Economics 101

[+mamid]

(off on a tangeant)

For years I hired day laborers for various jobs from a local pick-up corner where men would congregate to be picked up for a day's labor.

My mother used to do the day labour thang. So did my husband. So did I.

 

There is nothing more humiliating than being the sober, decently dressed person in the line and not be picked. And I'm not talking about just one day, but day after day after day. It got to one point with my husband that he just didn't bother. He had a celphone for them to call him for odd jobs, and more. Those "manpower" places

 

Then there's the "job clubs" which are just as humiliating. I had one "job club leader" tell me that I had to attend even though I had a kidney infection and was on antibiotics and ordered to stay home by my doctor or I could end up in the hospital on dialisys. I avoided that only by sheer dumb luck. I was also told by a HRDC worker that I had to attend this youth job club - it was mandatory - that started 3 days after my birthday that would disqualify me for it. I won't even go into detail about having to jump through the different ministries in order to get training for a job. Even now, if I want the training, I had better prove that I will be hired when I come out of it. The training I want will take over 2 years. How do I know if the place that said that they'd hire me will still be there? Because I can't prove it, I can't access that money.

 

Same thing with my husband. He needed less than 1K for training and he would have had a 18$/hr job on a construction site. Instead, the job club he had been assigned to hemmed and hawwed and never bothered to get back to him even though he called every day asking for the funds to get the training. He finally showed up one day to talk to someone in person and the place had closed down and was gone.

 

Dumb luck got him the job he has now. And we've just found him a potential lead on something that pays far better. Third one in a month too. But potential jobs doesn't pay the rent. Nor does standing in a line waiting for someone to pick us out to do day labour. Its a viscious cycle. A lot of the "day labour" places actually pay less than minimum wage even though they charge well above it. The "processing" and other fees eat up a good portion of the cheque. Even though he's had a steady job for two years, the job is draining on him and there's no room for advancement even though he's more than put his time in for some sort of advancement.

 

"Poor folks have poor ways".

That may be true, but it sure makes it harder to be un-poor when those who are in positions of authority play mind games with the resources you are supposed to be entitled to.

[CoyoteRed]

I have to generally agree on two things being said in this thread.

 

The first is if you truly can't afford $3 a month for the extras of this site, then geocaching is the least of your worries.

 

Now, I get it that some folks might not have a convenient way to pay the $3. No Paypal account, can't get a Paypal account, no credit card, no debit card, no checking account. I've seen folks like this. Been in trouble in the past, made some bad choices and are now climbing out. One solution could be community support. Even in a small and loose community one should be able to find someone who could buy a membership for you if you come up with the cash.

 

Second, for many of us the disdain towards MOCs has nothing to do with the affordability of a paid membership. For me, there is a logical disconnect between being a paid member and any benefit a MOC provides. Making your cache a MOC is useless security for any maggot who is less than clueless, yet there are no real protections either.

[+whistler & co.]

 

Now, I get it that some folks might not have a convenient way to pay the $3. No Paypal account, can't get a Paypal account, no credit card, no debit card, no checking account. I've seen folks like this. Been in trouble in the past, made some bad choices and are now climbing out. One solution could be community support. Even in a small and loose community one should be able to find someone who could buy a membership for you if you come up with the cash.

 

 

I don't use Paypal and try not to use credit cards online. You can mail in your payment, even without a checking account. All you have to do is come up with another dollar in order to buy a money order at the convenience store, then the money for the stamp, and the envelope...yikes! This is getting awfully expensive!

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Its a viscious cycle. A lot of the "day labour" places actually pay less than minimum wage even though they charge well above it. The "processing" and other fees eat up a good portion of the cheque.

 

I don't know about job clubs, never heard of them.

 

You are right about the day labor agencies ripping off the poor worker - around here they charge the customer $15 to $18 for day labor and pay the worker $5.25 or whatever minimum wage is now. I'm glad the owners found a nice for-profit business, but I personally couldn't take 2/3 of someone's wages for the little bit of effort it takes to sell their services. Still, that's $5.25 the worker might not otherwise make.

 

The day laborers I use hang out on a street corner, are homeless, mostly addicts and drunks that the day labor companies will no longer hire and the Salvation Army won't let back into their shelters due to repeated offenses; they've fallen through one too many safety nets. Almost all will admit they got there through a lifetime of poor choices... yet it's always somebody else's fault. These men have learned to identify my cars and start running to it when I drive up - I pay them what I would have paid a day labor agency, something unheard of in their world.

