180 bucks a day, no skill, nothing

[thor66]

"In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly"

Denis, you left out a huge inheritance.

[rusnak]

There is something about human nature, that when you pay people to not work, they don't want to work.

The so-called bail out money, or whatever you want to call it, is causing employers to find that their normal staff don't want to work. I tried to hire two people from a competitor. I found they were absolutely worthless. They were accustomed to calling out of their shift. The employer would not fire them because he can't get anyone to come work for him. So naturally I fired them both. My tenants, from the nail salon to the kebab restaurant, coffee shop, teppanyaki place and on and on - can not fill their payroll with reliable staff.

I just wonder after reading this thread if that has caused the illegal labor market to experience higher demand, and therefore higher pay?

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by speeder

I always laugh at people who complain about the price of labor, especially in CA. and other places where it's been so artificially depressed for decades due to cheap, imported workers. Take a moment to ponder what a crew of ditch diggers working in the hot sun for 10 hours and showing up on time, (or even showing up at all), would cost if there were no migrants from Latin America and you had to rely on native born Americans. In a time of extremely expensive everything, which it would be if not for cheap labor.

As Heidi Fleiss famously said when someone complained about her prices, "Do it yourself."

Do it yourself for a couple of days and get back to me on a fair rate. Take your judgements about the people you're hiring out of it and how little you think they should work for, because they have "no skills." HTF do you know what their skills are? You probably can't even have a conversation with them, due to your lack of language skills.

I just paid someone to put rear brake pads on my Jetta wagon yesterday, because I did not feel like doing it myself. I can change brake pads in my sleep and spent all last week on the ground or bent over working on a car. Because I did not want to wreck my back further, and because I'm old and have a lot more $$ than time, I paid a shop to install them. I'm about to go on a trip and I just did not feel like doing it. The best $80 I spent all week. It helps that the guy I paid to do it is one of the only people on earth that I would trust to do a better brake job than me. I am beyond meticulous as a mechanic and especially on brakes and safety related items.

He is Mexican, fwiw. Born in East LA and as American as they come but thoroughly Mexican. Smarter than about 99% of the posters here, based on the written word, anyhow. His brother graduated at the top, and I mean the top of his class from Yale University. From a very working class background. Marco, the professional mechanic, is as polite and intelligent a young man as you will ever meet. He is employed by my close friend at his high-end Mercedes-Benz shop, probably his most valuable employee. They normally get $120 labor alone to do brake pads on one axle but I get the buddy deal. On most other days, I'd gladly put pads on someone's car for $80 an axle, just not yesterday. They are the annoying, rotating piston type, fwiw.

Higher wages for people at the bottom of the labor pool is the absolutely best thing for the economy, it's a proven fact. Anyone w half a brain understands this...it's both the cause of and a result of a very healthy economy.

Wait a second.

You said that it's better to pay people MORE than they are getting now, then you paid a guy $80 for what is worth $220? (include $100 for parts).

How can you complain about employers when you get the so-called buddy deal? Does that not make you a hypocrite?

Can you explain how a mandatory increase in the minimum wage does not cause artificial inflation? And can we stipulate that inflation is the enemy of an economy?

[speeder]

Originally Posted by rusnak

Wait a second.

You said that it's better to pay people MORE than they are getting now, then you paid a guy $80 for what is worth $220? (include $100 for parts).

How can you complain about employers when you get the so-called buddy deal? Does that not make you a hypocrite?

Can you explain how a mandatory increase in the minimum wage does not cause artificial inflation? And can we stipulate that inflation is the enemy of an economy?

You need to work on your reading skills, as well as your economic knowledge. Nowhere did I write, or even suggest that someone at a shop installed a set of brake pads on my car and also supplied the pads for $80.00. I wrote that he installed them. And that the regular price was $120, not $220. I had the pads and did not feel like installing them.

As for higher wages causing inflation, it's never happened in the United States. We've had tons of inflation and we're having it now, none of it caused by wages. Especially the minimum wage. That's an ignorant argument, sorry.

