Passing the Cost to the Consumer from a Business Owner's Perspective

originally posted by: Sremmos80
Yes they do it for money, that doesn't mean you can make other people pay YOUR expenses it takes to run YOUR business so you can make MORE money.

Uh, yes, it does. It happens every day, that is how businesses function in the real world.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

And our economy is in the tanks, so maybe we stop doing that?
Maybe the consumer is tired of paying for your expenses, while you reap the benefit?

Thought that is why people shopped small.. is cause they didn't participate in practices like that

originally posted by: Sremmos80
And our economy is in the tanks, so maybe we stop doing that?
Maybe the consumer is tired of paying for your expenses, while you reap the benefit?

Thought that is why people shopped small.. is cause they didn't participate in practices like that

And I am still waiting for your lucid and well explained business model which alleviates passing cost of business expenses on to the consumer.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I'll admit I don't have the perfect answer, doesn't mean I need to agree with the broken one we have going on right now

originally posted by: Sremmos80
I'll admit I don't have the perfect answer, doesn't mean I need to agree with the broken one we have going on right now

You have no answer except for your 'mommy said put a penny away for a rainy day' fund. Your complete lack of business acumen leaves you in no position to argue the Original Post.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: Sremmos80
I'll admit I don't have the perfect answer, doesn't mean I need to agree with the broken one we have going on right now

You have no answer except for your 'mommy said put a penny away for a rainy day' fund. Your complete lack of business acumen leaves you in no position to argue the Original Post.

I think Sremmos has confused having a hobby and making a living confused....?

But we do seem to be living in a society that has a lot of finger pointing and not a whole lot of thought being put into solving the current problems. Well, other than those whom believe in a certain political party in a cult like fashion?

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I'll admit I don't have the perfect answer, doesn't mean I need to agree with the broken one we have going on right now

You know I hate this kind of thinking. We should never go to war. Guns are never needed for protection. People want to give away their labor for others.

All of these thoughts are flat out denial of the reality of the human species. Perhaps slowly this will all happen but it is not even close to reality now.

Most people are selfish, most are greedy, and many are power hungry. The liberal thought process in a nutshell though is pretend the world is full of rainbows and well meaning nice generous people. IT ISN"T. Humans are animals, and the truth is it is survival of the fittest whether anyone wants to admit it or not. Trying to create some system making everyone equal when they are clearly not equal does not and will never work because no one has any desire to achieve if they get zero reward for it. As a result society degrades.

It really is not that hard of a concept to understand, it's just many people don't like facing unpleasant truths and instead go into denial.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I have heard that advice from more then just my mommy, I am sure you have given the same advice.
Sure it is not a business plan in it's self, but I would like to see the plan it is not a part of.

Why doesn't it work btw??

a reply to: proximo
This is about passing cost it takes to run a business to some one else.
This has nothing to do with war or guns or humans inherit nature, that is a gigantic thread in it's self.
I am not asking for utopia here.

Just simply why it is ok for some to pass off cost to some one else for a business that they started and plan to make money off of

originally posted by: Sremmos80
I have heard that advice from more then just my mommy, I am sure you have given the same advice.
Sure it is not a business plan in it's self, but I would like to see the plan it is not a part of.

Why doesn't it work btw??

I never said a business should not have a cash reserve for unplanned emergencies, I certainly had one. The premise of the Original Post, which has been lost on you, is that the cost of business goes up constantly and that cost is eventually borne by he consumer. Why do you not seem to grasp this?

a reply to: Sremmos80

I'm kinda confused here... If the costs are added by levels above (state or federal regs..laws..changes in market conditions for raw goods..whatever) Where would the costs be made up for?

I admit there are some companies pulling rather obscene total profit numbers, although the profit ratio is what matters the most. Walmart makes HUGE numbers.....by HUGE economy of scale. If they make $1 on a $20 item, it doesn't sound like much. If they're selling a couple hundred thousand a day? It's quite a lot. If costs for that raise the cost of making it by $1.25, does Walmart raise the price or do they eat the difference in an outright loss to borrow from another product's margin in balance? Everything must balance, without exception. (Unless you're Congress..then you print more money at will)

Take a Burger King as a real good example I've had a little experience with earlier in life. (Working the line, nothing important). Labor is a high high cost, and figured daily to adjust hours in near-real time where I've seen. The margins are very thin and constantly in flux...

If labor costs go up? (Min wage, health care requirements..whatever) what CAN be done? Does Burger King accept they just won't have profit anymore..or does a Whopper cost another $.10 per item to buy, to compensate? Again, they must balance out for numbers. That can never change for the end result.

