Adventures In Oil Changes

[NoVaGT]

and yet you know 'a guy' who has a commercial location, some tools of his own, and you see him almost weekly...

I let Jack or BP man do my oil changes because I can't be arsed. I think I even have some ramps. I hand them the oil and the filters and $25 for their trouble.

I gotcha....appreciate it.

It's mostly disposing of the oil. That's a true PITA. $38 once a year is a no-brainer.

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[friedmud]

No, If you are an adult, a fully grown adult, and you only get minimum wage jobs, you deserve that pay... Why would i pay you $15/hr to make a simple task? don't wanna make minimum wage? educate yourself, learn something valuable and start moving forward.

People that say that "if they raise the minimum wage to XX amount, those employees can have a better life" don't know shit about how the economy work, have no idea what inflation is, etc...

who do you think is gonna pay for that extra money? the company? lol... that extra cost will be passed to the consumer... If A start paying more to their employees, A will start charging more... If B buy materials from A to produce something, then B has to raise their prices to afford the extra money that B has to pay to A now... If C is buying from B, now C has to pay more... etc... At the end, we ALL end paying more... and if the minimum wage goes to $15/hr, that doesn't mean the people making $17/hr will get a raise. etc etc etc... so, before you were able to buy 1 gal of milk for $2 making $8/hr, now you make $15/hr and the milk cost you $6...

I love how you are in here decrying a job as a "simple task" and simultaneously the thread is about how important these jobs are. Note: the price of a task (or anything for sale) is not directly proportional to how "complicated" it is. In a free market (let's not debate on whether we have one or not - that's too far afield) the price will settle on what someone is willing to pay for a particular good/service. If there is not enough value in a particular service for someone to deem it worth their time to fulfill - then that service won't exist.

Basically: if getting someone else to change your oil is important to you... then you will need to pay what is needed in order to get someone to do that job... no matter how "simple" you think it is.

"don't wanna make minimum wage? educate yourself, learn something valuable and start moving forward." - you just said exactly what was in my original post. You cannot simultaneously tell people to get a better job and then complain when no one wants to do the low-paying job. They are _literally_ doing what you're telling them: they are finding better ways to use their time than working for minimum wage... and everyone here is complaining about it. So what is it that you want?

BTW: That is not at all how inflation works. Raising the minimum wage does not directly correlate to inflation. There are a ton of studies on this - from economies all over the world (I'll put a couple of citations at the bottom of the post for you to read)... but it also makes intuitive sense: Changing the pay of the least-paid people in the society will not have a large overall effect on the price of goods (because they don't have much buying power anyway... and their money is such a small part of the economy).

In 2019 only 2% of American workers were earning minimum wage ( https://usafacts.org/articles/minim...FCYxpepsTrsZFoebjgLjSXZWDHEyQpXBoC-ocQAvD_BwE ). Changing the pay of 2% of the workers will not appreciably alter the price of goods.

So where does the money come from for a minimum wage increase then? It comes from higher-paid people. Most people on this forum have enough disposable income to afford a sports car. Why do you get to have so much disposable income (to buy an unnecessary $30k+ car) - but people who do necessary things for you (like changing your oil or cooking your food) don't even deserve a wage that can pay their bills? You are not entitled to your large amount (compared to low-wage workers) of disposable income at the expense of the quality of life of those who perform critical functions for you. What's happening is a reconning: the lowest paid workers are saying that they deserve more of your disposable dollars. Whether or not that's true will play out over time in the economy.

In the meantime you can vote with your $$ like we always do. If the price of getting your oil changed goes up beyond what it's worth to you: then change your own oil. Over time the market will settle on a value that works for both parties (or that service won't be offered any longer).

A couple of references about minimum wage and inflation. There are many more, but they all say the same thing: changing the minimum wage does not appreciably change inflation.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi...c49SdvjqF7P4ygGcMGwLP_efUbJ-H_6BWaJfUpsbVUKb8

https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/36750/1/MPRA_paper_36750.pdf

 

[shogun32]

There are many more, but they all say the same thing: changing the minimum wage does not appreciably change inflation.

except in Seattle where many a business shuttered and moved to over the city line where the 'equity law' didn't apply. Ooops! Just because us 'rich' people can pay $17 for a tall soy latte doesn't mean we want to and so we will just as readily change WHERE we buy it if don't just stop buying them period.

McD can pay $15/hr but if the burger is now $7 we'll order off the dollar menu or go up the street to 5 Guys or not bother stopping into McD at all. If the franchisee doesn't change his prices in response to FORCED change in the cost of labor and thereby can't make the margins he wants to make to compensate him for his time, money and effort he'll just close the business and all those precious $15 burger flipper jobs just evaporated.

