More Economics from a Dummy

The following has existed as an unpublished draft for more than a year with the second half added a few months ago.  Most of it is probably not relevant anymore.  Enjoy!

As I explained previously, I know just about nothing about economics and my interest in it is nearly non-existent as well, to the extent that I would rather learn about the cell biology of how grass grows or the quantum physics of how paint dries than about economics. However, I have been thinking a little bit about some of the things I put forth in my economic theory, and I think I need to add to it. Like most sequels, this is not as good as the first one.

Fun with Flat Taxes

One of the disjointed parts of my theory involved a flat tax for all. Recently, flat taxes have been the topic of ridicule via the ridicule of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. I learned about that plant from a chart someone posted on Facebook, and some googling I did later (though I apparently didn't save the links I learned from). It seems that Herman Cain would charge a 9% income tax for people and corporations, and a 9% national sales tax to either replace or add to state taxes. I’m not clear on the latter because I’m not clear on the difference between the apples and oranges he keeps talking about in the clips of debates I’ve seen on The Daily Show and/or Colbert Report (like this one). Herman Cain would also remove all tax deductions. Based on other clips of things I’ve seen on The Daily Colbert (here's one), it seems that Rick Perry also has a flat tax plan where he would charge 20% taxes for all while keeping tax deductions in place.  (Herman Cain and Rick Perry were Republican candidates who lost the primaries for the 2012 presidential election.  These now-obscure references are partially what render this blog posting no longer relevant.)

Obviously, Herman Cain and Rick Perry got these ideas from my blog, because there is simply no other possible explanation of how one could think of a flat tax or simplifying the overly complicated tax code. I spoke of a flat tax, as part of my three-disjointed-pronged economic plan that could easily make me president, and they took that idea and added some stuff that I do not approve of and never intended for. Please note: I am not crazy (at least in this respect), nor am I serious about having any part in Herman Cain’s or Rick Perry’s plan making.

Lots of people (well, at least one person) feel that Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is a terrible idea, and I agree for the reasons those people state. Someone at the Huffington Post explained that it would end up taxing lower income people a bit more than they are currently taxed, and it would drastically reduce taxes for corporations and the very wealthy by a lot. I haven’t googled Rick Perry’s plan, but it seems like it might be an improvement on Cain’s plan.  Clearly, that’s quite an endorsement, since it is coming from my uneconomical brain via my blog-typing fingers, I mean digits (because digits are economically related!).

While Herman Cain’s flat tax plan is clearly not fair and good, I still believe that my flat tax plan could be fair and good. My plan is extremely vague, which leaves it open to suggestions from people who know about the economics. If you don’t feel like going back and reading about my plan, I will re-state it and de-Cain it here: We should pick some percentage, and charge that percentage of tax to all people. I don’t know what that percentage would be, but I would want it to be a fair one for all. Furthermore, this would only apply to taxable people, and says nothing about how to tax corporations. Despite what the Supreme Court says, I cannot include corporations in the semantics of “People”; my brain simply won’t allow it. Thus, how to tax corporations is another thing that is left vague in my tax plan for people smarter and more knowledgeable than I to handle when I become president. I’m kidding of course -- I still won’t run for president. Anyhoo, my tax plan would not have anything to do with sales tax, since I would never have thought of changing the way sales tax is, and after reading the Huff-Po article, it’s clear that it would be wrong to give the power of sales tax to the Federal Government. Regarding Herman Cain’s removal of all tax deductions, I think I would leave that vague also, because I think some deductions are good, so long as they don’t allow people to screw over the government via loopholes and abuses and such. Yes, I think that is sufficiently vague to ensure success.

Speculators are Evil! Eeeeeeviiiiiil!

One of the other disjointed portions of my theory states that commodities trading is wrong and should be eradicated. Later, it occurred to me that there is a precedent for my proposed illegalization of commodities trading: insider trading! Like insider trading, commodities trading hurts the whole economy while benefiting a few traders. I assume that is why insider trading is illegal, and so, commodities trading should be too.

