Enormous Ice Crusted Mountain For Sale in Wyoming

The state of Wyoming, which, I am told, is kind of near California, has been having trouble paying its bills, and is planning to sell one of its many mountains to the highest bidder. Wyoming's only natural resources are mountains and the snow that is constantly clinging to them, and they are hoping to make the most out of these resources in order to pay for their state education budget. This is true. Read the news item here.

The mountain that is currently on the auction block is called Grand Teton. If you've heard of it, its because Grand Teton is one of the most photographed and beautiful mountains in the world, up there with Fuji, Kilimanjaro, and Rainier.

Grand Teton is the big one in the middle

I don't know who is going to buy this mountain, or what they will do with it, but I would guess that lots of ski lodge developers are interested, and I suppose some mining companies are probably interested. In any case, this is an example of making money off something that you already own.

Make Money by Selling Low Priced Products

You may have heard about the $35 computer by now. If not, you can read up on it here. A company in India has created a computer that costs only $35 dollars. It is extremely basic, and only provides a screen with a touch screen keyboard, and an Internet browser. But at that price, it is going to be available to the population of India of over 1 billion people. India, you probably know, is developing its economy very quickly, but it still has an enormous population of poor people, probably about 900 million. This population is educated, but very poor. They can't afford an ordinary computer, but they would know what to do with one if they had one.

Well, now this population is about to be exposed to a computer that costs $35. They will be able to do almost all the things you and I do on our computers. The only real difference is that they will have to save everything online, using programs like google docs to save their work. They don't really have cameras or iPods, so they aren't worried about storing pictures and music and videos, but they will be able to get work done. In a developing economy, getting work into the hands of 900 million people is going to be a major benefit to India and will pull a lot of people out of poverty.

This is an example of capitalism free from high government restrictions, regulations, and taxes. In its purest form, capitalism lowers prices and pulls people out of poverty on a massive scale. Not by raising prices and gobbling up profits, but by lowering prices and getting products into the hands of consumers who need them.

You may have also heard about the Tata Nano, a $2000 car built by Tata Motors in India. Its a small little car, but brand new it only costs $2,000. Its perfect for a developing country. Right now India is positioning itself for major economic growth going forward. They have business-friendly government policies, and they are not bogged down by lots of restrictions, regulations, fees, permits and taxes.

Make Money by Giving Stuff Away for Free

It seems like a bad business model to give stuff away for free right? Well, thats because in most situations it is a bad business model. But in some cases, you can actually do better by giving something away, so long as you do it right.

Think of Google. When Google's original search algorithm was created, the founders intended to sell it to Stanford University as an internal search engine that the university could use to improve its research capabilities. Well, what would have happened if they had sold their algorithm? They probably wouldn't have created the Google we know today would they? Nope. It would have been named something like "UniSearch," and the only people who used it would be nerdy grad students at Stanford. Instead, after they realized how good their engine was, they decided to run it for free on the Internet for all users. By opening up a superior product for free to everyone in the world, they ensured a massive base of users, and figured that they could find a way to make money off of this base. Google has been selling ads on its searches almost since the very beginning. These ads provide the revenue Google needs in order to continue operations. But in order to ensure it keeps its enormous consumer base, Google has to continually offer improved services for free. Thats why they now offer blogging software, Youtube, maps, and Google Earth (not to mention hundreds of other services). They give all of this away for free just to ensure that they keep their users happy.

Hewlett-Packard also follows a similar concept. They sell their printers at a loss - a significant loss. But they know that if consumers buy their low-priced printers, these consumers will have to come back to buy ink and toner from HP. By being willing to sell one product at a loss, they ensure that they will have a large customer base that buys their other products at a profit. This keeps HP profitable, and puts tremendous pressure on their competitors to sell low-priced printers. The customer doesn't mind either.