When I go to Olive Garden I order soup+salad. Less than $20 to feed 2 adults (my dad) and that even covers tax and tip. The American Buffet place is about $11/head and obviously a vastly better value for money. That is the competitive landscape in which McD and other 'minimum wage' businesses operate.

I got paid $10/hr back in 1990 to flip burgers across the street from my 2000 student high school as a senior (had 2 years of prior McD in Japan) Every crew member in the afternoon a HS kid or a salaried manager in high 20's or low/mid 30's. The morning crew dominated by old bitties looking for something to do. Nowadays around here it's high-30s immigrant women who can't speak the language, and some retirees.

On simplistic inflation metrics alone today I might be paid $20/hr to do that same job but a franchisee would have a tough time with it. I think a quarter-pounder was $3 back then and they are touching $6 today but I won't buy one even if the price is "fair' and I make enough money to buy (several) sport(y) cars for no good reason. I'll buy one if it's buy 1 get 1, or buy 1 get one for $1 sort of deal. That's reality.

Business has to deal with facts and reality, not wishes and make-believe. Input and labor costs can't be side-stepped and will make or break a business.

 

[ss27gogeta]

There are pizza places in my town offering DELIVERY drivers $20 an hour to deliver Pizzas. And they still can't get help. Bottom line people are just lazy and want something for nothing. Nothing is going to change until there are hard consequences for there lazyness.

 

[friedmud]

except in Seattle where many a business shuttered and moved to over the city line where the 'equity law' didn't apply. Ooops! Just because us 'rich' people can pay $17 for a tall soy latte doesn't mean we want to and so we will just as readily change WHERE we buy it if don't just stop buying them period.

Absolutely - geographic disparities in the price of goods can cause people and work to move around. This is exactly why "offshoring" happened: companies could build things cheaper elsewhere... so they did.

It's fine to seek out the price you want for the goods you need. Just be aware that you might only be capitalizing on a transient moment in time... as soon as the other locations see that their labor is in demand due to people changing where they buy things - they will start to raise their prices too (if the market will bear it).

 

[vanquishvzla]

cut the crazy unemployment money and all the "free" money they are getting for nothing, and you'll see them desperate to get those jobs... right now people don't want to work because the are getting money for doing nothing aaaaand a lot of them, are receiving more money from the government for doing nothing than what they used to get for 40 hour work week.

 

[Zrussian13]

This thread has been an economical adventure in oil changes... for sure!

 

[friedmud]

except in Seattle where many a business shuttered and moved to over the city line where the 'equity law' didn't apply. Ooops! Just because us 'rich' people can pay $17 for a tall soy latte doesn't mean we want to and so we will just as readily change WHERE we buy it if don't just stop buying them period.

McD can pay $15/hr but if the burger is now $7 we'll order off the dollar menu or go up the street to 5 Guys or not bother stopping into McD at all. If the franchisee doesn't change his prices in response to FORCED change in the cost of labor and thereby can't make the margins he wants to make to compensate him for his time, money and effort he'll just close the business and all those precious $15 burger flipper jobs just evaporated.

When I go to Olive Garden I order soup+salad. Less than $20 to feed 2 adults (my dad) and that even covers tax and tip. The American Buffet place is about $11/head and obviously a vastly better value for money. That is the competitive landscape in which McD and other 'minimum wage' businesses operate.

I got paid $10/hr back in 1990 to flip burgers across the street from my 2000 student high school as a senior (had 2 years of prior McD in Japan) Every crew member in the afternoon a HS kid or a salaried manager in high 20's or low/mid 30's. The morning crew dominated by old bitties looking for something to do. Nowadays around here it's high-30s immigrant women who can't speak the language, and some retirees.

On simplistic inflation metrics alone today I might be paid $20/hr to do that same job but a franchisee would have a tough time with it. I think a quarter-pounder was $3 back then and they are touching $6 today but I won't buy one even if the price is "fair' and I make enough money to buy (several) sport(y) cars for no good reason. I'll buy one if it's buy 1 get 1, or buy 1 get one for $1 sort of deal. That's reality.

Business has to deal with facts and reality, not wishes and make-believe. Input and labor costs can't be side-stepped and will make or break a business.

You answered yourself in your own post. $10/hr in 1990 should mean $20/hr now (inflation has been roughly 100% between 1990 and today). If it’s paying less than that then you are going to have a hard time finding someone to do the job.

Finding “deals” is good - and going to Five Guys is great. That’s how we give input to the economic system: voting with our feet/dollars. But what’s happening now is that across the board the lowest paid workers are saying that $10 an hour is not enough… something has to give (and it’s going to be the $ of you and I who have the money to spend).