Political Predictions

This does not in any way bring me to another disjointed, unrelated point.  This point is so unrelated, in fact, that it has very little to do with economics.  Jon Stewart delineated the bizarre doomsday-like predictions Republican presidential candidates make and have made in the past regarding the horrors that would befall this great land if Obama was/is (re)-elected.  He highlighted the bizarreness of these predictions by emphasizing that the previous predictions have not come to fruition.  This brought to my mind the predictions I made about what could happen if George W. Bush were elected president.  The difference, however, is that my predictions came true, except that W. was not actually elected (the first time anyway).

At the time of my correct predictions, this blog did not exist.  Instead, I had a verbal blog, i.e. I occasionally told people what my thoughts were.  Thus, I verbally pre-blogged (or “told”) at least one family member or friend (but probably more than one) that if George W. Bush became president, we would undoubtedly go to war, and the economy would suffer.  Obviously both things happened.

The economy thing could have happened anyway.  From what I barely understand, it seems that it is possible that the economy simply goes through cycles, and whoever is president at the time either gets credit for a strong economy, or is blamed for a bad economy.  However, I’m pretty sure President W. Bush caused all these economic problems we have now that I am trying to fix via this blog.  I know this because I heard during Mr. W. Bush’s campaign that he ran every business he had ever owned into the ground, so I naturally deduced that he would therefore run this country into the ground, since its economy is but a giant business (or so I assume).

I knew that Present W. Bush would bring us to war because he stated during his campaign that if anyone, in any way, attacked us or harmed us or whatever, we would go to war.  He said this in such a way that sounded to me as if he were looking to go to war, and would react to any trigger with war.  Clearly, that made me nervous.

So, to conclude, I was right, but I wasn’t making crazy predictions based on nothing; I was making accurate predictions based on things I heard during a presidential campaign.  Furthermore, I am a predicting genius!  But I sill won’t run for president!

House of Disappearing Actresses

**SPOILER ALERTS: The following might refer to things that have happened on House M.D., Lost, Person of Interest, Once Upon a Time, and Grimm up to the date of this blog posting. Any reference to the future is my own speculation, and therefore is extremely likely to come true, for I was right about at least one thing on Lost.**

Before I begin my digression-full meandering discussion of House, I must tell you that while searching my blog for the posting where I elatedly realized I was right about something important on Lost, I noticed that as of right now, I have written 23 blog posts with the Lost label! 23! 23 was one of the numbers! Holy crap! I absolutely didn’t do that intentionally, and I didn’t even notice until now (if I did, I don’t remember)! Jacob’s numbers invaded my brain and blog! I told you there might be spoilers, so please stop complaining, 3 people who still haven’t watched the Lost finale yet. You know who you are.

Onto the actual purpose of this blog…

Before this evening’s rerun of House where Thirteen made her final appearance, I thought about my previous blog postings where I wondered and googled about Thirteen’s and Cameron’s at-the-time potential impending departures from House, and I realized that I never addressed their apparent actual departures. So I’m doing that now, since the TV admitted that it read my mind by airing that particular episode hours after I had those particular thoughts.

Based on what I have heard from various sources such as the TV and my mom (who read a magazine article), it would seem that Olivia Wilde (Thirteen), Jennifer Morrison (Cameron), and Lisa Edelstein (Cuddy) have left House M.D. This is not new news, of course, and all their characters have had closure on the program, but as I said, I felt that I should address (or at least mention) their departures here, so that my blog can have closure regarding these characters as well.

All three actresses have already moved on to other things such as movies and other programs on the TV. I don’t know where Lisa Edelstein went, but Olivia Wilde made some movies whose commercials I’ve seen. Jennifer Morrison is now the star of another show called Once Upon a Time.

I discovered Once Upon a Time last week when ABC had a marathon of it. I read in the Wikipedia that it was created by a couple of Lost writers, with Damon Lindelof (Lost co-creator) as a consultant, so it’s not surprising that it easily drew me in. It’s a show about fairy tale characters, and is thusly similar to another new show about fairy tale characters that also drew me in called Grimm. Together (with an emphasis on Grimm), these two programs have caused me to get the original translation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales (free on Kindle!), which are more violent than Disney would have us believe. Some of the Amazon reviewers explain that the Grimm brothers were just jotting down the folk tales of oral tradition, and therefore their stories might not have been intended for young children. At some point in my adulthood, I did notice some excessive violence, even in the childproofed versions of these tales that we were all told.

