Tuesday, January 12, 2010

How to make $310 million in shady international political deals (Not making this one up)

Ok everybody: Greetings, salutations. I hope you are doing well, eating right, and preparing for global warming.

Now listen up. Big things are happening at Howtomakeadollar. We are changing our whole philosophy and throwing down our savings for our best idea yet. Drop all your one dollar ideas, and drop all your ethical grey areas. Quit your job, sell your stuff, and dump your girlfriend. Also, cancel Twitter. It is kind of dumb and will probably be made fun of in a few years, like things from the 1980s.

(You will need Facebook for this idea, so keep that.)

Thats right. We're moving to Nauru. No, Nauru is not a made up Star Trek place. Its the awesomest island paradise in the South Pacific, where everybody has a beachfront, it never snows, and shoes are optional. An island so dominated by fantasticness that they just got paid $50 million to "friend" two new countries.

Nope, not kidding.

Here's how it happened.
For years, Nauru was a tiny, isolated, and poor island nation that survived by exporting fossilized bird poop. Yep fossilized bird brownies. (I swear, everything in this post is true). I don't know what the world has come to. I have no idea who was buying this stuff, or what they were doing with it. My guess is it went like this:

Guy from Nauru: "I have an unpublished copy of the next Harry Potter book in this bag. I'll sell it to you for a dollar. 
Unsuspecting Canadian Guy"A dollar eh?"
Guy from Nauru: "I think thats about 1000 Canadian."
Unsuspecting Canadian Guy: "Can I see it first?"
Guy from Nauru: "No."
Unsuspecting Canadian Guy: "Eh. ok."
they exchange cash
Guy from Nauru: "LOL!!!" (runs away)

Unsuspecting Canadian Guy: (opens bag) "Bird poo fossils eh!?" (Shakes fist angrily)

Suffice to say, the fossilized poop industry was not kind to Nauru, and by the late 1990s they had run out of it. Yep, the world bought out all their bird poop fossils. Nauru sank into complete poverty.

However, when your entire national economy is based on selling poop fossils, you learn a lot about salesmanship. In 2003, they found a better way. A much better way.

In 2003 China paid them $130 million to officially "derecognize" Taiwan. This is the equivalent of unfriending someone on Facebook, only at a national level.

You would think that $130 million would be enough to last for a while, especially considering that only like 4 or 5 people live on Nauru.

You'd be wrong. In 2005 an unnamed nation gave them even more money (the total was not disclosed) to "re-recognize" Taiwan. Ok. Now we are up past $260 million. Surely that would be enough money right?
Nope.
In December 2009 Russia paid $50 million to Nauru for "friending" the nations of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Now thats a total of at least $310 million in six years for doing nothing at all.

This is all well and good, but how do I get my hands on that?

Glad you asked. Howtomakeadollar has two recommendations
1. Move to Nauru
Or...
2. Build your own island and charge massive amounts of money to friend and unfriend other countries
2a. Take over a small country and do the same.

You probably think I made this up. But I didn't. You can read about it here. its all true. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/nauru/6813915/Nauru-recognises-South-Ossetia-and-Abkhazia.html

2 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Is it possible to get a copy of the removed comment by the Nauruvian?

    ReplyDelete

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