well, if i had to do it by hand, it would be $100 per hour.
--and guys wonder why big corporations ship as many jobs as they can to china...just sayin'
I was thinking about this before, I can split a 20 inch or so diameter chunk of easy splitting red oak in under or right at one minute with my fiskars. Two minutes if I am sluffing it. I have split three foot diameter rounds in around four minutes, and that includes picking up big chunks and re stacking them on the block, or moving them to another block with a truck tire on it.
Now not all wood goes that fast of course, but if I get in a batch of easy splitting, it goes really quick.
And I am not John Henry! I'm an older little guy!! What gives, why can I split like this, and from what I am hearing here it is like a near impossible job that takes so long and is so difficult that it is worth serious folding dollars per hour?
I can't imagine these charges you guys get or want for splitting. If you can get that sorta scratch, swell, more power to ya, have at it, spend it wisely, but I can't see it as being sustainable in this economy in the long run.
Note, I said in *this* economy, today, what is going on right now this second, hidden behind the holiday shopping frenzy news fluff articles. This economy, which is teetering on systemic collapse (it is already beyond salvageable, the only question now is how long can they keep kicking the can down this debt road), especially if the eurozone breaks up economically, because our big kahuna banks/investment houses/institutional investors (think pensions large and small, insurance companies who need the scratch, etc) are exposed there bad, so it will slop over to the US economy within minutes, let alone hours or days.
The flash trading using computer algorithms will force it. Even if they put emergency stops in, it won't matter, as soon as it opens up again, the same algorithms take over.
You are going to see increasing pressure to drop service labor prices (which by you guys pro admission is almost all the cost of firewooding, the wood is cheap, the money is in the processing and delivery, it's 95% a "service" job) as more and more guys lose their jobs and look for *anything* to make an honest buck. And then there will be an equal number looking to make a buck, no matter how they do it, with all the possible negative ramifications. Desperate people get desperate.
I already have a crap job, so my income can't drop much lower, it is below poverty level already, but I get to live on a farm with my own cabin and firewood and garden space. So I am keeping this job, because life necessities are important, as opposed to life's luxuries and excesses. I can make do through a complete collapse much better than 99% of the population, because I am already setup and running at such a low FRN level. I did this on purpose, due to some personal circumstances, i future proofed my reality because I saw all this crap coming, because analysis like this has been a hobby of mine for decades now.
Ya'all who need maximum FRN flow might be hurting, and soon, unless you are 100% out of debt (I hope you are), or you'll be forced to drop prices, one or the other. You might have good sales and price increases *now*, I just wouldn't count on it being like that forever.
Note, not wishing this on any of you, just stating modern global economic reality. This ain't the 70s or even the 90s, the first decade of the 2000s was the last of the "good old days" for widespread large scale middle class wealth enjoyment in the USA. You'll see by around 2020, barring a global war, the USA reduced to second world class styled economy and social structure.
It's like all the factory workers who made 80 an hour with bennies included..that lasted awhile, too....but they are going, and fast, daily. for every one new factory opened, like ten or twenty close, get offshored.
So, if anyone is getting 50 or a hundred bucks just to split wood now, hellya take the cash and don't look back, I sure would. Get all you can now, it ain't gonna be like that for all that long.
The crash of 2008 was a teaser, a joke, a pittance, when we have several *quintillion* in derivatives are out there, being traded. They ain't worth nuthin really, just our economy is tied to those big banker's ludicrous bets. Once they all get nervous with each other, and all globally and cross border, etc, and want real money instead of theoretical, crash, bang, boom, collapse. It's right there, right now. Not saying it is gonna happen tomorrow or next week, but I will say it is gonna happen, and things are gonna get beyond ugly in the US. Much worse than the so called "great" depression. We had 40% of the population still living on mostly sustainable (for them) farms then, now it is under 2%, and then ask, how many inside that 2% are out of debt, as opposed to in hock every season to big ag, big bank, big equipment dudes, etc?
We didn't have *near* the government (all levels) debt back then. Not even close. There wasn't much in the way of what we call derivative trading going on. Many, MANY homes were bought and paid for in cash, no 30 year mortgages, that was unheard of, it didn't exist. Local taxes were minuscule, and national federal income tax was really really really low (and they can't change that now, too many contractual promises have been made to too large a portion of the population). The US was still in the heyday of mass production manufacturing, and getting stronger, not weaker and losing manufacturing daily, like it is now.
Just something to think about.