Anyway, getting back to Jennifer Morrison, her character on Once Upon a Time is really quite different from Cameron, in that the former is far more bad-ass than the latter. Perhaps because of this bad-assed-ness, I find that I like this character a lot better than Cameron, who was probably removed from House because the writers ran out of ways to keep the most moral character from being annoying. That is not to say that morals are annoying – I rather enjoy morals – but it is to say the character had been falling down an annoying spiral since she married Chase, perhaps because she was probably still in love with her dead husband.

Emma Swan, Jennifer Morrison’s Once Upon a Time character, maintains Cameron’s morals while exhibiting a satisfying though small degree of bad-assed-ness. Cameron was nearly one-dimensional, while Emma already has depth after only a few episodes. Both Cameron and Emma are good, but Once Upon a Time seems to have the same theme that Lost had – that nothing is purely good or purely evil, and everything and everyone possess both good and evil facets. Thus, Cameron was simply good with non-evil flaws, while Emma is predominantly good. There is the sense that Emma is capable of evil, as all humans are, but she chooses good, as clearly explicated in yesterday’s episode, where she made it clear that she wanted good to win over evil, for the sake of her biological son.

It’s unfortunate that Cameron, Cuddy, and Thirteen were written out of House M.D. for one reason or another, particularly since House hasn’t been as good as it was since their departures, but I’m glad that the three actresses are doing other things. I believe Olivia Wilde and Lisa Edelstein chose to leave House, and I know that Jennifer Morrison did not, so I’m particularly happy that she found employment on this new program that, at the time of this blog posting, is better than recent House episodes.

Unfortunately, Once Upon a Time and Grimm might end up getting cancelled, because that seems to be the fate of most shows that I watch from the beginning, such as Flash Forward and Free Agents. Let us hope that the only curse on Once Upon a Time (and Grimm, and New Girl (the other new show I watch)) is the fictional one on the non-parenthetical program. Oh, I also occasionally watch Person of Interest, because it contains Ben from Lost (Michael Emerson, not the character) and because it’s a good show, but that program should be safe from my inadvertent curse since I don’t watch it regularly. I should mention that The Simpsons is the only exception to my inadvertent curse that I can think of at the moment.

Before this blog posting ends, I must digress once more, and in so doing, I shall create a fun Lost numbers bookend (blogend?) for this posting.  I thought it was rather cute and fun that in the pilot episode of Person of Interest, Michael Emerson’s character had a mysterious and cryptic list of names and numbers!  Hahahahaha, yes, I thoroughly enjoyed that Lost allusion!

Economics from a Dummy

**DISCLAIMER: If any of the following appears strange or offensive in any way, please assume that it is intended as exaggeration or hyperbole.**

Although I know almost nothing about economics, I shall present my economic theory here. Thusly, it shall, quite literally, be an idiot’s guide to economics, in that I am the idiot.

My Lack of Credentials

I was forced to take an economics course in high school – a whole semester of a course! I was told at some point in my life that I should love economics, for it is a social science infused with math, and these are two things I have been known to enjoy, excluding of course, my K-12 (minus 8th and 11th grades) difficulties with actual social studies courses. However, not only do I not love economics, I rather detest it. I find it painfully boring, and I find myself unable to grasp most economic concepts. It’s very possible that the former is causing the latter; in fact, I would argue that it most certainly is, as evidenced by my love of hardcore neuroscience and hardcore physics despite my inability to grasp things in those fields of knowledge. This is evidence because my lack of understanding with interest feels entirely different from my lack of understanding without interest. Furthermore, even when I do understand something in economics, I am still intensely bored by it, and I think it might be impossible for me to have any real interest in it.

Anyway, the point is, I don’t understand much of anything that involves economics, and I think I got a B or less in that economics class I was forced to take. Thus, I am by no means, an expert or qualified in any way to postulate any kind of economic theory or even thought.

