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F
climber
away from the ground
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Pepe gets 25/hr. The drywall contractor he works for pays unemployment, workmans comp, the rig he takes to work, etc. He has to make something as the middle-man, or labor retailer, so he averages out his cost around 50/hr. The GC that hires the sub makes the calls, checks on progress, bullshits with the customer and tacks on his profit, 10-25 percent. Viola - 60-75/ hour. Its not rocket science. It's business. If you want to save money on labor, cut out the multiple middleman. Citizenship/immigration status isn't the driving factor in building costs.
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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C. wilmot! Re your statement: I am fine with paying more for ethically produced food. I don't feel it's right to exploit workers as a means of keeping food costs artificially low and unethical farmers artificially rich
Living in a rural agriculturtural state, with lots of latinos, I can't help but notice that first generation latinos feed the cows, milk the cows, slop the pigs, irrigate the crops, & clean up the schist from the cows & pigs. They also wash the dishes, bus the tables, mow the lawns, & provide a lot of of the construction workers.
In contrast, our 2nd generation latinos work in retail stores, run construction, lawn-care, resturant, & farm companies. They also work as lawyers, bankers, & real estate salespeople.
I can't imagine many of our current high school grads being willing to take those first generation latino jobs that form the base infrastructure of Idaho's economy.
Do you know any high school grads that want to work a hard 12 hour day in 100 degree heat, feeding & milking cows, & cleaning up hot cow-schist & pee, for $12.50 an hour? Or in your fantasy, at a slightly higher wage?
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Norton, the "tax cuts for the rich" model doesn't apply here. I'm certainly not accumulating wealth at the detriment of my fellow man. I'm Progressive and feel that my taxes are very fair. I also pay my employees and subcontractors well and we have very little turnover in that regard.
If contractor A lowers their prices as a result of cheap labor and contractor B just pockets the savings, who do you think lands the jobs and who sits at home watching Fox & Friends?
Of course I pass on the savings to my clients- that's why I've owned one successful business for 15 years and not 5 Businesses.
So again, if you're a really fast ditch digger you should get paid well for "ditch digging" and not expect the wage of an ICU nurse-f*#k!
And if you're satisfied getting paid 25 bucks an hour slinging mud on stilts, that's fine but if you want $50, you'll be home watching Fox & Friends with Contractor B.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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F- I love that analysis!! There are certainly savy homeowner's that cut me out and pull it off well. I've also seen my fair share of contractor's that hangout, bullshit and tack on 20% for their "management skills" and still f*#k up the job.
That being said- don't ever underestimate what it takes to build a million dollar home on time and on budget. I've seen many people loose their life savings thinking they can walk off the street and do what I do.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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LMAO.. still f*#k up the job...
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F
climber
away from the ground
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Jimbo - Don't get hypersensitive about being a middleman. Somebody has to herd the cats. I know. I have a custom electric pussy prod that's worked great for me for a long time.
Contractor- it's a rather simplistic explaination, but lays it out there. I also have seen folks dick the dog big time trying to make it happen (usually engineers and M.D. types.)
I've also seen competent, hardworking, common sense folks build and complete a sweet place of their their own worth 750k for far less than that by cutting out the middleman. (No Mexicans or pussies were harmed).
Pay a welder 2500 to do some column work. Or, buy a used welder for 1500, learn how, and do it yourself instead of going to the bar. Then you own a welder and have knowledge. To each their own.
I see both sides of the coin all the time. I made 5k this month in a few phone calls and visits to a project watching the mariachi band (sheetrockers) do their thing. I'm also painting the inside and outside of a rental property myself rather than pay some knuckleheads 5k to do it. Although, if I could find an undocumented illegal alien to cut in 10 post and beam sets with black paint for 10$/hr I'd be all over it.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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I'm in Jim, cheers to the working man! And I've seen your nice work F... Kumbaya!
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F
climber
away from the ground
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^^^
Gibberish.
Have another whiskey.
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F
climber
away from the ground
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How many woodchucks does it take to brush a porcupines teeth?
8. Because pancakes and ice cream taste better in July.
Jesus Jim.
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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Drumpf also has an ulterior motive in his DACA decision. The elimination of any potential anti Drumpf votes in 2020
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zBrown
Ice climber
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The grim tale of America’s “subprime mortgage crisis” delivers one of those stinging moral slaps that Americans seem to favor in their histories. Poor people were reckless and stupid, banks got greedy. Layer in some Wall Street dark arts, and there you have it: a global financial crisis.
Dark arts notwithstanding, that’s not what really happened, though.