 

Unfortunately preying on the poor is profitable business - witness the pawn shops, check advance, used car dealers, 2nd and 3rd mortgage brokers and credit card companies getting rich off of poor folk.

 

BUT, the poor folk CHOOSE to use those services, so when they then get trapped in a cycle of unpayable bills and reach out for more credit, spiraling ever downward, they often forget that it was their choice to go down that path.

 

With a little looking around you can find an old but fairly reliable hooptie for $500, but folks are embarrassed to be seen in such a ride... so they go down to Honest John Used Cars, Dollar Down and a Dollar a Week Financing for Anyone, and give him $5,000 + interest for a $1500 car, and the journey begins. It's a choice.

 

I owned a wrecker when I was living in California and hired out to repo cars for used car lots. I can't tell you how many fine people I met who had lost jobs through no fault of their own and couldn't make their payments... miss just one or two and it's off to the races, you are going down that slope. Lose the car, lose the ability to get another job, lose the house. Happens thousands of times a day throughout this great nation. But that financing was a choice - cheap cars for cash are available.

 

I have friends whose phone and power are regularly disconnected who are making payments on thousands of dollars of financed living room furniture and such. They have to choose the furniture payment over the power bill else the repo man will come take their couch! Yikes! Choices.

 

Anyhoo, this has been an interesting thread, glad that it has stayed civil as it is a touchy topic.

[+Kit Fox]

No,

 

You only inferred it as that. My point was your free internet access is payed for by someone else. Geocaching is also payed for by its customers (advertisers, premium members, and merchandise buyers) .

 

Should these customers also subsidize the regular members any more than they already do? Is it socialism you want, where everyone gets the same product?

I just dont understand what you are saying then. Everyone who uses the library doesnt pay for it? What makes you think that I or anyone else that uses the library for internet/borrowing/dvd's whatever, doesnt pay for it?

 

I dont understand how this got turned into me though? In my area they dont let you use the computer at 1220am.

I just dont like it when people who really dont know what it is like to assume that they do.

 

Stop taking everything we are saying as "directed at you."

 

I wasn't pointing any fingers at you, or trying to make you feel guilty for using the free internet at the library. That doesn't bother be whatsoever. I was merely pointing out that the free internet was payed for by someone else, just as geocaching is payed for by it's paying customers. I never said that you didn't pay for the "free internet at the library." I assume you work and pay taxes, which means you pay for the library's operation.

 

Regarding the "no internet at 1220 am." How does that pertain to this economics discussion. I'll freely admit that my first hunch is that the internet curfew may be a hindrance on FTF, but that was an assumption on my part.

 

When I still lived at home, we fell on hard times (partially based on choices my parents made). I lived in a trailer without electricity for ten years. We had a generator, and used several ice chests instead of a refrigerator. That experience was really hard for me, especially when I was in High School. I made do with what I had, and developed a love of hiking, and hunting. Now that i'm grown up and pay my own bills, I look at those ten years as a character building experience.

Edited June 15, 2007 by Kit Fox

[Clan Riffster]

A truism in these times is the ol' adage, "The rich keep getting richer, while the poor keep getting poorer". What usually gets left out is the reason for that. The rich keep getting richer because they continue making the types of positive choices that made them rich in the first place. The poor keep getting poorer for exactly the same reason.

 

Entitlement, not economics, fuels most of the anti-PMOC rants.

[+Knight2000]

The only reason i thought you were referring to me is this:

My point was your free internet access is payed for by someone else.

 

The 1220am comment was because i was not using the internet at library at 1220. In fact i use it to check mail about 4 times a year when i am there burning time with my family waiting for them to find their books.

 

Happy Friday!

[+Googling Hrpty Hrrs]

This is a lesson for all those who just simply can't stand that there is some part of caching they "can't afford", like $30/year for a premium membership:

 

No one can afford every single thing they want. Even rich people have budgets- they decide how to spend their money before they spend it. They DECIDE what they can have and what they cannot. All-in-all, if there is any such thing as a "secret" of getting rich, that is it. Rich people (and those who eventually WILL be rich) know how to say "NO" to things they cannot afford and how to change their circumstances in order that they can at some point say "yes." In a word, successful people PRIORITIZE.

 

In the equation for managing one's money, there are basically two sides, the "in-come", or money that is taken in and the "out-go", or money that is paid out or spent.

 

When one wants something and needs money to get it they can get it by either increasing "in-come" or by decreasing "out-go" so as to have the money they need for the thing they want.

