Milking the cow

My main gig is as a mid-to-low level bureaucrat for the Feds.  I got no shame on this, I work reasonably hard and get my jobs done and folks get some help.

I also have a side-hustle going.  Milking my past life as a biochemist and manufacturing guy for a forever-forlorn group of folks who have dreams of big money.  I keep the hourly rate low and have been milking this deal for extra coin for five years now.

But I have a feeling that this largesse is coming to an end.  Sooner or later, these folks will just have to stop throwing good money after bad. 

I have been working for this same crowd on either a full-time or part-time basis since 1999.  I have had this same feeling twice, once in 2000 at the tech crash, and another time in 2007 before the meltdown.

Neither of those turned out well.