To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (719772 ) 6/6/2013 2:27:18 PM From: tejek Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 1579028 In bentway's case, he is acting as the general contractor [in lieu of hiring an independent contractor] and can pay his laborers whatever price he and they agree is fair. I'm not arguing what Bentway can or cannot do as a pseudo-contractor. If he wants to pay $25/hour to get someone to dig a hole, that's his business, not mine. However, I'm arguing over forcing others, whether it be licensed contractors or big corporations like Walmart, to pay some arbitrary standard for labor that is well above market rates. Hence the senselessness of slogans like "living wage." When was $9 per hour well above market rates? For a well managed company that should be the standard labor rate. Apparently Walmart is not well managed and is struggling to pay that rate as well as make a profit WS expects. Of course, they are playing the blame game to explain away their not so good performance:Wal-Mart Stores Inc's quarterly profit just missed Wall Street expectations on Thursday, with sales down 1.4 percent a t its Walmart U.S. stores open at least a year. The world's largest retailer said U.S. sales suffered from a delay in income tax refund checks, cool weather, less grocery inflation than expected, and the payroll tax increase. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/16/walmart-profits-2013-lower-than-expected_n_3284894.html BTW sales were up at Costco's, Target etc during the same quarter. In any case, if you need someone quick, $50 for two hours is damn cheap compared to the alternatives. But if you need to hire someone for several weeks, there's no way you're going to pay them $1,000 per week for said labor. Licensed contractors and companies have to think in those terms, while DIYers like Bentway can just think about short-term stuff. The article that originated this thread stated very clearly that Walmart's underpaying of employees is part of the reason its experiencing so many problems with their earnings/sales performance. And all the recent strikes at Walmart make very clear how unhappy their employees are.