Make Money by Adding Sugar to Water

A proven strategy for making big money is taking water, sugar, and food coloring, and adding them together. A few artificial flavors mixed in doesn't hurt either. Here is a list of just a few of the companies that have profited from sugar water

Coca-Cola - Last year's revenue - $31 billion
Arizona Beverage Co. - Last year's revenue - 2.5 billion
Pepsi - Last year's revenue - 44.3 billion
Dr Pepper Snapple Group - Last year's revenue - $5.531 billion
Hansen Natural Corp. - Last year's revenue - 1.14 billion
Red Bull GMBH - Last year's revenue - €3.3 billion


There you have it. Between these six sugar-water companies you have an annual revenue of $84.471 billion. Or, written out, you have a revenue of $84,471,000,000.00. I did not add the Red Bull GMBH revenue to this figure because it is European, and I have no idea how many dollars €3.3 billion is. I don't even know what that symbol means. It could be play money for all I know.


I have not included several major sugar-water brands like Lipton, Kool-Aid, and Hawaiian Punch because they are brands owned by large conglomerates such as Unilever and Kraft, not actual companies. Obviously there are tons of smaller brands of sugar water, and 10 different generic brands for every major brand. I think its safe to say that the sugar water industry is worth at least $100 billion annually, probably closer to $200 billion. 


There is nothing stopping you from getting into this market. Just think up a flavor, then dump it in a bottle full of sugar water.

Make Money with Psychic Animals

You may have heard, during the World Cup, of a German octopus named Paul who was able to accurately predict the winner of all the soccer matches. People would put the flags of various nations into his tank, and he would swim over to the flag of the nation that would win the match and try to eat it. Apparently he was right 100% of the time, which is better than most of the soccer experts on TV. Wikipedia says the odds of this happening by chance are about 255 to 1.

What is that calamari doing on a Spanish flag? 

I was peripherally aware of this ongoing event, but did not take a strong interest in it because, frankly, its just another fortune telling octopus, and is not really a big deal. Get me an octopus that can predict the weather, stock market movements, or lottery numbers, and then I'll pay attention. Paul the Octopus is just a reliable guesser of soccer outcomes, which is only marginally more interesting than being a reliable guesser of how fast paint will dry.*

Anyway, Paul the Octopus somehow established an international following of believers. Believers. 


And if you can get millions of people around the world to believe in the prognostications of an internationally acclaimed cephalopod, then you can pretty much get anything you want. This is how Paul the Octopus's owners plan to make their millions. Several marketing consultants have suggested that Paul could be worth about $4.5 million as a product "spokesman," and could also charge significant fees for public appearances. Even if he loses his abilities, I'm sure you could turn him into calamari and sell him to a good restaurant for about $40 per pound.

*Actually, I'm going to take that back. An octopus that could definitively tell me how long it will take to get my stairwell painted would be quite useful to me. There, I said it. Soccer matches are less interesting than painting a stairwell. 

Make Money Solving Math Problems

Have you ever heard of Grigory Perelman? He's an unemployed Russian guy who supposedly solved a math problem called the "Poincare Conjecture," and was offered a one million dollar reward for doing so. I don't know who the people are who offered this money. I assume they are extremely rich people who have nothing better to do. But the story doesn't end there. No. This supposed genius decided he didn't want the million dollar prize, and has refused to accept it.

Ok, well, he's a wealthy guy who decided to pass the money to some charity right? Well, no. Actually he lives on welfare in a tiny apartment in St. Petersburg with his elderly mom, and hasn't had a job in several years. Also, he looks like a homeless serial killer.

This man is a genius

The Poincare Conjecture is a somewhat difficult math problem dreamed up by a crazy guy named Poincare back in 1904, before calculators were invented, and before anybody found out that math was important. A few people tried to solve it, but they all got busy with family responsibilities and fixing mowers and stuff, and after a while everybody more or less forgot about Poincare and his conjecture. So for 99 years the whole thing was forgotten. Then, in 2003, Grigory Perelman posted a solution on the Internet. It took mathematicians seven years to resolve his solution and verify that it was correct. Then, in early 2010, they announced that he would be given the million dollar prize. 

For the past several months he has been "thinking about it," and just now decided that he doesn't want it. This does not seem like a genius move. 

But it does open a door for anyone who likes doing math. I don't know what they are going to do with this prize money. My guess, since the whole thing seems to be happening in Russia, is that the government will come and get him and nobody will ever see him or the money again, and eventually he will build a nuclear reactor. So this money is a lost cause. 

