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America's new millionaire class: Plumbers and HVAC entrepreneurs

(www.wsj.com)
185 points hhs | 4 comments | 13 Oct 24 15:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.616s | source
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jacknews ◴[13 Oct 24 16:36 UTC] No.41829377[source]▶
"The wave of investment is minting a new class of millionaires across the country, one that small-business owners say is helping add more shine to working with a tool belt."

How naive. PE does not enter a market in order to make existing workers into millionaires, but to create a monopoly/monopsony where they can gouge both customers and employees, to extract maximum profit. Quite often, the goal is not even to run the market sustainably, but just to produce optical profits for a quick resale.

A few local contractors may get bought out and become millionaires, but everyone else will be impoverished.

We can probably even predict some next steps. They will recommend and lobby for various 'safety' regulations or certifications that would be difficult for smaller shops to meet, and then pressure commercial landlords, housing associations, etc to require those certifications.

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bebop ◴[13 Oct 24 16:59 UTC] No.41829574[source]▶
That has already begun. Saw stop technology is already working it's way into regulations. A decent non saw stop table saw will cost you ~500 USD. A saw stop saw will be 1200.
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1. nasmorn ◴[13 Oct 24 18:02 UTC] No.41830100[source]▶
But an average table saw used professionally probably cuts more than 700 USD of limbs during its lifetime. So that seems very warranted and no, we will just take care very well is not a real substitute. That is what at least 10% of our parents also thought while we were fathered.
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2. charlie0 ◴[13 Oct 24 22:51 UTC] No.41832440[source]▶
If my math is right, the cost of even 1 limb greatly exceeds 700USD.
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3. nasmorn ◴[14 Oct 24 11:16 UTC] No.41836418[source]▶
I do hope not every table saw cuts of a limb. The cost is probably a couple of hundred thousand but it is spread out over many saws
4. ssl-3 ◴[14 Oct 24 11:36 UTC] No.41836550[source]▶
Professionally, sure: It's easy (and correct, I think) to assume that a saw that gets used every day, piling on hours, will do more than $700 worth of damage to its operators over its lifespan -- on average. Even with misfires being expensive (~$400, IIRC), it's still completely sensible to spend the extra money for professional use.

I'm not a professional, though. I may need a table saw for some projects, but the projects I undertake that require a table saw are few and are far between. My use won't wear out the saw in my lifetime.

Usage of a table saw in my own shop will be at least a couple of orders of magnitude less -- averaging perhaps a few hours per year. Furthermore, without an angry boss-man looming over me to maximize production, I can spend as much time as is necessary to optimize every operation in a safety-first fashion.

If we assume that it is just two orders of magnitude of difference, then: Spending an extra $700 for a sawstop-equipped saw is rather unlikely to ever pay for itself in my shop at home.

(Now, that's not to say that I wouldn't want this kind of safety feature in my own shop. The idea of losing even part of a finger forever is much scarier to me than spending an extra $700 one time: After all, I can make more money but I can't grow new fingers. It's just not such a financially-obvious choice as it is for professionally-used saws.)