Monday Wrapup

So THAT'S where all the church money goes (Frank Zappa)

Americans shocked to learn that there isn’t actually a Social Security crisis

 Why am I still laughing?

 TIL The Mars Corporation (M&Ms, Snickers) has revenues of $30 billion/yr, remains family-owned, and is the 3rd largest private company in the U.S.

 TIL That during and shortly after the JFK assassination a woman was seen and photographed holding a camera and stayed after most witnesses fled the seen. She has never been identified.Nor has the footage she may have took been found. "They" got her?

 Independent Musician Lament
"Late last year, Zoe Keating, an independent musician from Northern California, provided an unusually detailed case in point. In voluminous spreadsheets posted to her Tumblr blog, she revealed the royalties she gets from various services, down to the ten-thousandth of a cent. 

Even for an under-the-radar artist like Ms. Keating, who describes her style as “avant cello,” the numbers painted a stark picture of what it is like to be a working musician these days. 

After her songs had been played more than 1.5 million times on Pandora over six months, she earned $1,652.74. 

On Spotify, 131,000 plays last year netted just $547.71, or an average of 0.42 cent a play. 'In certain types of music, like classical or jazz, we are condemning them to poverty if this is going to be the only way people consume music,' Ms. Keating said. ... The question dogging the music industry is whether these micropayments can add up to anything substantial. 

'No artist will be able to survive to be professionals except those who have a significant live business, and that’s very few,' said Hartwig Masuch, chief executive of BMG Rights Management."

Try being a painter.

Everyone out of work and every one in my country illegally seems to paint.

I didn't say that they are painters, they can just paint.

There is a difference.

 Because of this glut in the market place we real trained and state licensed painters can't get paid much for what we do.

 The unfair competition of the false economy keeps prices we get paid for our work artificially low.

American painters have to take test to qualify for their state contractors licenses, which has a yearly fee that must be paid with a bonding fee.

They have to comply with tax codes, have insurances, bonds and have permits to work in each city they do business in. All of which requires payments from the painter.

 For all the years that I have been a painter it has always been a struggle to make what I am truly worth in the market place to afford the overhead of doing business as a painter.

The materials I use have gone way up. A gallon of exterior paint was $3.25 when I first started, today that same gallon can go for as much as $70.00 or more.

I purchased a gallon of white water based enamel from Sherwin Williams for my own home last year and I paid $70.00 as a contractor for that paint!

 Because I have years of experience and am actually a licensed trained painter I always get my jobs done faster them most.

As a result customers sometimes feel cheated because I did not take as long as they thought I should have.

 They sometimes want to penalize me financially for my experience that makes me efficient.

 When they tell me that I did not take very long, I always tell them that yes I did take long, "It took me years to be able to do what I just did for you!"

There is honestly no way to compete with the illegal false under the table economy with our overhead.

But I really love painting so I plow ahead none the less.

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So go ahead and build your website with ease

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The Who smashing amps and guitars had nothing on this guy!

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