However, there are other math problems out there that no one has solved yet, and which have serious money associated with them. I spent several years studying math in high school, so I am a world class mathematician. There is a wikipedia page that lists six unsolved problems that have million dollar prizes attached. The way I see it, I could probably solve all six of these in a few hours, but I would like to partner with another skilled mathematician just in case I run into trouble with the train that left Chicago at 4:00 pm. I always have trouble with those train problems, and I assume, since these problems are hard, that they include LOTS of trains. I will gladly split the money with you 60/40. 

If you are a world class mathematician, and would like to partner with me to solve these problems, please email me, and we will work out a time to get together. Tuesdays are usually good. I hope we don't need to show our work.

Howtomakeadollar was right!

About a month ago Howtomakeadollar published a groundbreaking idea* in a blog titled "Large Pool of Crude Oil Available on First Come First Serve Basis." If you have not read this blog, you need to go read it right now, because of how groundbreakingly groundbreaking it was.

*Howtomakeadollar publishes groundbreaking ideas every single day

Ok, so I assume you've gone over and read that blog now. Its a good idea right? Just go out and start collecting the oil. Its floating right there on the surface, available to anyone, so we suggested going out in a boat and filling up buckets with oil. We also suggested getting extremely large boats and filling them up.

Well, thats exactly what a bunch of people are doing now. In fact, an enormous ship called an oil skimmer has just been released into the Gulf of Mexico. It is almost four football fields long, and is capable of collecting 500,000 gallons per day. This is exactly what Howtomakeadollar suggested on May 16, 2010 (50 days ago). If some guy had followed our advice then, the big skimmer could have sucked up approximately 25,000,000 gallons by now.

Now, this is crude oil and you will get a lot of seawater in the skimmer, so lets assume that after the water is removed and the oil is refined, that there would only be about 5,000,000 gallons of actual oil left over. At $2.50 per gallon of gas, you would make $12,500,000. Aside from that, you could feel good about yourself for saving a bunch of manatees and mermaids and other happy sea creatures. Of course, while sucking 500,000 gallons per day, you would probably suck up a lot of them too, but there is nothing you can do about that.

You can see a video about this skimmer here: http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/world-s-largest-oil-skimmer-positions-in-gulf-20657689

The Future is Now: Flying Cars Have Been Invented

Howtomakeadollar has been a staunch advocate of the future for a long time, but I have to admit that lately we have been getting a little bit impatient. The future is always being put off until tomorrow or next year, and after a while, you tend to get a little bit jaded about the whole thing. So if, like us, you have been waiting for the future for your entire life, then you will be excited to learn that it has finally arrived.

I'm referring, or course, to the invention of a flying car. People have been talking about flying cars since the days of horses and buggies. Of course, they always called them "flying horses and buggies," but the concept, give or take an internal combustion engine, was the same. However, despite all the talk, flying cars and flying horses have always remained elusive. Until now.

read all about the flying car at the company website: http://www.terrafugia.com/

We are living in interesting times. For thousands of years people always thought about flying cars when they thought about the future. Now what will we think about? Beats me. The end of the world must be getting close. There is no more future left to imagine.*

*except for global warming, which is always being put off to the future... But global warming is boring, so thats out. Maybe we can dream up a flying elephant or something. That might inspire people.

The flying car is called "Transition," and it is made by a company called Terrafugia. Just yesterday, June 29, 2010, it was approved in the U.S. for both air and road travel. Its wings are able to unfold electronically while the car is driving, allowing it to take off into the air straight off the highway. When it lands the wings can fold back up and it can drive down the road just like any other car, and it can park in an ordinary garage. Of course, it looks extremely goofy driving down the road, but honestly I don't think it looks much stupider than lots of other cars that people drive, and it can fly, so there.

Yep, its ugly, but at least it can fly. Now what about the rest of you? 

Ok great, but how do I make a dollar off this? 

There are probably lots of good ways to make money off this, but the easiest way to do it would be to change the name. The people at Terrafugia are obviously geniuses, but they have totally missed the boat on the name. Its called "Transition." What a dumb name. You've invented the flying car. The crowing moment of all of history is upon us, and you call it "Transition?" Really? That sounds like the name of menopause pill. No. You need to get a job in the branding dept. of Terrafugia and change this name now. You will sell millions more of these by simply naming it "The Flying Car."

