Replies

Why are you convinced, apparently, that a business could expend extra in wages with no effect on its prices, while a similar added expense for supplies or taxes would have an ill effect?

You didn't answer this question except to assume:

If he pockets the difference between any other type worker's compensation and that he pays his serving workers, the difference being paid by his customers directly, and the cost of his prepared food is not affected by the difference, and yet he raises the price of his food to make up that customer paid difference to keep the cash flow, he has a greed problem.

Again, what makes you assume that the cost of the food is not related to the wages he pays? I mean, of course, the cost it takes him to prepare and present the food to the diner in a clean, comfortable environment. What you are saying is that he could pay the staff $2/hr and charge $5 for bacon and eggs or he pay $10/hr for staff and still charge $5 for bacon and eggs. The only reason he doesn't is his own greed.

What basis do you have to make this determination?

Finally, you did not answer the basic question, repeated above. Why do you think that one business expense (wages) has a different effect on the prices a business charges than another (taxes, utility cost, supplier increases)?

We aren't talking about a business. We're talking about the restaurant business. And in the restaurant business, or any business that dependent on tips paid directly by the customer to the worker, paying a wage not dependent on tips has no need to affect product price. Of course, if you run such an operation and you're used to skimming this kind of cream, you may raise your prices if denied that source of income.

Does that answer your question?

Again, what makes you assume that the cost of the food is not related to the wages he pays?

Because his prices are based on the increasing unwillingness of people to cook for themselves, and the work load on his customer base to thrive in a political environment that runs on a high level of graft to sustain its socialist programs that creates that unwillingness.

What you are saying is that he could pay the staff $2/hr and charge $5 for bacon and eggs or he pay $10/hr for staff and still charge $5 for bacon and eggs. The only reason he doesn't is his own greed.

No, I'm talking about charging $5 for what costs about $.65 in raw food expense, and then expects customers to directly pay the lion's share of his delivery system (waiters) cost, which leaves only the production system (kitchen) costs.

The article discusses an attempt to sustain this type of activity to keep his less motivated members of that delivery system happy at no cost to himself. He probably can't increase the price of food; it will have been jacked up to the max the traffic will bear.

What basis do you have to make this determination?

My first or second post.

Let's get something straight here. Capitalism is the best, in my opinion, system of economic production and distribution we have. That was pretty much proved in this country as early as the Plymouth Colony.

But it has its paths of abuse and its destructive principles like any other system. Entrenching that abuse in custom can break down a society as well as any other system. The capitalist system depends more on self-governance and the condition of the heart more than any other system.

I run a business that combines a manufacturing system and a retail marketing system. I base my prices not on what the market will bear but what I figure allows as many people as possible that like it and need to access the product. My product has therapeutic application for muscular dystrophy and other special problems. I do not jack up my price because of that need and use.

There must be a morality in capitalism or the society that uses the capitalist system becomes an immoral society.

My opinion.