I have a 50 year old house and would like to have a good electrician
that can rewire my breaker boxes and allow me to use a generator
for emergency power.
I don't want to use a contractor because they cost over 300 percent
of the actual cost and I can't afford that.
Please no smart ass responses.

Look mate.

You aren't going to get your answer here.

I live in KC.

I just picked up the yellow pages.

I just found the names of over 500 electricians who are not listed as
contractors.

Call them.

Ask them to come visit your house, tell them you will pay them for the
time they are there.

Do that with 5 different individual electricians.

Then make your pick based upon Cost, Quality, and Schedule.

NO ONE IN A USENET NEWSGROUP IS GOING TO BE ABLE TO REFER YOU TO ANYONE
WHO IS WORTH A DAMN, BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO WAY TO KNOW WHAT THE
INTENTIONS OF THE COMPLETE STRANGER GIVING ADVICE HERE ARE.

Your problem is not unique. It has been encountered and solved
countless times since about 1890.

Unless I'm mistaken, they didn't have usenet then.

Use your brain.
Use your gut.
Use your balls.

Open the book, pick up the phone, dial 7 digits.

It's actually fairly easy.

Oh - one other thing:

INSIST THAT PERMITS ARE PULLED, ASK FOR PROOF OF INSURANCE.

And another thing -

Quit focusing so much on cost.

The fact that you want it to cost a certain amount DOES NOT square with
people being able to do a quality job and make a profit. But, as I
said, pick a percentage from cost, quality, and schedule. The total
can't be more than 100%.