What to do when you are rich and powerful

Lots of people want to be millionaires right? But what do they do when they make their millions? They buy cookie cutter McMansions and few nice cars, and they play golf a lot. Howtomakeadollar thinks this is boring. We have lots of other recommendations, but today we will be focusing on pranks. Anyone can prank his friends, but a rich person can afford to prank them in ways that the rest of us can only dream of. Here are a few ideas.


1. The "Dude, Where's My House?" missing house prank: You know that prank where you come out to the parking lot to get in your car, but your car is gone because a bunch of your friends moved it? Usually they moved it to some annoying place like Bed Bath & Beyond. Thats just a tip for you in case you haven't found yours yet. Anyway, if you are rich you could take this classic prank up to a higher notch: Move their house. Wait until they go away for a while, then hire a crew of house movers, and have them tow your friend's house out to the middle of a lake or a desert somewhere. When your friend comes back he will be in for a big surprise. He will never see it coming, and you can all share a good laugh about it later.


2. The champagne prank. You know that prank where you come home and somebody has filled up thousands of little pixie cups full of water and covered the entire floor and every flat surface in your house with them? Well, if you are rich you can do this same prank, only fill all the cups up with champagne instead of water. This doesn't really add anything significant to the prank, but you should do it anyway since you're rich.


3. The sweepstakes prank. I'm sure you've heard about those Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes that occasionally show up at people's houses and pay out big prize money. Right? Well, this is a good setup for a prank you could do. Just hire somebody to show up at your friend's house and tell him he's won a million dollars from a sweepstake. Make sure the guy you hire is really convincing, and give him an actual check for one million dollars to give your friend. Your friend will be ecstatic and will call up everyone and tell them he won big in the sweepstakes.  But the joke is on him because it wasn't really a sweepstake! It was just you pretending to be a sweepstake. He will never live this one down.


4. The stock market prank. If you are rich enough, you can buy a controlling interest in a large corporation. Once you do this, you can then sell all your stocks on the open market for like ten cents each. This will cause a dramatic crash on the company. If you bought a large enough company, such as Wal-Mart or Google, it could even cause the entire stock market to crash for a day or two. This would be a hilarious prank and would probably make international news. The whole world would find out about your prank and they would all just shake their heads and laugh. "What a funny guy," they would say. If you do this prank, try to let us know ahead of time so we can buy all the cheap stocks that you dump off.

Make Money by Being Mildly Good at Golf

For the past few days Howtomakeadollar has highlighted ways that ordinary people can become professional athletes on team sports. We mentioned that with team sports you can simply perfect a single niche skill that your team requires. In one of these blogs we mentioned that golf, being an individual sport, does not allow ordinary people to go pro.

This is true. However, professional golf is not a completely individual sport. You see, all professional golfers use a person called a caddy. Caddies do not have to be any good at golf. This is where you come in.

You may not know it, but professional golfers are expected to tip their caddies with 10% of their winnings whenever they make money in a tournament. Now, 10% may not sound like much, but the prize money at major tournaments is extremely high. The "Augusta" tournament winner gets $1.35 million. There are several other tournaments with prizes over $1 million, so I think the key is to be a caddy for a good golfer, not a lousy one.

Caddies, to my knowledge, have one main job and one secondary job. The first job is to keep track of the golf clubs and drive the golf cart around without flipping it. The secondary job is to provide advice to the golfer about which club to use. Now, most professional golfers know a good bit about golf, so, if they ask you what club to use, the best answer is "go with your instincts." Because, really, they know more than you, and odds are any advice you give will be stupid. Remember, you are an ordinary person.

However, it would be helpful to know the names of the different clubs. Howtomakeadollar knows all the names of all the clubs, and has provided you with a short description of several of them below. We are giving this valuable info for free, but we always accept donations.

Club no. 1: "Woods"- These golf clubs are called "woods" because, according to Wikipedia, they "used to be made out of wood*."  Woods are used for long distance shots.

Club no. 2: "Irons" - These clubs are called "irons" because (surprise) they used to be made from iron. I don't know what they are for.

Club no 3:  "Putters"- Putters are called putters because they are made out of putty and butter. They are used for short-range shots.

