Upcoming Super Bowl post

There is a big Super Bowl post coming up tomorrow. Check in before the game so you can be ready to make a few bucks.

Make money from the Blizzard of 2010

According to the news we are now in the middle of the Blizzard of 2010!

Now that it has officially been named the Blizzard of 2010... it's time to make money off of it.

Step by step business plan:
1) Put on your cross country skis and go to the nearest Walmart (don't worry, they're always open)
2) Buy lots of t-shirts, hats, and mugs
3) Buy a permanent marker
4) Write "I survived the Blizzard of 2010!" on all your newly purchased merchandise
5) Sell above mentioned merchandise on ebay

Business Risks: If someone buys your shirt, but then dies before the blizzard is over, their family may try to get the money back. I'm not sure how to handle this.

Optional: buy your own printing press or screenpress your own t-shirts to mass produce quickly

For other ways to make money from snow... click here.

If anyone wants a t-shirt, email us and we'll send you one in the mail.


Howtomakeadollar does not imply that the purchaser of these shirts will actually, in fact, survive the blizzard of 2010.

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.

Many Ways to Make Money in Alaska

Howtomakeadollar is planning to expand its readership one state at a time. Alaska, you are first. Alabama, you are next. (We are going in semi-alphabetical order) 


Idea 1: Make Millions in Alaska by Drilling for Oil
1. Go to Alaska
2. Invest millions of dollars in geological testing
3. Thats it. Stop there.
This idea stops here. A bunch of people who have never been to Alaska* say you aren't allowed to drill for oil there because of the polar bears. Sorry. I recommend you go to Venezuela or Iran or someplace more friendly.

*John McCain was adamantly opposed to Alaskan Oil drilling. Sarah Palin was for it. Who was the political mastermind behind this match-up?... I suspect no one.

New idea: 
Make millions in Alaska by hugging Polar Bears
1. Go to Alaska
2. Find a polar bear
3. Wait for it to die
4. Take a picture of it
5. Put the picture on the internet and say an oil person killed it with his greedy smile
6. Presumably someone will pay you for this.*
*phone call from some hippie
Hello. Yes, What?? You guys do this for free!! What! Are you serious?? Because you love the Earth? You smell like tundra. Don't call me again.

**

7. Nevermind... I don't think there are any good ways to make money in Alaska

Unless...

New Idea: Make Millions in Alaska by Building Large Bridges that Connect Uninhabited Islands With One Another.


Yep, this one should work, no polar bears in the way.
Here is how it works:
1. Find the most remote region of Alaska that you can.
2. Now, make up an island that is somewhere near this remote area
3. Tell everyone that this made up island is really important for U.S. interests
4. Get paid like $300 million for building a bridge to it.
5. Sarah Palin becomes governor
6. Sarah Palin declares herself a "maverick" and shortly thereafter resigns as governor

**howtomakeadollar is curious what kind of animal this polar bear is eating. It is our belief that it is a walrus, but it really could be anything. Does anyone from Alaska have any insight on this?

the end

Google Analytics

Google offers some great features to enhance the effectiveness of your blog.  One of those features is Google Analytics.  It is a feature that tells you who comes to your blog, where they are from, how long they stay and what they look at while they are there.

We have noticed lately that whenever we blog about a specific place, people from that place tend to show up and read our blog.  When we blogged about Nauru, people from Nauru came to our site (and left a nice little comment).  When we blogged about Luxembourg, people from Luxembourg came to our site.

As you can see from the map below (a screen shot from our Google Analytics account), people from most of the U.S. have visited our site... but not someone from every state.  We are going to try and change this.  Keep your eye out for posts about how to make money in states that have not visited our site yet.

SHOW YOUR LOVE!

Valentine's day is less than two weeks away!  Chances are you have not gotten a gift or even thought about getting a gift for your significant other.  And you probably forgot about their birthday and your last three anniversaries.  Don't let it happen again!

It's a good thing you came to Howtomakeadollar... because we have a solution for you!  Take advantage of our new "SHOW YOUR LOVE" feature.  Email us and let us do the work for you!  If you pay us a low, low price of $1 we will display a blog on the specified day (i.e. Valentine's day or any other day you like) telling your significant other (or potential significant other) how much you love them!

We specialize in writing poetry and haiku's.  So email us and let us know when and how you would like to make your special someone feel special and we will do the rest!

What your $1 will get you:
-Blog dedicated to the person of your choice on your chosen day
-Poem, Haiku, sweet sonnet about how much you love the person of your choice
 (may feature picture or youtube singing telegram)
-Email to the person of your choice letting them know they are loved
-Facebook message and/or wall post to the person of your choice
-Tweet about your love to the person of your choice
-Extreme jealousy from everyone who didn't buy a SHOW YOUR LOVE post
-Love and gratitude for at least a week!

CAUTION: If you know your significant other has read this blog... you are now under EXTREME OBLIGATION to buy a SHOW YOUR LOVE post for their birthday, anniversary, presidents day, groundhog day, half birthday, first grade teachers birthday, and "a just because I love you so much" day.  If you don't buy at least one SHOW YOUR LOVE post for any of the above mentioned days your significant other will know your love for them is worth less than $1.

Don't let this happen to you!

How to Make Money by Getting Rid of Evidence

Evidence disposal is the type of business that can get you a lot of money really fast, but is unlikely to be very steady unless you know the right people.

Fortunately for you, Howtomakeadollar does know such people.
1. Go to a big city
2. Go to a subway station in a bad part of town*
3. Wait around until well after midnight
4. Soon you will see some thugs fleeing the scene of a crime.
5. Approach them
6. Offer to get rid of the evidence for a dollar
7. Make sure they do not shoot you
8. Take the evidence and throw it in a lake. If the evidence can swim, you may have a difficult time, but you should be able to manage.
9. If the evidence looks like something that someone might want, you can feel free to try to sell it somewhere.

This is a feel-good business strategy in which both parties go away feeling good about themselves. You get an easy dollar; the thugs don't have to worry about being held accountable for their crimes. Everybody wins.

*Pretty much all subway stations are located in bad parts of town