My Theory (or Quasi-Theory, or really Non-Theory)

My Non-Theory has three nearly unrelated parts.

Part One: It’s All a Gamble

Something suddenly occurred to me today that I am quite sure no other human on Earth has ever realized before. In fact, I am so sure of this, that I am not even going to Google to confirm my statement.

It occurred to me that the whole stock market is nothing but institutionalized, society-encouraged, legal gambling. One is expected to invest money in something with the hope that that money will grow, but it’s very possible that the money will shrink significantly. One is expected to continue gambling that money, and decide at what point the stock should be sold, which is also a gamble. One is then expected to continue this never-ending loop of buying and selling stocks, and thus, the gambling never ends.

One of the few things I remember from that economics course that was forced upon me in high school was the claims of the importance of investing, particularly in the stock market. I believe it was a guest speaker that explained that it is best to start early, and that our parents would likely help us. Clearly, these stock-pushers wanted to get the kids started young on their new legal gambling addictions, and clearly they wanted to get as many of us involved in it as possible, while we were young and impressionable, by having an authority figure that we were to inherently trust to tell us of all the wonderful things that might happen if we invest early. This very clearly indicates the degree to which our society encourages stock market gambling.

Since I couldn’t help myself, I did Google, but I will just pretend that this wasn’t the first Google result of many that indicates that the stock market being a form of gambling is a commonly held belief.

Part Two: Commodity Stocks will be our Downfall

Some time ago (I don’t know how long ago, hence the use of  “some time ago”), I saw a video on the interwebs that explained commodity stock trading. I don’t know what that video was, and I am far too lazy to find it for you. As you should expect if you read the beginning of this blog posting, I failed to understand the bulk of what the video explained. However, I did understand one thing (that might or might not have been explicated in the video): The commodity stock trade will be our downfall.

The man in the video and people that I have seen on the TV after I saw the video explained that commodities are things like oil, sugar, coffee, and most importantly, cocoa. From what I gather, it seems that Wall Street people make presumably psychic speculations about the future of these commodities and then pretend to trade them via the stock market. Their pretend trading causes real things to happen to the prices of these commodities in our real economy, and I am therefore quite sure, will inevitably cause real problems and our real downfall as a society that once had a real economy.

The gambling of the commodity portion of the stock market is far worse than the normal stock market gambling. It’s a game involving imaginary trades that result in real changes that affect real people and real chocolate. I therefore suggest, with my complete and utter lack of credentials and nearly complete lack of economic understanding, that we abolish the commodity stock trade, and that alone will fix our economy. I’m sure of it – as sure as I am of the originality and pure novelty of Part One of my Fabulous Non-Theory of Economics.

Ultimately, I felt bad that I didn’t look for the video that first taught me about commodities, so I tried to find it, but I could not. While unsuccessfully searching for it, I saw several snippets that seem to agree with me in that commodity speculation is damaging, and I won't pretend those don't exist. Here are some French people talking about the need for regulation of it. This suggests that I might have understood this better than I thought I did. I go girl!

Part Three: Simple Taxes for Simple and Also Not Simple Folk

A few months or a few years ago, I had a brilliant thought. Instead of arguing about different groups of people being taxed different amounts, and instead of having horribly confusing tax laws and forms, why not have a simplified theory on taxation. Since I’m playing fast and loose with my misuse of the word “theory,” I figured I should continue with that trend. Anyway, my simplified taxation non-theory is as follows:

Pick a percentage, and require all the people to pay that particular percentage of their net (or would it be gross? I'm not entirely sure what these things mean) income to the government as their sole taxes. That way, the wealthier people will end up paying higher taxes, the poorer people will pay lower taxes, and no one will complain because it will be 100% fair. Perhaps a few tweaks here and there would be necessary, but I think this could work really well.

For someone who knows nearly nothing about economics, I sure am smart, with my brilliant ideas! But I won’t run for president, and you can’t make me.

A Very Gaga Future

Since Lady Gaga’s latest album is now almost two weeks old, I’ve been thinking about what her next brilliant album will hold, and I have thought of two fantastic ideas (pardon the reflexive horn tooting). I hope you’re reading this, Gaga! I love you!