*"They are called "woods" because they used to be made out of wood." Does this logic work for anything else? Lets just call everything by what it was made out of fifty years ago. What a dumb idea.
Golf is dumb.

Make Money by Being Mildly Good at Hockey

We've been running a series of blogs about making money by playing a niche position in professional team sports. So far we've covered Baseball, Basketball, and Football. Each of these sports has jobs that an average person can perform simply by practicing ordinary skills that they already have. All you have to do is polish your natural skills. All healthy people are able to run, throw and kick. You just need to practice the skills you already have.

Hockey is significantly harder. No one is born knowing how to skate on ice. This is a skill that you not only have to practice, but you also have to learn it from scratch. If you do know how to skate, then you will also need to weigh about 300 pounds, you will need to be very fast, and extremely angry. Basically, if you know how to skate you still have absolutely no chance of going pro at hockey unless you are also a bear. With that being said, you would think that hockey would be impossible for an average person to master.

Wrong. There is one position in hockey that does not require you to know how to skate, and in fact, seems to be based primarily on your ability to fall down and writhe in pain. I'm talking, of course, about being a goalie. Did you know that goalie "skates" are specifically designed to make skating difficult? The entire job of a goalie is to stay in the same spot, and skating is actually a bad thing for goalies.

This means that you can become a goalie even if you don't know how to skate.

There are only a few things you do need to know how to do.
1. You need to know how to put on all those pads. I can't help you with this, so don't ask.
2. You need to stay in front of the goal at all times and take up as much space as possible there
3. Thats it.

Make Money by Being Mildly Good at Football

We've been running a few blogs lately about making money by becoming a professional athlete in a team sport. Team sports allow mediocre players to develop niche skills that are necessary at specific situations during a game. You don't have to have a lot of talent at the sport if you simply practice and perfect a single niche skill.  NFL teams have 53 men on their rosters, so there are plenty of role players who are only there for specific plays. Most football players are colossal freakshows who weigh 300 pounds and can run faster than your car. Most ordinary people would not be able to compete in the NFL. However, the role players who sit the bench for most of the game are relatively normal people who have simply developed one skill, and are willing to occasionally get trampled by large angry men.

1. Kicker. Kickers in the NFL are notoriously skinny and unathletic. Their only job is to kick the football really hard. If you practice this enough starting in your teens, you should be able to get good at it. Most teams use the same kicker for kicking field goals as they use for kickoffs, so if you can kick accurately, you will be worth a lot more. Again, the only thing between you and the NFL is a lot of practice as a kicker. Accuracy is not hard if you practice enough. This job occasionally requires you to get flattened and trampled by several large angry men who only know how to chase footballs and will use the shortest path to the football, even if  especially if it involves trampling on you.

2. Punter. The punter has to punt. Thats it. This job occasionally requires you to get flattened by several large angry men who don't know where the ball is, but do know that you had it last.

3. Longsnapper. This job is for someone who is able to "hike" the ball accurately to a distance of 15 yards. This job ALWAYS requires you to be trampled and beaten by enormous angry men for being in the way.

4. Holder. This job requires you to catch a hiked ball, put it on your toe, and hold it there with your finger. It occasionally requires you to get kicked in the hand really hard by the kicker, and frequently requires you to get flattened by a bunch of large angry men.

Make Money by Being Mildly Good at Basketball

Yesterday we ran a post about how to make money by being mildly good at baseball in which we pointed out a few niche skills that can get you into the pros. Basketball works the same way. The starting salary in the NBA is $457,000 in 2010, so you can make more in basketball than baseball (min. salary is $400,000 in baseball). However, baseball has a high average salary.

In any case, basketball is a team sport with a 15 man roster, so there are a few spots on a team of 15 that are filled by role-players who have a single skill set. The most common niche-skill player in the NBA is the Three Point Guy. The 3 point guy is brought into the game for specifically designed plays that are meant to get the ball into his hands behind the three point line. His entire job is to make the shot. After the play is over he goes back to the bench. The 3 Point Guy is actually a very important player on good teams, and a good coach will have dozens of plays specifically designed around this player. It is an important role, but it is a role that nearly anyone can succeed in given enough practice. Most successful NBA players are extremely tall and muscular, and the average person would never make it in the NBA. However, the 3 Point Guy is different. He doesn't play most of the game, and only has one job. If you are a teenager of average size and you practice shooting baskets from 3 point range for several hours per day, you should get good enough to go to college for free, and to get a pro contract when you graduate. It is extremely difficult to make these shots with a 250 pound 7 ft tall athlete in your face, but if you practice constantly and have a good coach, you can do it.