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by speeder

You need to work on your reading skills, as well as your economic knowledge. Nowhere did I write, or even suggest that someone at a shop installed a set of brake pads on my car and also supplied the pads for $80.00. I wrote that he installed them. And that the regular price was $120, not $220. I had the pads and did not feel like installing them.

As for higher wages causing inflation, it's never happened in the United States. We've had tons of inflation and we're having it now, none of it caused by wages. Especially the minimum wage. That's an ignorant argument, sorry.

Oh I see. I am supposed to read your mind. That makes sense now. You must be one of those...let's see now.....rich, busy (no time to change brake pads), elderly, lazy (didn't FEEL like changing brake pads), meticulous, mechanical genius Americans who can change brakes in his sleep and, and oh yes add mind reading to that also. You did not WRITE anything about supplying the brake pads but I was supposed to READ that. Read your mind, that is.

Denis the mind-reading mechanical genius who is rich and old and lazy and throws money around to raise up the poor non-mind reading Americans.

And let's not forget you are an economic expert on Socialism who can make $$ magically appear out of his ass, so you can pay a higher wage without passing that cost on to customers. Yes now you seem so much less wrong-headed.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by rusnak

Oh I see. I am supposed to read your mind. That makes sense now. You must be one of those...let's see now.....rich, busy (no time to change brake pads), elderly, lazy (didn't FEEL like changing brake pads), meticulous, mechanical genius Americans who can change brakes in his sleep and, and oh yes add mind reading to that also. You did not WRITE anything about supplying the brake pads but I was supposed to READ that. Read your mind, that is.

Denis the mind-reading mechanical genius who is rich and old and lazy and throws money around to raise up the poor non-mind reading Americans.

And let's not forget you are an economic expert on Socialism who can make $$ magically appear out of his ass, so you can pay a higher wage without passing that cost on to customers. Yes now you seem so much less wrong-headed.

Wow...you have issues. I wrote very clearly what I was paying for, LABOR. The topic here is LABOR, not the price of brake pads. I said that paid someone $80 to INSTALL brake pads. You don't need to be a mind reader to understand that, all you need to be able to do is read. Only the black parts of the page, if that helps. Don't invent your own story about what I, (or anyone else), wrote, it was clear.

As for being an economic expert, once again, all you need to do is read. But it's important to read only what is written, not fill in a bunch of BS from your noodle and pretend that's what you read. The studies regarding higher wages and economic impact are legion, in fact, you will never find one that says the opposite. Only ignorant statements on the internet and from bar stool companions who also do not read.

[rusnak]

^ Denis, even Russia is transitioning to a market based economy. Socialism is alive and well only in the minds of the disenfranchised and now elderly hippies who pine for the heady days of the 1960s when you could imagine a different world, and people would happily go along with your brilliant ideas. But in reality, costs are costs. That is what you should be "reading" about "labor" in this thread. But I digress. The real point is that we need to just all agree with you all the time.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by rusnak

^ Denis, even Russia is transitioning to a market based economy. Socialism is alive and well only in the minds of the disenfranchised and now elderly hippies who pine for the heady days of the 1960s when you could imagine a different world, and people would happily go along with your brilliant ideas. But in reality, costs are costs. That is what you should be "reading" about "labor" in this thread. But I digress. The real point is that we need to just all agree with you all the time.

You don't need to agree with me and I apologize if my tone was huffy. We just need to understand each other better, so we know what we're disagreeing with. Higher wages are not socialism, not at all. Unless you are paying people for not working.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by speeder

You don't need to agree with me and I apologize if my tone was huffy. We just need to understand each other better, so we know what we're disagreeing with. Higher wages are not socialism, not at all. Unless you are paying people for not working.

You were a lot nicer when you were in WI. L.A. is tough.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by rusnak

Oh I see. I am supposed to read your mind. That makes sense now. You must be one of those...let's see now.....rich, busy (no time to change brake pads), elderly, lazy (didn't FEEL like changing brake pads), meticulous, mechanical genius Americans who can change brakes in his sleep and, and oh yes add mind reading to that also. You did not WRITE anything about supplying the brake pads but I was supposed to READ that. Read your mind, that is.

