Well I've posted this before on other forums, and it gets my goat still. I told many here that I closed my business several years ago now.
During my many years in the business I made some friends who owned other franchises. One of them became a rather "decent" friend
who I enjoyed some travels with and plenty of meals. When we struggled in the business so did he, but we owned one store and he owned
three and the volume helped him struggle through while we closed. He was there to help us when we closed and I appreciated selling off
many of my worthless goods to him and he appreciated the lower price.
Long after closing - probably 9 months - we finally touched based and decided to have a BBQ. I told him how I'd just taken an
antelope and had some fresh meat and he agreed to do all the rest and we went to his place. Now he had 3 children ages 15-19. After
dinner over a beer he proceeds to tell me he's had to "milk" the system. Now he tells me how much he hates our government,
our politicians and all that, and now he's working them. Go ahead I say, what do you mean?
He divided his enterprise up into 3 corporations, one for each store. He laid his son (19) off from one and he works under the
table at the other while enjoying unemployment benefits. Before "laying him off" he paid him extra for three months so his
wages appeared higher and he was now getting $1200 a month unemployment. He doesn't live at home with them any more
or so he said. That was important because the books of his enterprises all showed he wasn't making any money. That was
so he, his wife, and 2 youngest could enjoy $112 a week in food stamps.
When his daughter turns 18, he said, he'll lay her off one of the stores so she can get unemployment too he said, can't wait.
He was even planning on his wife taking unemployment soon but they want to max out their food stamp year first because
they can't have both.
Now in good times he made $250k a year. In bad times I suspect he might have been down to $75k a year but he would
only lose money a few months each year - seasonal issues. He purposely keeps fake books for the tax man and to justify
his food stamps while living out of the till.
I left quite upset and when he called for another get together I said I couldn't, and told him why - that I thought what he
was doing was criminal, wrong and pathetic. He told me to "F" off and mind my own business. I got angry and decided to
make reports to the state and county (state for unemployment / county for foodstamps). I was told to pound sand -
that as long as he was wlling to commit perjury on the forms there was NOTHING they could do.
