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FR advocates makes statements like, "We should be able to make 20% net because Mac Donald's does". Then they quip, "They feed us junk." "We provide for the health, safety and welfare of mankind". As if to say, working at MacDonald's is unrespectable and being a plumber is. Despite all the bad examples, Mac Donald's does not make that kind of net, but then, 20% of what is the real question? Few of us could live on 20% of $100,000. gross. But 20% of a million is serious income by any 'standard'.
I think we deserve better. Since the few magazines that speak to our group apparently assume the mantle of educating small contractors in accounting, I suggest real accounting and not "get rich schemes" should be the norm, not the exception. Someone who can speak to the 90% of us who could benefit from understanding the critical nature of knowing costs and how to apply that information without having it appear that knowing costs and FR are somehow inseparable should also be the norm, not the exception.
The unethical and illegal nature of flat-rate schemes has been demonstrated in the courts In addition to false promises of wealth and prosperity, a few who embraced flat-rate schemes have endured property seizures, huge fines, personal and corporate bankruptcy, huge legal defense bills and lost licensure. [http://www.phcc.org/warner/] Keep in mind, this self-serving link is authored by the man who got caught!
Somehow the epiphany of "knowing your costs" is being projected as necessarily integrated with the "get rich" schemes the flat-rate staff promotes and the smoke and mirrors used in these unethical "get rich programs" at the expense of those of us who want to read about real accounting and real business not some snake oil salesman hustling price books and drain chemicals (the latter being one of a particularly unethical contractor's suspect methods to juice profits still further). The methods employed (FR or T&M) are not actually part of any serious business plan. They are merely forms of implementation. Many of us believe the advocacy some our trade magazines afford flat-rate promoters essentially supports a pricing method so suspect and unethical as to be avoided at any cost and since it appears to be at odds with real accounting, understanding costs and hence, what really makes profit results in confusion and misinformation to the reader.
It is truly unfortunate, a few Yank trade magazines, choose to omit or even ostracize 90% of the readers for avoiding unethical and illegal get rich schemes. Along with the thousands of contractors who enjoy prosperity using T&M, most of us simply avoid the FR hype, make money the old fashioned way and avoid unethical behavior at all costs.
 Ken Secor "Plumbers Protect The Health Of The World." 
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