Make friends with a plumber. A friend of mine had a master plumber as a neighbor in TX who was looking at cutbacks in work because he was focused on commercial real-estate. To put some extra cash in his pocket, he did a couple of jobs for my friend that the “yellow-pages” plumbers quoted out at over $1000, and he only charged a couple hundred. It’s a strategy I’m going to try to exploit as well.
There is a problem with every aspect of this. Government puts such a burden on business that they must spread that burden onto their customers. As the economy contracts fewer customers can afford the burden and the remaining amount must be spread on even fewer customers. Many of those will either do the job themselves or live with the problem. The business goes under.
People working for cash further increase the burden.
Now, do I blame anybody for getting their plumbing fixed for $150 instead of $550? No. But the problem is regulation. Not just one regulation or one government department but dozens of regulations and departments.
Now, spread this problem across all businesses and the impact to the economy is staggering.