Denis the mind-reading mechanical genius who is rich and old and lazy and throws money around to raise up the poor non-mind reading Americans.

And let's not forget you are an economic expert on Socialism who can make $$ magically appear out of his ass, so you can pay a higher wage without passing that cost on to customers. Yes now you seem so much less wrong-headed.

"Wow" is about right.

[look 171]

Interesting. I just walked in the house, and need to eat something and read a bit more.

Dennis, do you think the gas station attendant is worth 20+ bucks an hour? Many small to mid size business will go under if they raised min wage to 20, bad enough at 15 with applicants with no or little skills. They can't survive.

[3rd_gear_Ted]

SoCal Harbor Freight $16.85 hr. w/health benefits makes total cost over $20.00 per hr

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Zeke

You were a lot nicer when you were in WI. L.A. is tough.

No, I wasn't. You're confused...kind of like when you told that guy that I lived in a garage. And I'm not in L.A. right now, I'm in WI.

[sugarwood]

No skills? Why don't you spend your fat ass hauling stuff for 8 hours and see how easy and no skills it actually is?

[1990C4S]

Originally Posted by look 171

No skills, 180 a day??? At 5 days a week, that is 43k per year, and no tax. That's a lot of money for none skill bodies.

Showing up all day and working hard hauling crap might not be a 'skill' but it's what people get paid to do, it's why we pay people.

America is a big open market, what's the right price? Should it be $100? If you are willing to pay $150 and no one will do the work for that price, who's wrong? You or the labor market?

[speeder]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

Showing up all day and working hard hauling crap might not be a 'skill' but it's what people get paid to do, it's why we pay people.

America is a big open market, what's the right price? Should it be $100? If you are willing to pay $150 and no one will do the work for that price, who's wrong? You or the labor market?

Yep, it's called a free market and all of the sudden, these supposed free market capitalists don't seem to like it.

[Seahawk]

I get a friends and family discount from my neighbor who has a landscaping/construction business - $15 an hour for labor, which I happily pay when needed.

I have 1500ft of seawall that is in constant need of attention as well has over a mile of tree lines that need maintaining...and the mowing, always the mowing. I cannot do it all by myself.

When my son was in high school I paid his buddies $10 an hour for labor and it was worth every penny. One of them, who is now a USMC 1st LT UH-1Y pilot, was so good on the tractor I paid him $11 an hour.

[group911@aol.co]

It's always amusing to watch the "free market capitalists" squeal like little girls when the free market has them paying more.
Right now, the workers have a minuscule advantage but don't fret. Soon enough, they'll be beating them back into submission.
I wonder how many in this discussion come from first or second generation immigrants that were part of the group being beaten down not that long ago?

Originally Posted by speeder

Yep, it's called a free market and all of the sudden, these supposed free market capitalists don't seem to like it.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

Showing up all day and working hard hauling crap might not be a 'skill' but it's what people get paid to do, it's why we pay people.

America is a big open market, what's the right price? Should it be $100? If you are willing to pay $150 and no one will do the work for that price, who's wrong? You or the labor market?

You are getting this all wrong. There are day laborers he (my concrete guy) was talking about. They hang out on the sidewalk one day and gone the next.

Somehow, when some of know that we are getting hose on the asking pay and yet many of you here complain about the price of repair on something else.

[look 171]

This isn't the person I am paying directly to haul trash just so you guys are clear. I have a regular trash hauling and demo person that I pay regularly to perform that duty when needed. He's actual my grading contractor. I am sure I am paying more then most people on this. He has equip and trucks. I was only talking to my concrete guy, he charges me 350 per day per each person, about hauling the trash out in the back of the house to the roll off so the neighbor don't have to look at it during the 4th. It doesn't have to be done but I want to do that for the neighbor. He mentioned the day laborers are asking over 20 bucks an hour and they want to get pay for the whole day and convince me to leave the trash along until Monday. We both agree that's too much and way out of line for the work performed by a day laborer. Remember, this is someone he has to go and find, and drive them back at the end of the day. They just don't show up on their own in their vehicle ready to work. He may not be there tomorrow. Still think that's worth over 20 buck an hour?