
I have a friend that moved here from Syria, legally, in 2005, he went to University in Germany in the '60's and a very smart gentleman. He has become disillusioned about the United States since 2008. He works nights at a Chevron in a bad part of town. Since the start of the Depression, he has to work for 2 employees, loss and reduced benefits.
I feel sorry for my friend. Oh, and he is 68 years old.
Fuck him... He's not a unique snowflake...
As someone who left a cabinetry job in 2010 to go into business for myself, this article clearly demonstrates why I will not hire until this system fails. I left the cabinetry job because I realized I could not provide a reasonable standard of living for my future children unless I joined the Government dole.
The USSA is fucked until we cut the gubmint by more than 50%.
I have a friend, graduate from MIT, smart as they come. He went through a messy divorce and was still living here for awhile doing some gigs. But he sold his soul to move to DC and work for a government agency. He called me a while back and lamented about the false reality he lives in since moving to DC. No amount of money would make me take a gov. job, I'd rather die than work for the system.
Pssst. If you have been paying any taxes, then you are working for the system.
yep, but I have my own ways of giving them as little as possible. Living small, my friend.
One can live very well in a small home and easily cut property taxes in half. More land, more garden, less house. Less house, lower utility bills. Lower total cost of living, less income needed. Less income, lower income taxes. Less consumerism, less sales tax.
You don't have to be a recluse or a prepper, or give up creature comforts, or cheat on taxes to live well on much less money.
Here's one foreign example, but the same approach applies in the U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21j_OCNLuYg&feature=player_embedded#
"one" can live on less very well.
a "few" can work together to live in "tiny houses" pooling resources and efforts to garden, raise foods, etc. - shared land with those of like mind, living on "less" for a "more" full life.
random, but fairly typical "tiny house" story. . .
http://tinyhouseblog.com/yourstory/keras-tiny-fortune-cookie/
The US is 5% of Earth's population that consumes 25% of oil (19 million barrels per day) and 80% of Pharma pills. They're intentionally slowing the beast down, and, using their own language, aiming for a "soft landing" of all major empires. Food prices are the wild card in this game.
"Like" the Mark David Show
We can't hire you because our CEO makes 40x as much as everyone else.
The End.
Once you include stock options, perks and Golden Parachute retirement packages it is more like 250 times as much.
During a boom cycle like the 90s to early 2000s the compensation is somewhere like 300 to 400+ times as much as an average worker.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/05/ratio-ceo-worker-co...
Another thing, I wouldn't work for a Corporation. It astounds me, perhaps not, how people run this rat race. It's all an illusion. Wake UP!
How do you eat? And do you have to support others as in family?
good question, my friend, divorced, so just myself to support, for the past three years I have traded food for work. So I haven't bought grociers since then unless I wanted something extra.
I think we should hone our batering skills for the coming collapse.
Oh, and the Internet usage is also from my friend, down the hall from my office. I have a cat 5 cable strung down the hall to his office and DSL modem.
Jeez: you just described my life til Mrs. Questions II came along.
Lovely Blonde Demon!
Back in the cube again, but at least the boss is awake.
And the Mrs. II too.
Only 40x? What a piker.
Barney Feith, CEO
Must've had his bullets taken away.
Yeah, it's not that the "job creators" are leveraging the cheap labor market by hiring 1099s and temp workers....naw, they aren't looking to increase their profits....they just can't afford to pay you.
I mean ignore the fact that corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars in profits and refuse to hire. Or that they are moving to Asia and other cheap labor markets. IGNORE THAT, because in reality they just can't afford to hire people at a living wage! REALLY, BELIEVE ME. It's not selfish greed, it's that these companies are tapped....yeah thats it.
I love the arrogance of the author as if we all depend on him to hire us.
There is a slight difference between workers and businesses, the businesses have more capital and are organized. But in the end there is little disguinshed between a worker and a business.
Both are looking for demand. An independent worker is a business.
I don't understand why we give so much benefit to a business. It's demand that should be given special treatment. Workers aren't some taundry bunch that need businesses.
In fact I find it amusing that business owners can whine like a little bitch about their "revenues" and everyone has sympathy, but workers are lazy bums when they whine about min wages.
If you think being in business is tough, get out. Someone will take your place. Again, there isn't much difference between a business and workers. They're both just looking for work to do.
Where do you shop? Do you like low prices? Do you look for the best deal when you buy a car or the lowest gas price when it is time to fill up?
If you do not do any of these things, you are a fool.
If you do, then you are no different than any other business owner.
You can voluntarily, be compelled or legally obligated to pay/provide higher than market wages/bennies. It is either charity or theft.
Which one?
sschu
Hey, I'm not the one saying "I'd love to pay you a living wage, but I can't".
I'm also not saying "hey, I'd love to pay you 5 times the price but I can't".
Just be honest, you aren't hiring permanent workers because you're trying to leverage cheap workers. It has nothing to do with the cost of paying a living wage.
In other words, if we eliminated all the taxes the author is whining about, he'd still be hiring illegal immigrants, 1099s and contractors. Why? Because it makes him money.
what a load of shit, People can be paid a livable wage without some major product inflation. Costco does it, why cant walmart? Oh thats right, walmarts fucking do nothing owners each need 25 billion, while their workers work and still need medicare.
Who decides what a "livable wage" is?
sschu
oh please standard of living is easily found via accepted mathmatical formulas based on cost.
Nice response, but you miss the point entirely. The question is who, not how. I can assume that you mean someone from the government should decide and hence mandate what your wage will be based upon this formula. But it is just a guess that this is your train of thought.
We have this now, I pay "prevailing wage" for certain types of construction work where the payer is the government. So it costs all of us $46.00 / hour for basic construction, demo, light carpentry, cleanup. This labor is of course available on the open market for about $20 / hour.
So if what you mean by "livable wage" is dictated by law, then we know where you stand. This mindset is one of the reasons we are at this juncture.
But of course it is all the fault of evil and greedy corporations. You are no different than them in so many ways, you want to leverage the government to your advantage. I want the government out of it, let me as the business owner decide what I want to pay and what I want to charge. Please, just leave me alone.
sschu
OK,
But, you can bid the .gov contract based on the prevailing wage, no? And at $46/hr is this total burden?
And, certain major trade lines are exempt (steel), for example as of late. But nevertheless the O/P line can be set proportionally so having a client that demands you bid up from poverty wages only benefits you.
Seen this lately with USDA funded projects myself, the GCs are not crying. Especially those who can buyout the sub contracts well.
The who should be the voter, of course, but we are a far cry from unity so, you'll get to the keep the $20 hr worker and all that comes with a wage below liveable.
I only say this because I know lots of GC's with initial sticker shock at the regs, but then get to see a way through, and live to build another day.
dumb ass question & waste of time to reply...
Lighten up, Francis...
in NJ, we never have to pump our gas, there is an attendant, and yet .. wait for it... we pay some of the lowest prices in the country.