Make Money by Going Fishing a Lot

Ok, so apparently there is a breed of carp called "asian carp" that has invaded the Mississippi River and eaten all the other fish. Not only this, but the Asian Carp are threatening to invade the Great Lakes, where they would presumably destroy a $7 billion fishing industry.

This article  uses the phrase "marauding carp" to describe these fish. They grow up to 40 pounds and four feet long, and are able to jump about 10 feet in the air. Sometimes they leap out of the water and attack boaters, occasionally causing concussions and broken bones. (its true, Wikipedia says so). They eat and reproduce so fast that they are able to destroy native fish populations. Apparently they are so dangerous that the government is spending $78.5 million to find a way to keep them out of the the Great Lakes. There is only one route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, a manmade canal. Naturally, the government is rejecting the idea of simply laying a net across this canal, which could be done by a bunch of illegal immigrants for about $5.78, plus a ride back to the nearest 7-11.

Why is this woman holding a bow and arrow and sitting in a camouflage chair in the middle of a lake? Why is she not the slightest bit concerned that a gigantic carp is flying into her head?  

Photo came from this page. 

All well and good. The most obvious, cheapest and easiest idea has been nixed. Fine. That means that the $78.5 million is still out there, waiting for someone to get rid of these carp. For the record, there is a $25 million reward for Osama Bin Laden. The carp, apparently, are more than three times as dangerous as Bin Laden. We've already outlined a good way for you to catch him, so now we are going to give you a good solution for stopping these crazy marauding carp. My guess is that there are at least 100 ways to destroy these carp for less than one million dollars, but since we have $78.5 million to work with, we might as well take it.

How to make $78.5 million by going fishing a lot

1. Go fishing a lot

2. Everytime you catch a marauding carp, kill it. Everytime you catch something else, throw it back.

3. Eat the marauding carp. If you don't like carp meat, then make cat food out of it or put it in someone's car who you don't like.

In all seriousness, what if someone paid a $1 bounty for every Asian Carp. Surely there are less than one million of them, and over a few years they would all be caught, or would at least be kept in check. Additionally, carp meat is a common food in China, so its definitely edible.*

*Yes yes, I know, just because people in China eat it doesn't mean its edible, but again, cats could eat it, and then the people in China could eat the cats. Problem solved.

How to Make Money by Breaking Stuff

I have to say up front that this is not an original idea. Even with all the brilliant minds behind the ideas at Howtomakeadollar, none of us is smart enough to make this kind of thing up. You probably wouldn't think so, but pillaging, plundering and burning stuff to the ground is actually good for the economy.

In econo-babble, pillage and plunder is called "reducing the supply," and it is actually, completely seriously, not joking, a real economic theory that intelligent PhD. economists believe in. This theory was advanced by a dead guy named John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s, and is very popular with politicians for some reason.

Keynes was a well-respected economist in the 1930s, and he believed that a good way to make the economy grow was to kill farm animals and burn cities. This would cause prices to go up, which would cause businesses to produce more goods, which would be good for business. Now, as I said, Keynes was pretty smart. If you write a big book about the virtues of destruction, mayhem and burning, no one will take you seriously. Change it to "reduce the supply" and you become a world renowned economist. It also helped that he was working during the 1930s, when the economy had sunk so much that no one knew where it was. So you can see why he understood it so poorly.

Somehow, against all common sense, his ideas caught on, and the U.S. government gave it a try. They slaughtered thousands of pigs to see if it would make meat prices go up. It did! Great! High pork prices! Just what the economy needs more of. They call it the Great Depression, but it wasn't that great.
  

Nonetheless, some economists to this day still adhere to these theories, and nowadays every time a hurricane or an earthquake destroys something you will hear people saying that it is actually good for the economy because of all the rebuilding that will happen.

Here is an example from USA Today: "Although natural disasters spread destruction and economic pain to a wide variety of businesses, for some, it can mean a burst in activity and revenue.

For that reason, economists tallying the numbers expect that hurricanes will be neutral in their effect on the U.S. economy, or may even give it a slight boost... "There's real pain," says Steve Cochrane, director of regional economics at Economy.com, a consulting firm in West Chester, Pa. "But from an economic point of view, it is a plus..." (read the rest of this nonsense here)

There you have it! Some guy at Economy.com is pretty sure that  hurricanes are good for the economy. (he has a website, so he must be an expert!) I apologize for my skepticism.


Now lets list some of the vital things that hurricanes do. 

1. Bring communities together under the same pile of rubble that used to be someone's roof

2. Increase the supply of contaminated water

3. Decrease the number of standing telephone poles, which are ugly

4. Create jobs for looters
5. Knock trees over, freeing numerous kittens who climbed too high to get down.
Yep, all those things are good for the economy.

Thanks to brilliant reader C. W. for giving me the basics on Keynes.