On 11/02/04 11:39 am Doug Miller put fingers to keyboard and launched
the following message into cyberspace:

I agree that a business has to cover overheads, but many want to cover
the overheads twice over: once by marking up the materials, and again by
marking up the labor charge.

It's all the same in the end: zero markup on labor plus ten dollars markup on
parts, ten dollars markup on labor plus zero on parts, or five on each, all
add up to the same thing. The contractor has to make his profit somehow. Why
quarrel over what he chooses to call it?

When we lived in Taiwan, I never paid labor charges to get my car fixed:
the markup on the parts covered the workers' wages. In NY I paid retail
price for the parts PLUS $90/hr. labor charge.

Well, duh! Mechanics in NY get paid a bit more than mechanics in Taiwan. If
the service stations in NY adopted the same pricing structure as you describe
in Taiwan, they'd have to charge a *much* higher markup on the parts in order
to make their profit -- and then you'd be screaming about the outrageously
high markup on parts.

It's all the same in the end.

I was thinking the other way round: that charging $90/hr for labor
should mean that they don't have to charge retail for the parts -- just
as Jeff (to whom I was reponding) said.

MB