One day, Suzanne and I drove to Greenville, South Carolina, in the 1965 Ford Galaxy 500 that belonged to my father. He had allowed me to drive it after we got married because he needed for us to have two cars.
I drove it from the time I went to work for him until the day he died. Then, my mother sold it. I loved that car.
I was driving and had just started out from a traffic light when a Pontiac Fiero pulled out in front of us and stopped. I hit the brakes, but still ran into the back of the car.
It seems that the person driving the car was a salesman for the Pontiac dealership there in Greenville. He had just taken delivery of the car, which was to be his demo car.
He decided to go get a pack of cigarettes as an excuse to drive his new car. He explained that a Volkswagen pulled in front of him and stopped in the median, which kept him from being able to proceed.
We assessed the damage and saw that the rear of the Fiero no longer existed. It had basically vaporized. The bumper on the Galaxy was slightly bent and the name had been knocked off the fender. There were a few other cosmetic dings, but the Galaxy was in good shape.
It was decided that since the Pontiac salesman was at fault, and that their insurance would have to pay for the repairs, we would allow their body shop to perform the repairs.
After several weeks, my father called the dealership to find out why they had not finished with his car. Finally, they said we could come pick it up.
So, Suzanne and I set out to pick up the car. When we arrived, the body shop had already closed. I told the service manager I was there to pick up the car and he told me I could not. He said, “I don’t know how much you owe on it.” I told him “We better not owe anything.” He made a few phone calls and we got the car.
We left the dealership. Suzanne was driving our red 1982 Mercury Marquis and I followed her in the Galaxy. We pulled on to Interstate 85 and headed south towards Anderson.
Shortly, a man started riding Suzanne’s bumper and generally being a nuisance. He honked his horn and got right up on her bumper even closer. I saw this and I said, “Not while I am driving this beast, you don’t.”
So, the 429 cubic inches of engine roared to life. I pulled into the fast lane and pulled up beside him. Then, I proceeded to merge into his lane with him still in it, forcing him over onto the shoulder of the road.
He rode the shoulder for a little bit and then pulled off at the next exit. I followed him. I bumped his bumper and pushed him to the top of the off ramp and stopped at the stop sign.
He sped through the stop sign never to be seen again. I pulled back on to I-85 and caught back up with Suzanne. The “White Knight” had returned from the crusades and was back to protect his lady.
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Disclaimer: Many of the stories are completely fictional. Other stories are fictional accounts of true stories. Other stories are completely true. Sometimes the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
First a very special shout out to Mr. SpazBubbles. He is a fellow YouTuber and is a subscriber to this channel. Stop over at his place and tell him we said hello.
I had been away at college for nearly four years. While in college, I was sometimes home on the weekends, but most of my weekends were taken up visiting with friends. I did work at the store on Saturdays, but some people had not seen me in years.
Suzanne and I had just gotten married. We had a break-in at the store soon after Suzanne and I got married and we were trying to find a way to stop them. We had a new, ultra high-tech alarm installed at the store. I had a C. B. radio in the Galaxy and I also had a C. B. walkie-talkie that I left at the house with Suzanne.
The Western Auto was just outside of the city limits of Iva. This meant that the Iva Police Department had no jurisdiction to respond. We had to rely on the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department, which was not much more than useless.
There was an old joke that was more truth than joke that a Sheriff’s Department investigation ended when the deputy taking the report said, “Call us if you hear anything.”
In their defense, the sheriff’s deputies were spread very thin. We had a county that was approximately 1,000 square miles with only a small handful of deputies to cover it all. We knew that if anyone was going to catch anyone breaking into the store, we would have to be the ones to do it.
My father and I had decided that when the alarm company called us, I would go around the back of the store (a road ran behind the store) and he would go around front of the store. This way maybe we would catch them in between. Or, so we hoped.
One night the alarm went off and I went to the back of the store and started looking with the flashlight to see if I saw any obvious points of entry. I did not, so I started to go around front. To do this, I had to cross an old railroad right-of-way, which still had some ballast and ties. There were steep hills on either side of this right-of-way.
There is a bar across the street from the Western Auto called Snuffy’s Tavern. Now, this is about as rough a bar as you can imagine. If you read my story about the pool cue, you will get a little glimpse at what I am talking about.
One of the bar patrons yelled to my father “You ain’t going in there by yourself, are you, Bruce?” It appears that the good old boy patrol was going to provide back up for my father. Weapons of all kinds, from nunchucks to AK-47s, were quickly produced. The Secret Service assault wagon had nothing on these guys. In fact, if there was a standoff between a highly armed and trained SWAT team and these guys, the SWAT team better just go home.