Gaga reminded me on an MTV interview of what I had already learned previously – that she was trained as a young Gaga in classical piano. So it occurred to me that glorious and magical things could happen if Gaga were to infuse her music with classical stuff (I’m partial to Beethoven and Mozart, but just about anything would be cool). I almost always love when genres collide, and I think a Classical-Gaga marriage could be spectacular.

My other brilliant idea came to me some time ago (I have no idea how long ago). Gaga has mentioned in various interviews that I’ve seen on the TV that she is a fan of Metallica. I have read somewhere recently, probably on an Amazon review of Born This Way, that metal fans enjoy the Gaga. As a metal fan who also enjoys pop, I assumed my Gaga love came from my taste in pop, but perhaps my rock/metal taste also had something to do with it. Anyway, this suggests that Metallica might in fact enjoy the Gaga (that is pure speculation). If Gaga’s love for Metallica is requited, then it might be fun for the world if Gaga were to collaborate with Metallica to create something beautiful. I can imagine the voices of Gaga and James Hetfield duetting beautifully, and some mixture of the music of both could be beautifully interesting. Maybe they could even throw in some rockin’ Beethoven!

I should mention that the collaborate-with-Metallica idea is not new to me. I have previously thought that Metallica should collaborate with Evanescence, Avril Lavigne (because she performed Fuel surprisingly well, I think on the MTV), and probably others that I can’t remember now. I have also joined Josh Groban with various other artists in my brain (again, Evanescence comes to mind). Oooo, Josh Groban would also sound great with Metallica and/or Gaga!

I hope all these people read my blog and take my fabulous advice! I wonder if any of them Googles themselves. If they do, maybe they’ll find this…

SPOILER ALERT – Lost - What the Ankh?!

Since the Lost Complete Series Collection finally shipped from Amazon (they had some problem that delayed the blessed event), I thought I would see if their description of this thing I pre-ordered had become more detailed. It had. The image of this box set has changed from a normal one to a pile o’ stuff, and there is a nice list of cool bonus material including actual materials (not just stuff on DVDs), including something called an ankh.


As I’ve mentioned before, I generally haven’t been reading other people’s takes on Lost since I’ve been blogging about it so that I could remain largely pure, original, and not-too-influenced in my thoughts, so I had never seen this word before. Rather than assuming that it must be some terrible curse word (it sounds so angry-like), I googled, and discovered that it is something the Egyptian divinity used, and it is a hieroglyph that means “eternal life.” It is a cross with a loop at the top, in other words, the list-o’-candidates-containing thingie that Jacob gave Hurley in the guitar case and that the (also Egyptian) statue was holding. Oh, did you not notice all that? Neither did I; the things Google found told me all that. I never noticed the statue holding the thing, and I just assumed the cross with the loop on top that was in the guitar case and contained the list-o’-candidates was some kind of Jacob symbol. Since it involves a cross, I assumed it was just a modified Jesus-y cross. Duh, of course it would be an ancient Egyptian thing considering the other Egyptians things on the island (including hieroglyphs scattered throughout it), and of course I should have googled sooner to learn about it. If I had, I might have gotten the clue that the Island is the home of eternal life, via the Light, and that Jacob lives in the foot of a statue that once held eternal life, but his life would no longer be so eternal and would be cut short, just as the statue had been cut short. Meh, I’m sure I wouldn’t have come up with all these ideas, so it’s ok. It’s fun to learn about it, knowing all that we now know.

Hmmm…the things Google found also say the ankh was the thing that the Dharma leader’s wife saved from her late husband. Does that mean that she had been married to a follower of Jacob, or in other words, an Other (or, more accurately, a Hostile)? Was she an Other (Hostile) herself? I must google s’more, excuse me for a moment. Ah, here we go, this nice blog refreshed my terrible memory, and explains that Paul was a Dharma person, but suggests (as I just did) that perhaps Paul was really an Other, a possibility, as I said, indicated by his ankh.

