Morality of Flipping Cars/Houses

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The reason they’re understaffed is because they want to keep their profit margins high.
 
Yeah, this one really needs some supporting evidence, or a statement that it is personal opinion only.
 
What I’m saying is profit at the expense of others can be sinful. The question is at which point does it become so?

Also, by rights, as Catholics, our standards could and (perhaps should) be higher such that we share profits with staff (without requiring them to buy stock) to balance out the injustice. Ie. that risk isn’t as risky as people are making out.

For example Petra, above, never mentioned whether or not her parents really did experience the hardships they risked taking on. In other words, if a person worries about the business going under for years, but it never actually does, then retroactively, you would expect they should pay their employees some more money; after all, they did most of the work.
 
Lara said:
The reason they’re understaffed is because they want to keep their profit margins high.
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Every place understaffs these days.

I think the case can reasonably be made, that extreme understaffing, and piling more work onto people than can be done, is an affront to the dignity of the human person. People are only valued insofar as they contribute to maximum profits. The human cost isn’t even considered. I know, from my own experience, that when you end the day totally exhausted from more work and aggravation than anyone can bear, then have to pray to get a few more hours’ sleep after you get home and get a bite to eat, and go back in and put up with the same nonsense the next day, and on and on, you have very little left of that person. I have to think that millions experience the same thing.

Profits are a great thing, but they are not the only thing. If that is what it takes for a business to be profitable, then perhaps the business is not viable and shouldn’t exist in the first place.
 
Throughout this whole thread you’ve been expressing a fundamentally Marxist view of businesses. Not only is Marxism completely condemned by the Church, but it has already been proven wrong by history. I guess the only question is, how many millions will have to die for you to be convinced?

I’d also point out that your views are based on a profound ignorance of some basic facts about businesses. For example:
Lara said:
As for being self-employed, the tax benefits are obvious. Due to taking on risk, the self-employed get tax breaks which employees earning the same amount of money for somebody else do not get.
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That is demonstrably false. Not only are the self-employed subject to the exact same ordinary income tax as wage earners, but they also have to pay the self-employment tax, at 15.3%!

Lara said:
Most business owners don’t keep losing for long and they fire bad employees. Risk is variable to the business, but it’s less than you think.
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You have already been shown how this statement is false. What is alarming is that not only were you ignorant of the well-known high failure rate of small businesses, but that you have completely dismissed the facts when they were presented to you without stopping for even one moment to reconsider your views. That kind of stubbornness is, of course, the reason Marxism refuses to die.
 
You are clearly overreacting. I have no belief in Marxism or forcing people to pay their employees more wages and taking less in profit. In my last post, I was alluding to the fact that as Catholics, there may indeed be an onus on us to pay the employees more and take less in profit.

Secondly, I live in Canada, the possibility of which you failed to consider.
I prepare my taxes as a self-employed individual and they are less than for people who earn their money from an employer.

Thirdly, I am not at all ignorant of the failure rate of small businesses. I’m saying there is more to it than the statistics. Check out my example about Oilville above.

If you don’t like this topic, you don’t need to read further. It isn’t necessary to launch an attack on me. I’m learning from the answers people give me. The most useful has been Genesis315. Thank you.
 
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JamesV.Cameron said:
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Lara:
When they were making money, they were underpaying their employees.
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Who says they’re being underpaid? No one is forced to work for any wage, people accept jobs working for a known wage. If they don’t like it they don’t have to take it. Low skill labor doesn’t command a premium.
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Ebenezer Scrooge couldn’t have said it any better! 🙂
 
Minks said:
Good grief! There is absolutely no comparison.
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Both use their position make a human necessity more difficult to obtain by people who otherwise would have found the object accessible.

For those who think everything’s hunky dory, I wonder how you feel about corporations, some foreign, buying homes in nearby localities and forcing prices upward. This is also fine, or is there a different standard?
 
As long as we’re under current governing, you’re free to think what you wish.
 
If you feel that you have done something wrong, take part of any profits you make and give it to the poor.
 
Lara said:
In that biblical example, we never find out what happens when the landowner tries to get employees the second day. In all likelihood, he would have trouble getting people to come in the morning. Plus there would be a lot of animosity between employees because they aren’t being paid correctly and fairly
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Unlikely. The bible passage seems to imply there were a shortage of jobs. Most likely the vast majority of the labourers employed on the previous day (including both the ones who started in the morning, and at the 11th hour) came in in the morning.
 
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Maybe it’s like cow tipping? A judicious application of force at just the right spot can work wonders…
 
Maybe, you never know. What I really want to know is how I can get someone to pay me to do it…
 
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Yeah, that would probably do it. Guarantee me $5mil, and I’ll start training now. XD
 
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