 

[shogun32]

You answered yourself in your own post. $10/hr in 1990 should mean $20/hr now

except I was a good worker and our lesser-motivated workers were staring 7 or 7.50 in the face. In all cases wages were considerably north of 'minimum wage'. One could make the argument that minimum wage should be indexed to inflation but that would immediately detonate businesses far and wide. We don't have a frictionless ratchet mechanism/feedback loop that would allow arbitrary and unilateral wage increases to be passed thru to prices paid. Maybe we "should" but I have a sneaking suspicion 525 federal members of privilege would rapidly find themselves hanging from lamp posts or worse.

in 2003 my labor was worth $17/hr (in West Chicago no less) to pack and hump boxes from inside the house to the truck outside and then do the reverse. $25/hr to drive the rig. I wonder what they pay now since working for a moving company is real labor, unlike burger flipping - back then we really did flip the burgers unlike today.

 

[friedmud]

One could make the argument that minimum wage should be indexed to inflation but that would immediately detonate businesses far and wide.

Businesses that can’t pay their workers a livable wage don’t deserve to exist. Either your service is valuable enough that your customers will pay enough for you to pay your workers properly… or it’s not and it shouldn’t exist.

If you can’t find a way to make your business work (including paying your workers fairly) then move over and let someone else try. That’s how the market works.

 

[shogun32]

Businesses that can’t pay their workers a livable wage don’t deserve to exist.

then the ENTIRE (fast) food industry is a gone'r and also every gas station. Its not the purpose of gov't to decree what is and what isn't a "liveable" wage. Gov't job is to make the LEAST interference in the private exchange of labor for wages, and keep regulatory costs to the absolute bare minimum - which many a state and city has turned on it's head. And then wonders why mysteriously business are folding, or can't pay the so-called "liveable" wage.

Patrons of business decide for themselves if the value of the product/service is worth their own money. If because of forcible labor and regulatory costs the prices are too high, the business tanks for lack of sales. Your position is incredibly naive and smacks of not having run a business.

What makes you think that since one person (or many) can't make it work in the then current environment that someone else is going to necessarily succeed? True, they might. By employing illegal immigrants or paying under the table. Or using ingredients from god knows where with fraudulent certifications. Or the more common approach, getting rid of the meatspace entirely and buying robots and electronic kiosks. Now even the 'minimum' wage people have NO jobs at all.

The coffee shops didn't leave Seattle because they are tight-fisted Republicans and they weren't about to accept only 22% returns instead of the fat 30% they were getting before by exploiting the local workforce. They left because the city declared war on their business' outright survival. As business owners they like to be able to afford to pay themselves and put food on their own tables.

We were 'taught' this lesson in a big way with the ACA nonsense. The gov't can try to 'force' an outcome but until they legalize conscription labor and slavery again, the result will be that business folds, cuts employees, or moves somewhere else the long arm of the statist policies can be side-stepped.

 

[vanquishvzla]

companies are entitled to make their profit, that's why many people open a business... to make money. The problem is not paying $15/hr... the problem is paying $15/hr to people that doesn't worth $15/hr.

People who refuse going back to work for $10-12/hr as they did before, It's just because they are making more money from unemployment than from work... but usually that people can't think 2 steps ahead and they are not thinking in what will come after when the government money stop coming...

i had no less than 10 customers in the past 3 months, trying to buy a luxury car that is over $20k + taxes and fees with their income being unemployment... LOOK AT ALL THIS MONEY! LETS GET THAT BENZ! fake it until you make it... but they never make shit...

 

[sk47]

Or the more common approach, getting rid of the meatspace entirely and buying robots and electronic kiosks. Now even the 'minimum' wage people have NO jobs at all.

I was in a McD's recently where they had a kiosk in the lobby. I did not use it. Make the wages high enough and the robots will have the work. You meat packs can go do without.

Have any tried to hire some work done on your home?

 

[Super-Genius]

I was in a McD's recently where they had a kiosk in the lobby. I did not use it. Make the wages high enough and the robots will have the work. You meat packs can go do without.

The robots will have the work regardless ... count on it.
That being said, I won't use a self checkout anywhere. Why? I have 10 extra minutes and I don't work for Kroger, Walmart, etc.
I realize it won't change anything, it's just my own personal thing ...

 

[Cory S]

There are pizza places in my town offering DELIVERY drivers $20 an hour to deliver Pizzas. And they still can't get help. Bottom line people are just lazy and want something for nothing. Nothing is going to change until there are hard consequences for there lazyness.

Blame the government for all this. Mostly the left.

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