Make Money by Being Mildly Good at Baseball

Baseball is the only major professional team sport that does not have a salary cap. Sure, you can make millions by playing football or basketball, but you won't make nearly as much as you could in baseball. Individual sports like golf can pay a lot, but you have to be good at them. In baseball however, you don't have to be all that good. It is a team sport with a 25 man roster, so all you have to do is develop a niche talent that gets you onto the team. Sure, if you can hit lots of homeruns, you will get paid more, but the minimum wage for major league players is $400,000, and the average league salary is just under $3 million. This is why labor unions are awesome.

Here are some niche skills that can get you into the pros

1. Learn how to throw a baseball 85 mph with you left hand. Lefties are only 10% of the population, and left handed pitchers are unusually successful against most hitters, so you will be a hot commodity. If you are left handed and 12 or 13 years old, you can practice throwing hard every few days, and if you seriously dedicate yourself to it, you probably will get into the 80-90 MPH zone by the time you are 20 or so. This should be enough to get you into college for free, or possibly drafted straight out of high school into the minor leagues. Baseball even has a name for mediocre pitchers who are left-handed: LOOGY. It stands for "Lefthanded One Out GuY." (seriously) A LOOGY is brought into a close game toward the end of the game and given a specific job of pitching to a single batter who is known to struggle against lefties. LOOGYs usually appear in about 70 games per year, for no longer than 5 mins at a time. They make between $400,000 and 5 million per year.

2. Find a way to get short and stocky, and have extremely reliable knees. Then learn to catch baseballs. Catchers are a very rare breed of baseball player. They are not usually expected to be very good hitters, and they don't really have to play the field much. All they are expected to do is squat behind the plate for 3.5 hours everyday without their knees falling off. I'm not sure how being short and stocky became a requirement, but it is. Most catchers who turn out to be very good eventually get the nickname "pudge."

3. Learn how to throw a knuckleball. There are about 7 billion people living in the world. To my knowledge, only one of them knows how to throw a knuckleball. His name is Tim Wakefield, and he has been a successful major league pitcher for 18 years. A knuckleball is any way of throwing a ball that causes it not to spin at all. If you can find a way to do this you will go pro. One of the best parts about throwing the knuckleball is that you don't have to throw it very hard. Throwing hard eventually causes your shoulder to break in half, and usually ends baseball player's careers. However, knuckleball pitchers can play effectively into their late 40s or low 50s.

4. Play for the Pirates or the Royals. In Pittsburgh and Kansas City, actual baseball skills are not a requirement to make the team, so you can just show up with a uniform and a glove. Very few people are willing to play for these teams, so they will appreciate you showing up.

How To Make Money On A Burning Coal Mine

Centralia is a town in Pennsylvania that sits on top of a coal mine that's been on fire for nearly 50 years.  It's true, look it up.  It was an ordinary coal mining town in Pennsylvania's Anthracite coal region with roughly 1100 residents living there in the 1960s.  Only 9 remain today.  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is in the process of trying to evict the remaining residents due to the "dangerous gases" that could seep into their homes.  The Centralians claim the real reason they're being evicted is so that someone can gain access to the millions of dollars worth of coal under their town.  (Apparently the government of Centralia owns the rights to the coal, not the Commonwealth, unlike most of the rest of the state).  This raises a few questions:  If dangerous gases were really seeping into their homes since the fire started in the 60s, wouldn't they be dead already?  Conversely, if the remaining coal can still be mined, why hasn't it been mined by now? 

Either way, there is opportunity to make money here.  If the Commonwealth is right, and the eviction stands (the residents are asking a judge today in Harrisburg to stop the eviction), there will suddenly be nine people that need to move.  And chances are, if they are the kind of people that stubbornly hold onto a house that sits on top of a burning coal mine for 50 years, then they are the kind of people that stubbornly hold onto everything (also known as hoarders).  So they will have a lot of stuff to move and will need significant help moving it.  This is where you can come in.  Rent a large truck, swing into town claiming to be an expert in coal mining town evacuations (if that's not true yet, it will be by the time you're finished) and offer your services, for a small fee of your choosing, to help the townsfolk relocate.  You could even give them a "bulk rate".  People go for those sorts of things.