By the way, senet, the game that Man in Black was playing, is also of Egyptian origin, and I also discovered that word via the list o’ bonus features at Amazon since I will also be getting that game. Clearly, Lost is heavily imbued with ancient Egyptian things, presumably with the purpose of emphasizing the mythology and antiquity of the island.

The 2010 Emmys: The Good and the Evil

The title of this posting is clearly an exaggeration, in that what I will describe as the things that were not pleasing to me on last night’s Emmy Awards really does not qualify as evil. However, I feel this title is appropriate, since among the evil things is the lack of Lost recognition, and as you might know, I have written somewhat frequently regarding Good v. Evil on Lost. Isn’t it nice when I over-explain my writings? No? Oh, then you would hate when I over-explain jokes in real life (as opposed to bloggy life). Onto my Emmy induced thoughts!
The (Mostly) Good

Jimmy Fallon did a reasonably fantastic job as Emmy host. I was skeptical before the show, because there have been times where he has been lacking in the funny, presumably when he’s been overwhelmed with nervousness. However, he was quite funny for the most part, and he really did a great job. The opening Glee musical thing and the tribute to deceased shows (including Lost) were funny, entertaining, and very well executed. I also very much enjoyed the musical introductions to each section of awards. Jimmy’s non-musical words were also funny throughout the program, particularly the pro-Conan and anti-NBC remark. I would say that Jimmy did an excellent and flawless job, but there is one small portion of his hosting that renders such a statement impossible; the tweeted introductions for presenters were simply not amusing or well written. This is not surprising, since they were tweeted by regular, non-comedy-writer people. That is not to say there aren’t funny and talented regular people out there, but that is to say that believing that those funny and talented people could be found in time for a big awards show was probably not very wise. I had a feeling this wouldn’t go well, but I had hoped that the funny people out there on the Twitter would show themselves, but unfortunately, that was not the case. Jimmy Fallon, there is a reason that professional writers write things, and you demonstrated that nicely. It’s fun to find silver linings. Jimmy’s presenter intros that were written by professional comedy writers (presumably Jimmy himself) were well written, and some were definitely funny, particularly the intros involving Law & Order SVU saving the 10 P.M. time slot that Leno left for dead, and Jimmy hugging his long lost father, Tom Selleck.

The (Mostly) Evil

Lost didn’t win things. Lost should have won things. Specifically, Michael Emerson (or at least Terry O’Quinn) should have won for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama, Matthew Fox (or at least Hugh Laurie of House M.D.) should have won for Best Actor in a Drama and Matthew Fox should have won for Hottest Drama Man Ever (and Seth MacFarlane would win Hottest Comedy Man Ever in this award show in my brain). Lost should have won Best Drama TV Show (or whatever that category is called), and I think the Emmy audience agrees with me since they seemed to cheer the loudest when Lost was mentioned. I don’t remember who won for Best Writing and Best Directing, but probably Lost should have won those too (yes, I could google it, but I am too lazy).

Glee should have won more things than it did. However, I’m very happy that they won Best Directing and that Jane Lynch won for Best Supporting Actress. It would have been nice for Glee to win Best Comedy Show on the TV, but since they lost, I’m glad they lost to Modern Family, another great show (though Glee is better). Speaking of Modern Family, I enjoyed the cute thing they did with George Clooney and Stewie. I would put that part in the “Good” section, however, I don’t have anything else to say about it, and it fits more nicely here.

Conan didn’t win. Conan should have won, not only because he deserved to win, and not only because it was Conan’s only chance to win for his work on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, but also because it would have been a nice, clear Conan-is-better-than-Jay statement to Jay Leno and NBC. Despite this loss, however, I do believe that the statement was made nonetheless; after all, Conan was nominated, but Jay was not.

Since Conan didn’t win, The Colbert Report really should have. As much as I love The Daily Show, and as great as it’s been this year, The Colbert Report is generally a better show, and the week in Iraq this year was certainly of Emmy-winning caliber. Since The Colbert Report also didn’t win for Best Funny Variety Show, I am glad The Daily Show won. I’m also glad that the guy accepting the award mentioned Colbert and Conan, and I’m glad that he reminded us that the people at The Daily Show are worthy of their numerous Emmys.

4 ways to Make Lots of Money!

