Yes, you in the back with your hand raised?

I admire one who questions authority with probing questions, roky, unlike our failing student, DQ. You start out with a good question, lose me in the middle, then redeem yourself with another good, solid question in the end.

First and most evident...mansions are built by $25/hr/per man construction crews. Nobody on a crew with a skill to build a home works for minimum...not even the gophers! You have been fed this dredge of "low wages" as the ultimate urban legend. Homebuilders and their electricians and painters and concrete men and the gutter installers and the window installers, woodworkers do not work for low wages. Believe that, roky, I want you to start believing facts, not bumper sticker quotes from liberals. I want to meet a $5/hr construction guy...where is he? Show me his W-2, roky, and I'll send you a money order for $50.00! Use it anyway you wish. Bring me the minimum wage construction worker, roky! He doesn't exist. If he never existed, why use him as a crutch for a failing argument?

You next get into maintenance of that mansion where everyone from gardner to nanny makes twice or thrice minimum wage. I couldn't get a $5 gardner if my life depended on it, roky! In California, full-time gardners are getting $45K and nannys are getting $55K+ with fringe benefits you couldn't or wouldn't believe! $5/hr labor...a myth. I know NO ONE...I repeat...NO ONE WHO WORKS FOR MINIMUM WAGE! And that's a whole lotta folks. The last time $5/hr was a reality was 1981, my friend, and that was what college kids were making at the local Six Flaggs.

The Greed and Fear thing I don't quite get...I'll have to think harder on that one. Not quite grasping where you're going with that one so we'll move on.

Lastly, you ask how I maintain a landscape business without hiring illegals? I have a few Mexican crew leaders, all legal, the rest are full American...and the crews are small, motivated, and paid $10/hr with free lunch provided. Small, tight, talented crews who work together as one unit move from property to property and know that they will always have a job with my firm with yearly raises per my success. The more contracts I win, the more jobs they work, the higher per hour I increase. It's not hard to understand, roky, people really do want to work under your $25/hr threshold. None of my workers receive that wage you repeat. And they'll come back each and every day throughout the Spring, Summer, and Fall...imagine that?