However, the preferred option is that the residents are right, and the Commonwealth is only after the rights of the coal. This would mean that someone thinks that the remaining coal is salvageable, and worth enough to use the force of the commonwealth to evict people from their homes to get it.  Well, not if you can get to it first.  Presumably, there will be a legal battle, and all legal battles take more than a year to resolve, which should give you plenty of time to carry out this plan.  First, move to Centralia (real estate is surprisingly affordable there).  Then win over your new neighbors (all nine of them) and get elected as mayor.  When you become the mayor, you technically become the government of Centralia, which would mean that you own the rights to the coal.  Put out the fire* and mine the estimated one billion dollars worth of coal (share some profits with your constituents, they waited a long time for something good to come from the miserable hell they've been living in).

*even though no one's been able to put out the fire for almost 50 years**, I'm going to assume that you'll find a way.  But if you can't put out the fire, a burning coal mine is basically the same thing as a coal burning power plant.  Use it to start generating electricity and you'll be set for life.

** apparently, one of the remaining 9 residents is Centralia's fire chief.  He's only 49, so at no time during his reign as fire chief has there not been a fire in Centralia.  Not very good for his resume if he gets evicted.


Thanks to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for the inspiration for this story.

How to Make Money In the Arctic

"The People of the Land Beyond the Land Beyond"

The Winter Olympics are upon us, giving us a perfect opportunity to point out something unique about Canada.  I never knew this before and I think there's a significant reason for that, but more on that later.

Alert, Nunavut in Canada is the northernmost settlement with permanent inhabitants in the world.  It's gently nestled within the arctic circle on Ellesmere island next to Greenland.  Despite being very cold and covered in snow 10 months of the year, the climate is actually quite dry, averaging only 6 inches of total precipitation per year.  There are 5 months of total sunlight and 5 months of total darkness.  The only time the temperature is above freezing is during their 2 month summer season when it reaches all the way into the upper 30s.  Downright balmy.  The place is so charming that two of the most significant events in its history were catastrophic plane crashes.

This is definitely not one of the most inhabitable places in the world, but yet, at last count, up to 5 people may actually permanently reside in Alert.  There are many temporary inhabitants of the frigid hamlet due to the presence of the Canadian Forces Station Alert facility, a weather station, and an airport, which is presumably the only way to get there.  Unless you ride a moose by the light of the aurora.  Why, then, does anyone choose to live there?  To man the weather station?  I don't think you need a permanent weather station to know that it's going to be yet another cold, dark day (unless of course it's the half of the year with total, relentless, blinding sunlight).  Something just doesn't quite add up.  Which brings me to my earlier suspicion of why I never heard of this place before.  My guess is that the residents have discovered, through sophisticated weather monitoring (and with a little help from Al Gore), that the ice caps are going to melt sometime within their lifetimes, transforming the icy outpost of Alert into a pleasant, tropical paradise.  They're just claiming their beachfront property now.  Luckily, we here at howtomakeadollar have discovered their secret and are sharing it with you, dear loyal reader, so you can be one of the few, lucky opportunists to claim a tract of land in one of the remotest parts of the earth that will eventually be worth millions.  That is, of course, assuming that you can stand to live among muskoxen, caribou, and Canadians, and are resilient to frostbite, depression, and insomnia (24 hour sunlight can be excruciating).  On the plus side, I bet baby seal tastes pretty good.  And it'll all be worth it in the end.  There may be easier ways to make money than this, but I doubt it.

How to Make Money By Helping the Nigerian Royal Family Transfer Funds to the U.S.

Business Description: Many members of the royal family in Nigeria are attempting to transfer large sums of money into bank accounts in the U.S. It is believed that over a million direct relatives of the king are currently trying to do this. For some reason they do not know how to use traditional banking services for these account transfers. Instead they choose to go to outrageous lengths in order to transfer their money. Unfortunately, they have poor grammar, and have strange names such as Dr. H. Pinkus Hansen C. T. Dinkus Doubletree Gore-tex IV. This forces them to go through the complicated and unnecessary procedure of contacting complete strangers to ask for help. Their problems are further aggravated by the fact that everyone they have ever met has recently died in a car accident.

