Note:
! "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.
! "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.
! "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.
Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not
very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in
the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would
have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty
years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.
During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours
of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or
slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting
their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any
and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a
campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being
easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the
windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of
the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.
After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we
could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they
weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This
immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to
have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.
Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any
sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.
Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of
the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air
Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The
result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized
Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit
about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded
up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government
funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.
Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some
momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up
some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders
decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long
after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months.
This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what
they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax
dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich,
incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business
but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.