You are so right danimal, it's an unforgiving business for the workers out there. The primes want 30-50% right off the top. Then if you're unlucky enough to have to go through a second subcontractor, you're losing another 20-30% so what does that leave for you.....table crumbs. And who makes most of and the largest amount of money, the people who do NONE of the work but make money off the sweat of others.
Sad to say brother, but you have company. You are not the exception, you are the rule we are all living by.