I read somewhere that when using Google Adsense (I mean Topeka Adsense), the higher paying ads are the ones about money and commerce. This amused me. I guess the old adage is true: You have to [use] money to make money.


So I decided to sell out (pun intended of course) and write a blog posting about making money.

I can think of four ways to get lots of money:

1) Work really hard. This doesn’t always work, but it will probably make you a better person. Unless you become a workaholic, or alienate the people you love and who love you for the sake of working hard. If that’s the case, then it will be your downfall.

2) Be born into a family that already has lots of money. This is the easiest way of going about getting lots of money. But it might make you a worser person (hahahahahaha, get it?) Or maybe it won’t. I guess that’s up to you, if you decide to be born into money.

3) Screw people over, in a Madoffian (Madovian?) manner. You could make lots of money, but you might lose it all and end up in prison for 150 years. Additionally, you’ll be a horrible person. The world will hate you. This is probably not the best route for making lots of money.

4) Be lucky and win the lottery. If you succeed in this unlikely event, this is a great way to make money. However, as with any money-making technique, this can lead to terrible things like greed or the money consuming you, or worse, you could (SPOILER ALERT) end up on some crazy island like Hurley did in Lost after he won the lottery. But then again, maybe that island is a blessing for Hurley and the others, and maybe also the Others.

I imagine there might be other ways to make money as well. For example, you could win a big lawsuit or a big settlement in a lawsuit. However, that would technically require that you (or your lawyer) work hard in the lawsuit, so that would fall under the category of working hard for the money (so you better be treated right). It might also require some good luck, and could thus fall into the “Being Lucky” category as well.

You might think there are ways to make money that require work that is easy, or that don’t require any work at all. However, difficulty is relative, so if something is easy for you, it might be hard for someone else, and so it still fits in the category of working hard. Similarly, if something doesn’t feel like work to you, because it’s so easy or you simply enjoy it, that is also relative – you might not have to put any effort into something, but someone else might struggle with the same thing, and you might enjoy something, but someone else might not,.

Perhaps you might be thinking that another way to get money would be via theft. However, this could fit into two of the categories above: screwing people over and working hard. In fact, screwing people over could itself fit into the working hard category, so perhaps it is redundant. Anyway, with theft, you’re obviously screwing someone over, though not exactly in a Madoffian way, for the latter was probably a bit more creative than simply robbing someone and also the latter involved screwing over a large number of people. I think it’s clear, however, how the two methods fit in the same category.

Both of these screwing-people-over methods of getting money also fit into the working hard category; all the scheming, planning, and preparing for any of the ways to screw people over (Madoffian or more traditional theft) all require hard work. Arguably, it’s not hard work at all, but then we’re back to the relative nature of difficulty. Theft might be easy for some people, but it might be difficult for other people, particularly people who come equipped with consciences. In addition to conscience-ridden people, another example of someone who might feel that theft is hard work would be a shy individual. I imagine it would be rather difficult for a shy person to go up to someone and rob them – they might have to talk to their victim, and if the robber is overcome with stage fright, they might not succeed in their endeavors to screw someone over. Therefore, the robber would have to work really hard to conquer his or her shyness and fears. It’s clear then, the screwing-people-over method of getting money should fall into the category of working hard, and it is therefore a redundant category. However, since I am lazy, I will leave it as a separate category above and continue to claim that there are four ways to make money.

Perhaps being lucky is also a redundant category. After all, in order to win the lottery, you have to play the lottery, and in order to do that, effort (to buy lottery tickets) and pre-existing money are necessary. However, if one were truly lucky, then buying a lottery ticket wouldn’t be difficult, rendering the relative nature of difficulty irrelevant given luckiness. Therefore, being lucky shall remain a separate category, irrelevant of my lazy inclinations.

I should mention that these methods of getting money have some degree of uncertainty. For example, you could work really hard, but make very little money, or no money at all, or you could be a really lucky person, but you might only be lucky in more sentimental ways rather than fiscally. (Does that make sense? Should I have said “financially”? I don’t care, “fiscally” sounds more fun.) You could screw people over, but the people you screwed over might not have much money for you to steal. You could be born into money, but your family might be very stingy in life and then not bequeath any of the money to you. Therefore, my methods of getting money are not guaranteed methods. Also, they are void where prohibited. (What? That doesn’t even make sense.)