About that time, I rounded the corner of the store and I heard the unmistakable sound of shotgun slides being racked. The sound was deafening. I heard what seemed like a hundred or so pump shotguns each racking a shell.
Then, it happened. Rusty was a Vietnam veteran and had been attached to the 82nd Airborne and, I think, was also a Green Beret. Rusty had about a million and five jumps to his credit.
I don’t know where he came from or how he managed to do it but, I was Rusty’s one million and sixth jump.
As I laid there with Rusty’s knee in my back and a face full of gravel, I yelled, “I am David. I am Junior. I am Bird. I am supposed to be here.”
My father yelled to the crowd, “That is David!” We had a posse go in the store and walk with my father around the back of the store.
While Doc, a former army medic, tended to my wounds, the posse searched the building from top to bottom and found nothing. They were all hoping to find someone they could beat up. Each one said, “He better hope I ain’t the one to find him”.
When Doc was done with me, I resembled someone who was an extra for Michael Jackson's Thriller video.
The alarm company automatically called the sheriff’s office so, once they were called, someone had to be there to fill out a report. I called Suzanne, and Papa and I waited for over an hour before the deputy arrived to take the report.
By the time the deputy arrived, all the guns were out of sight but very close by.
The deputy looked at me and noticed my wounds. Doc had bandaged me up pretty good, but I still had some blood on me. He asked if I had anything further to add to the report. I said, “No.”
The deputy asked how I got the injuries I had. Rusty looked at me with anticipation. He was wondering if I was going to rat him out or not. I told the deputy I fell into the railroad right-of-way. This seemed logical and he accepted it.
As the deputy left, he said, “Call us if you hear anything.”
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This is Tom and his wife Carol.Tom and Carol own the local hamburger restaurant.
To make things easy, Tom and Carol only sell hamburgers, one size of fries, and one size of soft drink.You get your choice of cola or diet cola, nothing else.
The restaurant is open from 10 AM until 10 PM every day of the week except Sunday.That is 12 hours per day.Each year the restaurant is closed from July 01 to July 15 so that everyone may have a vacation.
The restaurant is also closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
This means that the restaurant is open approximately 300 days per year.
300 days times 12 hours = 3,600 hours per year.Tom and Carol work all of those hours.So together Tom and Carol work 7,200 hours per year.
The name of the burger place is Tom and Carol’s Burger Dude, a very creative name.
Tom and Carol have two employees, Billy-Bob and Charlene.Both of them work 40 hours per week for the 50 weeks a year that Tom and Carol’s Burger Place is open.
2 Employees X 40 Hours per week is 80 hours per week.
50 weeks per year times 80 hours per week is 4,000 hours per year.
Billy Bob and Charlene make minimum wage.
Minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
$7.25 per hour times 4,000 hours per year is $29,000 per year.
Tom and Carol must pay payroll taxes as well as the cost of uniforms, etc. for Billy Bob and Charlene.To make matters simple, we will ignore those things.
To keep things simple, we are going to say that the restaurant is 3,000 square feet and that the rent is $1 per square foot per month.This is a very cheap rent at $3,000 per month.
$3,000 per month times 12 months is $36,000 per year rent.
We are going to give Tom and Carol a break on utilities.Electricity, Water, Sewage, Gas, Phone, and Garbage Pick Up are only going to cost them $5,000 per month total.
$5,000 per month for utilities times 12 months is $60,000 per year.
Tom and Carol must pay insurance on the restaurant to cover accident and theft, as well as to pay claims for people too stupid to know that coffee is hot and wet floors are slippery.The insurance company is very cheap.They only charge Tom and Carol $12,000 per year.
$12,000 per year insurance.
Things break in a restaurant.Ovens break, coolers go bad, and other things just go wrong.When aTom and Carol are lucky.They only have to spend $1,000 per month for repairs and replacements.This includes spoilage, loss, theft, and wastage.
cooler unit breaks, food spoils.
$1,000 per month spoilage, maintenance, loss, and wastage for 12 month is $12,000 per year.
Each year Tom and Carol have to pay legal fees to make sure everything stays legal.They also have to pay an accountant.Then, there are registration fees with the state, county, and city.The estimate is $50,000 per year.
$50,000 per year for legal, accounting, and registration
There are always things that come up.Just to keep these miscellaneous expenses simple, we will say that they come to $1,000 per year.
Tom and Carol have not paid themselves yet.They have not supported any charities yet.Every small business is confronted almost every day with a worthwhile charity.The baseball team needs to be sponsored.The Boy Scouts need money.The local schools all need to have sponsors for their yearbook.
We will assume that Tom and Carol donate $25,000 per year to local charities.This now brings the total outlay to $225,000 per year and Tom and Carol still have not made a single penny.