 

Quite simply (and I know those who whine in the forums about PMOCs will never admit it is "simple") if one wants something- anything- and does not have the money for it, there are five options:

 

1. Just say "NO!" and live without it. Certainly this is not the norm in our culture.

2. Steal it. Illegal, immoral and fraught with bad consequences, but it works.

3. Borrow the money. A very common method that eventually causes one's bankruptcy at worst and at best will serve to keep one poor and enslaved to their creditors

4. Say "NO" to something else and use the money that would have been spent on the thing one wants. A really hard thing for our latest "get it now" generations

5. Do something to earn or save more money. This too is really hard for the "entitlement" generations.

 

Of these possibilities, i would like to concentrate on 4 and 5 as these choices are the best over all in terms of long-term benefit and lack of serious drawbacks.

 

Let us therefore assume, for the sake of discussion, that one desires to get a premium membership so as to be able to seek PMOCs.

 

Using option 4: The simple economics of it is that the $30 per year amounts to approximately six #1 combos at McD's, or 10 packs of cigarettes, or 1 case of beer, or 1 fountain pop per day for a month, or the clipping of a week's worth of coupons from the Sunday paper and saving this amount of money on groceries. In short- saving $30 will take a minimum of (dirty word alert!) SACRIFICE for pretty much anyone in the U.S.

 

For those who don't want to SACRIFICE a pop a day to enjoy their sport more effectively, the other option, #5 is available. Of course this involves (another dirty word alert!) WORK:

 

Cutting the neighbour's lawn will earn about $30-$50. Cleaning a neighbour's house: $50 or more. Washing a car: $5-10. Dog sitting: $10-20/day. Delivering pizza: $50-150 per night.

 

Whining and wishing pays $0. Playing the lottery goes $1 per ticket (minimum) in the WRONG direction.

 

Oh and there is a 6th method:

 

Just hang around and participate in the class envy and complaining to TPTB (especially to your legislators) and within a generation or two it will not matter- we will be totally socialist and no one will have much of anything they want and barely what they need.

 

But at least there won't be those damned member's only caches!!!

 

Now, if only BIG BROTHER would give us all old first generation Garmins. Well, maybe at least a Silva compass and a piece of recycled paper on which to draw a map?

 

It is one thing to do without something one cannot afford. But it is quite another, in fact IMO, the epitome of immaturity and covetousness, to seek to deny that thing to everyone else just because one cannot afford it.

 

Excellent post! I've always thought along these lines when I hear the "can't afford" membership stuff.

 

Two comments really get under my skin.

 

I don't have time.

I can't afford.

 

Sure there's situations revolving around time and money where these comments are true. But for most situations it's actually a choice. Don't say you can't. Say you choose to spend your time/money on something else.

[+Team GeoBlast]

 

You are right about the day labor agencies ripping off the poor worker - around here they charge the customer $15 to $18 for day labor and pay the worker $5.25 or whatever minimum wage is now. I'm glad the owners found a nice for-profit business, but I personally couldn't take 2/3 of someone's wages for the little bit of effort it takes to sell their services. Still, that's $5.25 the worker might not otherwise make.

 

 

That's a very uninformed statement there AR. Go out and hire an employee, do the math, and report back here with the real percentage. In your figuring, don't forget to include the all non-tax and insurance overhead it takes to make day laborer workers available. Remember few of them have phones or transportation so you'll need a way to overcome this. Consider the average show rate for a day laborer is less than 50%. Don't forget the lawsuit that the contractor files against you when he can't make his deadline due your workers not showing up. Remember the government places the blame at your feet if they give you fake documents when they apply. Subtract all of these things from 2/3 going straight into their pocket.

[+Renegade Knight]

I disagree that those who are poor choose to be poor, at least not all the time. ...

 

To borrow TAR's quote from his Grandmother who sounds like a wise woman. "Poor folk make poor choices" is very true. It's a generalization. It only needs to be right most of the time to be accurate. There are exectptions and thats why people can break out of poverty or even if they live in poverty live a rich life.

 

No person chooses to be poor. Thats not a real choice though, Personally I choose to be dirty filty rich, but my actual decisions don't lead to that outcome. It's all the other choices that we make that lead us to our destination. Our choices pave the road to how well off we are or will be given time and struggle.

 

If you look at the culture of poverty, you can see there is a culture. One of my uncles hates a certain class of poor. He has said "If you give them a million dollars, within a year they will be back exactly where they are now. In a trailer, with a broken beat up car, living in filfth". I used to think he was daft. But as I got older and wiser I realized that he was talking about what he's seen first hand and that his remarks applied to everone in that situation. In other words he said in his own way "poor folks make poor choices".

