back there? Oh, they just laid you off. Well, if you wanta' work for me this is it. You don't want to starve do you? Well, I can hire plenty at this wage." And I got my prices all rigged in advance, of course. Let's say I am a painting contractor—which I assure you I am not—and I get the opportunity to bid on painting a house. I look over the house, figure I can do the job for $550 and come out. I don't worry about my competitors bids too much. They are like me. If they can't make money on a job—well, what's the use. So we all bid in the same range, maybe I was even a bit higher. So what, I did a real snow job on the home owner. He thought his home would be twice as beautiful with my job as it would have been if anyone else but me painted it. So I got the job. I know it will take about three days for three men to complete the job. This I figure will cost me a total of about 72 labor hours at about $3.00 per hour. I have a $216 labor cost right away. I will need, say, about $120 in paint purchased in wholesale quantities. I figure my wear and tear on equipment and my time and trouble on this job as $100. My overall cost of handling the job will be $436. I make over $100 clear. I might knock out two or three of these jobs a week during the season. I am not working. I am just bidding on the jobs, supervising them and furnishing the precious little equipment needed to get a painting job done. I am the enterpriser knocking down the money. AND WHAT IS MY REAL SECRET! MY SECRET would be simple enough. There are dozens of painters sitting around waiting for a call to go to work. I get calls from some every day wondering if I have any work for them yet. RIGHT HERE IS MY SECRET! I am dealing in the commodity —LABOR! WHAT I WANT TO GET ACROSS TO YOU IS THIS. YOU CAN DEAL IN THIS COMMODITY TOO! Labor is woefully ignorant. It knows not its value, it realizes little what wealth it creates, and knows little enough about its market price—wages. You can buy it and sell it wholesale. This is one important ingredient that created every great fortune today. Oh, of course, many acquired great wealth that were not dealing in this wonderful commodity, labor, directly. But they were dealing in the wealth that labor had created, or something that would be valuable only if
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