Originally Posted by
3WC
313, your heart may be in the right place but you just don't understand the fundamentals of business.
You say my friend is "consciously paying low wages [[@12/hr) in an effort to keep expenses that cut into profits at a minimum." First, my friend is paying higher wages than the industry pays for similar unskilled workers. That's one reason he has so many contented employees and his employee turnover is minimal. Smart business owners don't seek to pay the lowest wages possible; they pay what they have to pay to get and keep good employees. I've always paid more than my competition because my best assets - employees - walk out the door every evening. But, I and every business owner MUST make a profit or everybody loses. An owner always seeks to maximize profit without destroying the business. And, paying below mkt wages is a good way to do it.
And, you have absolutely NO BASIS for coming to the conclusions you do. You know nothing of the business. You don't know the prevailing wage rates in that business. You don't know whether the business even makes a profit [[it does.) Customers often require that the business provide detailed financial statements to assure themselves that the supplier IS profitable and will likely be able to fulfill its contract/purchase agreement.
Somebody up there pooh poohed the idea that a worker after 30 years may have "only" $250,000 in profit sharing saying he had a friend who grossed that amount in 2 years. Likely, the poster who made that comment hasn't a clue about economics, finance, or business in general. What a business GROSSES is irrelevant. What counts is the net income [[if any), what's left of the gross after paying all the bills, salaries, wages etc. It's easy for a business grossing $125,000/yr to be losing $25,000/yr. A business grossing a billion a year may lose $50 million. Take Old GM for example. The poster just doesn't have a clue.
Finally, don't claim that I feel that people on welfare necessarily don't want to work. I never said or implied that. Many of course don't. Many are third generation welfare recipients and have just
dropped out and given up. Welfare in this country is the process by which politicians buy votes in too many cases. We have a duty to provide all the assistance possibly to the impaired and those that honestly can't take care of themselves. I believe every able bodied person should be required to work, stay of drugs, and contribute to society. That means doing any job offered just as they handled the problem during the depression with the WPA.