Reply #4: Clarification [View All]

[kcwayne]

My post was not intended as an insult to the people that are doing this. I work in the industry and know very well the level of skill and capital it takes.

But when your busines model for something this capital and knowledge intensive is this small scale, you are a Gomer in the industry. Try walking into any major company and get respect and the commensurate pricing for your services. It is very, very tough.

What blew me away is that the professor from Purdue says these guys are on the right track. And they ARE part timers according to the article.

So in the 1920's any guy with a wrench and a shade tree to work under could set up shop and repair cars along the roadside. Hence the term "shade tree mechanic". Cars were unreliable, and broke down constantly, so one could pick up a few bucks hanging around the tree on a Sunday afternoon helping people that broke down in the area.

Now, you need an engineering degree and 3 million in net worth to set up your shade tree. And the business proposition is that you can deliver quicker than the highly capitalized, governmentally subsidized, and evironmentally/legally unregulated operations that have been set up in China.

That is not a vision for a future, unless you envision failure.