Things Add Up
Wages
29,000
Rent
36,000
Utilities
60,000
Insurance
12,000
Maintenance and Loss
12,000
Legal fees, Accounting, State Fees, Licenses etc.
50,000
Donations/Charity
25,000
Miscellaneous Expenses
1,000
Total yearly expenses
225,000
The Burger Dude only sells burgers by the meal.This makes the calculations a little simpler.Tom and Carol sell the burger meals for $6.00 each.
Cost to Make Burger Meal
Hamburger Patties
.60
Hamburger Buns
.20
Fixin's (lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, etc.
.50
Conidments (Duke's Mayonnaise, ketchup, etc.
.25
Cooking
.10
Fries
.30
Soft Drink
.25
Oil, salt, and other ingredients
.30
Paper products (cup, lid, bag, wrapper, fry bag, etc.)
.50
Total Cost to make burger meal
3.00
If the Burger Dude sells its burger meals for $6.00 each and it costs them $3.00 each to make the burger, then the gross profit per burger meal is $3.00.Each meal contributes $3.00 towards the overhead of $225,000 per year.
So far, the Burger Dude has to sell 75,000 hamburger meals per year to break even.Tom and Carol have not paid themselves a cent at this time.
Since Tom and Carol both work all the hours the Burger Dude is open, they work 7,200 hours per year.If they were to pay themselves minimum wage that would be $52,200 per year.This means they have to sell 17,400 more burgers per year just to make minimum wage.
For Tom and Carol to make minimum wage, Burger Dude has to sell 92,400 burger meals per year.
One day the president signs into law a new minimum wage.Now, the minimum wage is $8.00 per hour.This means Billy Bob and Charlene now cost Burger Dude $32,000 per year instead of $29,000.This is $3,000 more dollars per year.That means Tom and Carol have to sell 1,000 more burger meals per year just to make up for the added cost of Billy-Bob and Charlene.
There is more.Because minimum wage has gone up, workers who make more than minimum wage expect to get a salary increase.This means that at each step along the way the prices increase.
The farmers’ expenses have gone up because they have to pay more for labor.The farmers have to pay more for supplies because each step along the way has had to pay more for labor.
The meat packers need more money because their cost of labor has gone up in addition to the increase in the price of meat because the farmers had to pay more.
The meat packers pass their increased prices along to the wholesaler.The wholesaler has to pay more for their labor because their workers want an increase.
The original minimum wage was $7.25.It went up to $8 which is an increase of 75¢..75/7.25 is about a 10% increase.This means that every step along the way has to increase by at least 10% just to cover the increased labor costs.
The increase is actually exponential, but just to keep it simple we will say that the wholesale costs have increased by 10%.We will say that it now costs Burger Dude $3.30 to create a burger meal.
Tom and Carol are faced with a dilemma.Should Burger Dude eat the cost increase and continue to sell their burger meals for $6 each?Should Burger Dude increase their prices?
If Burger Dude keeps their price steady, they will only make $2.70 per burger.
Since Billy Bob and Charlene have gotten a raise due to the minimum wage increase, the $3,000 extra means that it now takes $228,000 per year to run the Burger Dude.
Before it took 75,000 burger meals to cover the basic costs of running the Burger Dude, but now it takes 84,445 to break even.
Since Tom and Carol work 7,200 hours per year if they pay themselves minimum wage, they would make $57,600 per year.
$228,000 overhead plus $57,600 salary means that in order to pay themselves minimum wage they now have to sell 105,777 hamburger meals per year.
In order to stay where they were to start with, Burger Dude now has to sell 13,377 more burgers per year.
Of course, Burger Dude could just increase their prices by 10%.This would mean that a burger meal now costs $6.60.
Not everyone gets a raise just because the minimum wage goes up.Now fewer people can afford to buy a burger meal.
Most people who make minimum wage are at the bottom of the food chain.
When the minimum wage goes up, usually businesses will let a good many of their minimum wage people go.
Companies will fire the least productive people when a minimum wage increase goes into effect and will not hire for a while.
In the meantime, the very people who the minimum wage was meant to help are hurt by the increase.Those making minimum wage saw their 10% increase taken away by at least a 10% rise in prices.
As anyone can see, a minimum wage increase is only hurtful to the economy.Adam Smith’s Unseen Hand will take care of wage increases for the American workers.In short, the market will set the wages.
Disclaimer The opinions or advice listed in this blog or website should be used as a place to start only. It is not a substitute for the use of a professional.
Please be sure to consult your attorney and/or accountant with any specific questions.
There is no one right answer to any business question that will cover all circumstances.