How do you balance, if there isn't margin enough to absorb the new change? Passing on for price is all there is.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
Just simply why it is ok for some to pass off cost to some one else for a business that they started and plan to make money off of

Because that is how a business stays in business. They do not absorb the cost of business expenses without having to eventually raise the price of their goods and/or services. This is economics 101.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: proximo
This is about passing cost it takes to run a business to some one else.
This has nothing to do with war or guns or humans inherit nature, that is a gigantic thread in it's self.
I am not asking for utopia here.

Just simply why it is ok for some to pass off cost to some one else for a business that they started and plan to make money off of

because there's no other way to pay for cost than to make actual money, and the only way for a business to make money is to make a profit, and use that profit to pay for overhead cost?

Saving 15% of your money in a rainy-day fund only postpones the eventual debt. It doesn't make the problem go away.

Say you're running a lemonade stand. Each lemon costs you ten cents, and each cup needs about 6 lemons. To break even, you need to sell each cup of lemonade at at least sixty cents per cup, and that's just to have enough to pay for the lemon. You don't make any money at all. Now the government imposes a new tax which raises the price of lemons by ten more cents a lemon. A lemon now costs twenty cents.

Now, just to break even, you'll need to sell each cup of lemonade at at least $1.20 per cup. You can try to continue selling lemonade at 60 cents per cup for a while if you have some rainy-day money saved in the piggy bank, but eventually that money will dry up, and then you won't be able to buy any lemons at all to make lemonade, and you won't be able to sell lemonade.

As you can see, when the price of the lemons go up, the price of lemonade HAS to go up, otherwise the stand can't even afford to sell lemonade. The cost of the lemons gets charged to the consumer, the people buying the lemonade.

This is just to break even. If you wanted to feed yourself, not just make and sell lemonade, you'd need to make at least some profit to buy yourself food, clothing, rent an apartment. Pay for electricity and water. And remember, the government is taxing all your expenses, AND your income. THAT is why you go get a job - to make enough money to buy yourself food, afford to live under a roof, send your kids to college or afford an education. You can't make money by giving things away, unless you're begging for charity.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

What you wrote is precisely why I'm not in favor of corporate taxes. Though eliminating corporate taxes requires a rather large increase to individual taxes.

This is economics 101

And that 101 class has failed us, well some at least.
I guess my problem is the entire foundation.
It was the reason I did edit my first post and just say never mind..

But at this point I will say that I am wrong, and that you are right.
Sorry to have wasted your time

for me as a consumer...EBay is the best thing since sliced bread...
I am able to by-pass local businesses that are charging 2 to 3 times what the seller on EBay wants...
local business is becoming the place of last resource...for me..

why pay $400.00 locally when....I can get it from the USA for $135.00 plus $40.00 postage....delivered to my front door..

nearly all our manufactured items in Australia come from overseas.....so why not shop overseas????....and save abit of money in the process.

shop locally is becoming a thing of the past....I know that I'm not Robinson Crusoe in the above thoughts.....

originally posted by: Sremmos80
And that 101 class has failed us, well some at least.

Failed how? Because you think the price of something should remain static?

originally posted by: Sremmos80

This is economics 101

And that 101 class has failed us, well some at least.
I guess my problem is the entire foundation.
It was the reason I did edit my first post and just say never mind..

But at this point I will say that I am wrong, and that you are right.
Sorry to have wasted your time

so, what would be your solution to the problem, if capitalist economics has, in your view, failed some of us, and if you think the whole foundation has a problem? how would you expect for people to get food, a place to live, water, transportation, etc?

originally posted by: tri-lobe-1
for me as a consumer...EBay is the best thing since sliced bread...

I love eBay, I have been on since it started and have gotten deal after deal on there if you know how to look and have some patience.

local business is becoming the place of last resource...for me..
...

shop locally is becoming a thing of the past....I know that I'm not Robinson Crusoe in the above thoughts.....

Being that I live in northern New Jersey and am 15 minutes outside of Manhattan I am able to shop locally with good results. There as a good deal of competition and everyone is trying to entice you with deals and specials. If one guy does not have what I want I am sure the one up the street will.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: ketsuko

Why do you think so many of us don't like new taxes or regulations? We know it really means more money out of our pockets.

But you're just fine with paying taxes to subsidize McDonalds' and Walmart's low wages policies? Their pay-scales that don't equal the cost of living?
I'm not.

Who said we are?

Generally, I don't favor welfare, but again, you are talking about forcing upping the minimum wage to force a so-called living wage. Think carefully about what I wrote about above again.

1.) Make labor more expensive.
2.) Companies must pay a lot more for it which means they either have less labor and people either get fired or not hired at all AND they make things more expensive to help compensate for the costs of the labor they do have. (I lived through a min. wage hike and saw it first hand.)
3.) We all lose because our wages are devalued. We don't get raises and everything gets more expensive all around us as more people go on full assistance because they can't find work and we pay more for the goods we buy thanks to the new labor costs.

Can you afford it? I can't.