Poor couple moving to Big Island

[runswithscissors]

Originally Posted by mdand3boys

Yet small, family-owned and operated business models that pay minimum wage to their employees are so great at helping people to advance into a real career? Those little businesses obviously offer great benefits and career advancement, right? LMAO !

You're just making up terminology to suit your straw man. "small, family-owned and operated business models paying minimum wage" is not any real term.

Obviously you have no idea that 80% of ALL businesses in America are categorized as small businesses, sole proprietors even. I bet you've never even worked for one or know any personally.

What does "family owned" mean? Not public? No shareholders?

Who installs your air conditioning units? Who Who runs your bakeries? Who invests in all the new restaurants that open by famous chefs in NY and all over the country? Who owns laundromats, independent gas stations and auto repair shops. Who owns your LOCAL CAR DEALERS? Even companies that provide assisted living CNAs and home health care workers are almost micro businesses.

I paid my employees several dollars over minimum wage in the 1990s in my PET SHOP, FFS. If they did a great sale I gave them BONUSES on the spot. Not to mention they were almost ALL under 21. OTOH, I fired MANY people for theft, and stupidity breaking MY RULES and POLICIES like making change when it was prohibited only to add fuel to the fire by getting RIPPED OFF by huge amounts like $50.00 one gypsy got from my idiot employee asking to make change on $5.00. Or losing $50.00 ringing up a $.50 item. Morons. Go work somewhere else. It's not like I didn't spend HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS training them, reinforcing training, posting POLICIES all over the place and checking their transactions for hours and hours of my day - THEREBY COSTING ME EVEN MORE MONEY WASTING MY TIME that I could spend building my business.

Yesterday I had to give my Wendy's order FIVE TIMES over the drive through speaker and it was still WRONG. Then wrong again twice at the window.

"QUARTER POUND CHEESEBURGER, KETCHUP ONLY PLUS LETTUCE AND TOMATO, JUST THE SANDWICH NOT THE COMBO".

I KNOW that's so HARD to get right. And they totally deserve $15.00 per hour for that.

THOSE fast food stores are owned by small business franchise owners who are getting RIPPED OFF even if they are only paying minimum WAGE!

[OpenD]

Sorry, but in my opinion, your posts are out of place here, and would be better suited for the Politics and Other Controversies forum. This is a local forum centered on the Big Island, for discussing local issues, not big national issues or your opinion about them.

And as a reminder, the Terms of Service here states:

All posts unrelated to local matters will be deleted or moved. Threads dealing with controversial topics that often degenerate into flame wars, such as politics or religion, may be moved, closed, or deleted by moderators at their discretion without any warning to the participants. https://www.city-data.com/forumtos.html

[hawaiian by heart]

@everyone

Profit has it place and profit is good and a measure of ones hardwork. But profit becomes bad when it becomes unbalanced with life, much like the addict or alcoholics who storm thru peoples lives causing havic and damage, the addiction of making money damaging lives, comunities and people to obtain it.

We have to look at the results of our business ideals in the last 30years and ask ourselves, has it benifitted everyone or really a few? Like in Hawai'i the benifit of the few has cost the lifestyle of the most. When aprox 60% of Americans are struggling to pay the basic bills we have to stop and ask why? Hawai'i the most expensive state in the country to live in, but we can't pay our employees a liveable wage or even fund our schools so our children can get a good education? But we are the most EXPENSIVE state in the country, we should have the highest wages and best schools in the country. Why not? I suspect that the few are taking advantage of the Aloha.

[mdand3boys]

Originally Posted by runswithscissors

...Obviously you have no idea that 80% of ALL businesses in America are categorized as small businesses, sole proprietors even. I bet you've never even worked for one or know any personally...

I have started two computer businesses. The first was in Dallas in the late 1980's and achieved nearly $1 million in sales after 2 years at which point I promptly sold it. Second one made it to nearly $2 million in 4 years and I sold it too. Although I paid my employees way too much, I did so for a reason. If you overpay people, they find it very difficult to leave and become very loyal. I didn't have the time nor extra money to find replacements.

However, the small businesses I see around Hawaii tend to underpay their employees as much as they can, and by staying small, they do not fall under the Hawaii health care laws, thus they do not have to provide nearly free medical insurance like the big players have to.