Ken, let me share something with you.

At one point, I was a headhunter for executive staff. I was very, very good at it. An old boss heard about my skills and asked me to come work for him. My previous job had paid me a small basic and 1.2%. So when I asked for 5%, I thought it was a lot. At that point, I did not know that the going rate was 50%. And my old boss didn’t feel inclined to tell me that.

So I went in every day, and at the end of the first month, I had 3 large placement fees - $110,000. Of that, $5,500 would be mine. Bear in mind, I paid all my own expenses, like gas, etc.

During that time, my boss had not placed a single person. In fact, he hardly worked. When it came to pay day, he told me, quite seriously, that he was going to take off 20% for office rental and phone. I was absolutely outraged and wanted my full amount and resigned right there and then.

That guy took home $105,000 for the month without lifting a finger, and he still had the gumption to want to take away more from me. I was a single parent with no other support.

I have been through numerous situations like that. I think it’s fair to say that I have made a lot of money for a lot of people, all of whom thought it perfectly okay to lie to me and cheat me. I never once had any of them reward me for my efforts. I recall one guy telling me (at another agency) that I had brought in more money than any of the directors or the other staff. Oh, yes, and I was also the only member of staff who left the agency in profit.

That agency was also responsible for increasing my PTSD massively. Why? Because the other fucking bitches resented me and sabotaged me. I won’t go into the story but if I had been living in another country, I would have known to sue them for every penny they had.

I have no time for companies that run on profit. It makes people greedy, and people like me are screwed into the ground. I have a social security of $212 per month. I am 70 years old. My income from last month on Medium was $520. I have no other means of support.

Capitalism is a means of screwing some people so that a small minority can get rich. Workers like me are not more stupid and less capable. We are actually the ones who are doing the work.

And it is precisely because all for-profit systems are driven by greed that subsidies exist – for capitalists, of course.