 

Most of us follow the "right path" with a few slips. But so long as we stick to the right choice often enough we do ok. BUT, some people are going to follow the wrong path and that's all there is to it.

[+Renegade Knight]

 

You are right about the day labor agencies ripping off the poor worker - around here they charge the customer $15 to $18 for day labor and pay the worker $5.25 or whatever minimum wage is now. ...

 

That's a very uninformed statement there AR. Go out and hire an employee, do the math, and report back here with the real percentage. ...

 

In my line of work overhead and profit doubles the base wage. Give or take. Even that would leave more room pay your day labor more per hour.

 

Any business that is banking on day labor to meet their needs is flat out stupid. They should be doing it to save money and assuming the risks associated with that savings. Else they could hire a contractor who would be somewhat more profesisonal (and yet there is still a risk associated with thier timliness).

Edited June 15, 2007 by Renegade Knight

[+Team GeoBlast]

 

You are right about the day labor agencies ripping off the poor worker - around here they charge the customer $15 to $18 for day labor and pay the worker $5.25 or whatever minimum wage is now. ...

 

That's a very uninformed statement there AR. Go out and hire an employee, do the math, and report back here with the real percentage. ...

 

In my line of work overhead and profit doubles the base wage. Give or take. Even that would leave more room pay your day labor more per hour.

 

Any business that is banking on day labor to meet their needs is flat out stupid. They should be doing it to save money and assuming the risks associated with that savings. Else they could hire a contractor who would be somewhat more professional (and yet there is still a risk associated with thier timliness).

 

Unless your business is supplying labor, your percentages will not apply here. Workers compensation, general liability, and a host of other factors in the temp labor business do not transcend to any other business.

 

A few more things to consider:

 

1. You've just used your resources going out and finding the cream of the crop of the available labor force to send to your customers only to learn that you customers agreed with your choices and hired them directly the next day. So factor in the cost of replacing that worker and the cost output that repeats itself.

2. Businesses that rely on a temp agency to supply them with day labor may be flat out stupid to pay $15.00 to the temp agency. However, do you have any idea what a minimum starting hourly wage is if they get organized by a labor union would be? Prevailing wage in my state for a laborer is $43.00 an hour. Think about what they have to pay the skilled workers. If they do not employ the workers directly, this is a non-factor.

[+mamid]

We've been victims of the predators of the poor. Why? because our credit rating isn't good enough to get a bank loan, so we're left with pawn shops and payday loans. I wish banks would be willing to look at "microloans" for those who could use them. But microloans aren't worth the paperwork to most banks. I'm tempted that if I were to come into some money somehow to start a microloan business.

 

Just because we're poor doesn't mean we choose to be poor and made bad choices. Life happens, including things that are completely out of your control - like being the passenger in a car accident. But instead of ruminating over it, we've been trying to get ahead and have dealt with what life has thrown at us.

 

And one of those things that I did do was pay for a premium membership. I don't smoke. Today is one of the few days in the year where I normally drink(happy birthday to me ). Instead of smoking and drinking, I do other stuff that isn't self destructive. I knit. I sew. I go for long walks. And I found the money for a premium membership. Sure, I won't be able to buy any yarn for a month or two, but I have enough at the moment that I can dig into my stash and use that.

 

If I can find the money to pay for a premium membership, I'm sure those that moan about not having one are just moaning for moaning's sake. If they really wanted to pay for a membership, there is ways to find the money to pay for one.

[+Knight2000]

We started caching because it was an inexpensive family activity. That is how we found it. I searched just that and it came up on a list of things to do.

 

We had just spent $30 in less than an hour bowling. Sure the kids had fun, but $30/hour? For some it may be nothing to you or at least not an annoyance.

 

So we started caching. It is not free. It costs money. If we go for a whole day it might cost $10 for gas. If you are thrifty and pack your lunch then eating isn't much. SWAG is up to you. I mean it isn't all that expensive compared to other things. We can stretch that $30 over a weekend and not pack it into one hour.

 

So i can understand people who don't have a comfortable amount of money caching. There are other things that could be cheaper, but not much.

 

If there is- then i would like to know about it.

[+Quiggle]

We went through all of this in the other thread. Since this isn't an economics website, I'm going to close this thread in favor of the ones about geocaching. If you'd like to discuss economics, feel free to do so in the Off Topic section of the forums.

 

You'll need a premium membership to view it, however. Sorry.