Thanks for the article. It touches so many little hot buttons it's hard to know where to start and impossible to answer thoroughly, so here are some of my ways of dealing with a couple of them.

7. After the taxes and my helpers are paid, what do you have that I can use? From time to time I've ended up with limo service, use of a plane, office space... as long as one keeps the paperwork straight one can have some fun.

4. I'm real up front with my clients about what I can and can't do. If I don't have a particular skill set and the client wants me to "do the best you can", my price goes way up and I tell the client why. If I'm going to have to pay someone to fix up a mess I made I have to be able to afford it.

6. I had a wonderful programmer who spoke English well but when faced with a client who was proving more and more unreasonable would pretend his only English was "Is it payday yet?" and "Where's the bathroom?". Damn, that worked well.