Mounting evidence suggests that the notion that the 2007 crash happened because people with shoddy credit borrowed to buy houses they couldn’t afford is just plain wrong. The latest comes in a new NBER working paper arguing that it was wealthy or middle-class house-flipping speculators who blew up the bubble to cataclysmic proportions, and then wrecked local housing markets when they defaulted en masse.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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The ensuing student-loan collapse should be far more entertaining.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Those damned architects, engineers, lawyers
So the guys who take the POS plans drawn up by some architect or engineer and fix them so they actually work deserves to earn squat?
And lawyers, of course, add value where ever they go.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Recent research—particularly that by Antoinette Schoar, a finance professor at MIT Sloan—has been helping rewrite the received wisdom of the “subprime crisis” that has blamed the crisis on poor, reckless borrowers for the better part of a decade. Schoar’s work reveals that borrowing and defaults had risen proportionally across income levels and credit score, but that those with sounder credit ratings drove the rise in delinquencies. This new paper’s investigation into the habits of middle- and upper-income real estate speculators in the run-up to the crisis marks yet another chapter of the history books in desperate need of revision.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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^As Lady MacBeth used to say "out damned spot"*
It is interesting that it has taken 10 years to get this research done and published, though.
Meanwhile
Members of the clubs Trump has visited most often as president — in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia — include at least 50 executives whose companies hold federal contracts and 21 lobbyists and trade group officials. Two-thirds played on one of the 58 days the president was there, according to scores they posted online.
Because membership lists at Trump’s clubs are secret, the public has until now been unable to assess the conflicts they could create. USA TODAY found the names of 4,500 members by reviewing social media and a public website golfers use to track their handicaps, then researched and contacted hundreds to determine whether they had business with the government.
Anyone checked on QueegTrump's course in Scotland lately?
"Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him."
*Well technically
LADY MACBETH
(rubbing her hands) Come out, damned spot! Out, I command you! One, two. OK, it’s time to do it now.—Hell is murky!—Nonsense, my lord, nonsense! You are a soldier, and yet you are afraid? Why should we be scared, when no one can lay the guilt upon us?—But who would have thought the old man would have had so much blood in him?
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2017 - 08:44am PT
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When the crime becomes large enough, people stop perceiving it as a crime. It becomes an abstract thing and people don't have the same sense of righteous indignation.
We can grasp the idea of a shoplifter stealing a car- they go to jail for that. Most humans cannot perceive the equivalent of every resident in Los Angeles stealing a car. And yet, that is the magnitude of the crimes for which some individuals in this world are responsible.
Even if Trump is impeached and leaves in disgrace, it will still have been a wildly profitable financial transaction for him (unless it kills his brand image, but it seems at most it would just shift his target markets). If he can stay in for a full term, he may end up one of the richest men on the planet. Maybe it would take two terms, because there is strong competition.
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F
climber
away from the ground
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"Pay a welder 2500 to do some column work. Or, buy a used welder for 1500, learn how, and do it yourself instead of going to the bar. "
This is amusing. I guess if your regular job pays you in the same general zone as the welder, sure. But the decision on my end is more like:
Pay a welder 2500, or spend 20 hours finding, buying, transporting and then learning to use a welder, another few hours doing the job, and a lifetime wondering if I got it exactly right. Or, I could just do my own damn job, where I make about 8x what that welder makes, enjoy my time off instead of f*#king around researching welding machines and welding, dealing with flakes and general craigslist scammers when trying to buy one, and then be reasonably confident the job was done better than I could have without practicing for 3 years.
"False economy" bro, look it up.
One you reach a certain age, you start to realize time is the most valuable thing you have, it's worth far more than a little money and unless I expect to reuse that gained skill many, many times, it's stupid to DIY unless you're stone broke and have no other way to accomplish the work or there is no skill component involved.
If you happen to deal with 6" steel frequently, and have a few rainy days to figure it out, the time investment is well worth it. And while I'm sure you're an uber successful individual, the $200 an hour I get for occasional metal joining, and the convenience of not having to track down someone else to do it (time) well.... If that's false economy, I'll take it.
Working from the neck up and wrist down are not mutually exclusive.
Somebody- If you're in Torrance, swing by Wilson park some time and check out the handicap accessible treehouse there. I wasted a lot of time on that....
Just to try to veer back on topic...
F*#k Trump and the one pump he rode in on.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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One you reach a certain age, you start to realize time is the most valuable thing you have, it's worth far more than a little money and unless I expect to reuse that gained skill many, many times, it's stupid to DIY unless you're stone broke and have no other way to accomplish the work or there is no skill component involved.
Some people actually enjoy learning new things, like welding for instance. So for them it's time well spent regardless of actual financial benefits... I learned welding years ago and have had great fun with it doing simple repairs and making all sorts of things. Might have even broken even in the $$ sense...
IMO, skills are worth many times more than stuff that might have been otherwise purchased with the same $$. Those same skills leave you in a more informed place when deciding to when to farm out that failing weld in the reactor core pressure vessel to a professional.
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