I’ve been discussing ways to get money, however my list o’ categories does not reflect keeping the money that is gotten. Keeping money is also important; if you use all the money you get, you won’t have anymore. However, keeping all of it is no fun, because what is the point of getting all that money if you don’t enjoy any of it. Swimming in your money like Uncle Scrooge would probably get boring eventually. It’s important to find a nice balance between saving money and using it for nice things and survival – well, survival is also a nice thing, but you know what I mean.

I like money. It’s a good thing to have around. However, it can also be evil – the root of all evil, in fact. Furthermore, it’s dirty – everyone touches it with their germy hands. That’s why credit and debit cards are better: they’re touched by fewer people. I’m a germaphobe.

I hope this has been helpful in your endeavors to make or get lots of money! Good luck, and when you do, share some with me!

DISCLAIMER: Don’t steal things or otherwise screw people over – it’s wrong, there are consequences that are not good, and you will suffer them in some way, even if your just deserts are served later on, or if it’s in the form of guilt, for that guilt will defeat you.

I Cheated on Google

Dearest Google, I’ve been unfaithful to you. I’m sorry to be so blunt, Google, but the truth had to come out, especially now, since the time of repentance is upon us.

My transgression occurred a few weeks ago. I was googling something obscure – I had heard something about heavy metals being present in calcium carbonate, the very calcium supplement I take.

But Google, my beloved, you couldn’t find any relevant results, at least not in the first pages of search results, and, Google, you know I don’t look beyond the first few pages generally.

So I tried Bing. Yes, Bing. Like you, Google, it has a cute and amusing name. I once searched Bing before, when I saw their commercial on the TV, purely out of curiosity. At that time, it appeared as though Bing’s results were very similar to yours, Google. So using Bing seemed pointless, for why stray from my beloved Google when there appears to be no additional benefit to Bing.

But on that fateful (and unfaithful) day, Google, when you couldn’t satisfy my web searching needs, I did the very same search at Bing that I had tried at you, Google (I don’t remember what I specifically searched for). And Bing found exactly what I was looking for, right there in the first web result.

There was an article from 2000 talking about a JAMA study that had found lead in a few brands of calcium carbonate, though the amounts were less than one would ingest from food and are (or at least were in 2000) acceptable by FDA standards. It stated that Caltrate (the brand I used to use until it became increasingly more difficult to find the kind I like that contains no Vitamin D since I take that separately; my stopping of Caltrate came long before I discovered its lead content) contained these detectable though safe amounts of lead, but Walgreen’s brand (the one I switched to) contained no detectable lead at all. Tums also contained no lead, which is nice. This is the thing Bing found.

But don’t worry Google, this doesn’t mean I’m leaving you. I still love you dearly, and you remain superior to Bing in other ways. I tried the Bing toolbar -- again, purely out of curiosity, and it was useless. Its only purpose is the search box, which sits in an obtrusive and unattractive blemish in my Internet Explorer (perhaps the Bing toolbar blends more nicely in Vista or Windows 7). The Google Toolbar, on the other hand, blends beautifully and modestly, and contains all those other useful thingies like Autofill, Pop-up Blocker, and other nice features. Also, Google, you have all those other products that I love so dearly, and that I surely could not be happy without.

Rest assured, My Dearest Google, that I will only use Bing on those very rare occasions when you can’t find something. This likely won’t happen often, since this was the first time it did, since that glorious day 8 or 10 years ago when I first googled, after someone on The Late Show with David Letterman website mentioned you, Google. I had never been happy with any search engine before you, Google; you almost always find exactly what I’m looking for.

Are you still upset about my unfaithfulness, Google? Doesn’t it help that my transgression was with Microsoft? You’ve known I’ve had a relationship with Microsoft since Windows 95, Google. But I understand, web searching is your territory, Google, and I’m sorry. I hope you will forgive me Google.

I love you, Google. But I also love Microsoft (most of the time).