Hamish Macbeth wrote in message
...

"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...
You then compared the income of a business with the income of an
employee, a procedure that can only be described as fatuous.


Turnover per employee and profit per employee are valid parameters
to
analyse a companies performance.

true, but what do you do with an industry where many of the
participlating businesses have no employees? Even on farms with
employees, the proportion of the work done by the self employed or
owners/partners is far higher than, say, Tesco.
Obviously it would be an interesting exercise to compare UK farm
profitability with some other industry which is also predominantly run
on owner/family labour, perhaps small corner shops.
The problem with comparisons is that you have to chose a common factor
to compare. So that is why I chose return on capital. Most businesses do
function on invested capital. (although obviously there are exceptions
here as well.)


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'