How it Works: If Dr. Gore-tex or one of his associates contacts you and asks you to help him transfer his money, he will compensate you by paying you a commission on the total amount that is transferred. This commission is usually about 10%, and comes to several million U.S. dollars. I recommend haggling over this and asking for at least 15%, since he is in such a desperate situation. I always recommend haggling.

Once you've agreed on a price, all you have to do is provide him with your social security number, bank account number and check routing numbers. He takes care of the rest.

Howtomakeadollar is an extremely trustworthy entity, and has been contacted by several members of the royal household over the years. They trust us inherently, and have sent us many highly important and confidential emails. However, we spend too much time developing this informative website, and are unable to keep up with the high volume of royal bank account transfers. For this reason, Howtomakeadollar is offering a limited opportunity to our loyal reader.

That's right. We will forward these emails to you for just one dollar. This will enable you to work directly with the Nigerian Royal Household on our highly influential recommendation. This is a limited-time reader appreciation offer that we are making to our loyal and trustworthy reader.

Start a Blog

It seems like everybody is making money off the internet these days.  How can you too??? Start a blog!  All you need is a catchy name and something to write about.  Top notch blogs usually deal with something to do with the following: politics, religion, money, how to make money, hobbies, and families. 

If you have a controversial political or religious view, blog about it.  If you think global warming is a good thing that sould be supported... blog about it (Support The Warmth).  If you know how people can make tons of money from investing in biotechnology companies on the stock market... blog about it (Biotechdaytrader).  But, make sure you blog.  If there is nothing for people to read about, they won't come to your site (it can get a little boring reading the same post over and over).  Its easy to start a blog, but it does take some work to stay motivated.

Here's how to do it: go to http://www.blogger.com/ come up with a catchy name (that has not already been taken), sign up, and blog.  Simple as that.  Then simply get thousands of people to visit your blog everyday and have companies pay you for everytime your blog is viewed.  Its free to start and you have the potential to make millions!

How to Make Money by Making Islands out of Garbage

Business Name: Garbage Island Paradise Co.

Business Plan: 
1.Collect garbage from people for a fee.
2. Look around on Craigslist to see if anyone will let you borrow a barge for a few weeks. (A good rule of thumb for barge aquisitions is that bigger is always better)
3. Put the garbage into the barge

4. Drive the barge out into international waters, preferably somewhere warm

5. dump the garbage out

6. keep track of the location where you dumped it

7. repeat steps 3-5 until you have successfully built an island. I doubt this step will take very long.

8. Go to a beach at night

9. Dig up a barge load of sand

10. Dump the sand on top of the garbage island

11. Spread it around

12. Repeat steps 8-11 until garbage island is covered in sand

13. Plant palm trees on island

14. Get a bunch of coconuts and dead crabs.

15. Distribute them evenly around the island

16. Hire some women to walk around

17. Subdivide island and sell off portions of it to developers

18. Collect garbage generated by island tourists for a fee

19. Repeat steps 2-17 somewhere else.

Business Risks: Island floats away, Island smells like garbage

Profitability: This business works on many levels. First, you can make money by collecting garbage. Second, you can make money by selling island real estate.

Business costs: Sand can be expensive, which is why Howtomakeadollar recommends digging it up from beaches at night.

Feasibility Quotient: 94

As a side note:  some guy actually spend $16 billion making his own island (pictured below).

What was he thinking?  He would not be in such serious financial ruin right now if he had used peoples trash!

Additional option: There is an existing trash island?  Almost.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is growing!  Just get a big net or ball of yarn to link the trash together.  Its an island that will keep on growing!

Find inspiration

I came across this website the other day while thinking about developing howtomakeadollar. I find the website inspirational.
http://milliondollarhomepage.com/
It is a website some guy developed where he sold one million pixels. Each pixel was sold for $1. Some people would look at this idea as a million dollar idea. But, I think it is a perfect example of one million $1 dollar ideas.