Sorry about the hooker thing but thats just the reality of life, pretty hookers fetch more , pretty leather fetches more. some people like red headed hookers, some like western style tooling, people buy what they like if they can afford it then settle for less if they cant.
Mean wage was thrown in there to wake folks up to the fact that there are real jobs tied to this trade and people use the data to run their businesses which you and I are competing with so yea it still matters. None of us would hire a person to sew belts on a machine, or run a clicker press stamping out widgets for top dollar that would be just stupid business but we tend to sell our own labor for top dollar no matter our skill level, experience or part of the assembly process we are doing whereas a business can cut cost in all those same areas. thus making cheaper products of the same quality. Thats how Henry ford did it, one person doing one thing cheaper then on to the next guy. LOL all you need to is find someone that will do piece work for sewing and you can save yourself $x dollars a piece on your own time. I guess the simple way to say it is that sometimes we price our own selves out of the competition but then blame others who can do the work cheaper.
Oh and flea markets rock my friend it wasn't my intention to knock them and i hope you didn't take it that way you just wont get the same selling power in a flea market as you would say a high end store.