In these dark times, when betting on horses yields better returns than the stock market, hedge fund manager and amateur hedge fund manager alike must look for other means of making money easily. To those considering selling junk on ebay, stuffing envelopes in your home, starting a Ponzi scheme or gambling to make an honest dollar, hark! I know of a way you can get richer by doing absolutely nothing. Really. And you don’t even have to pay me for a book to tell you how.

This proven and reliable get-rich-quick scheme is called deflation, and it’s a great reason to start recycling your beer cans. Deflation means that the purchasing power of the dollar increases. Or, in simple terms, that the five-cent refund from your beer cans buys more now than it did before.

Before I begin this, I would first like to respond to all my detractors from two weeks ago. Yes, the Ron Paul folks sent me countless emails and left countless more comments on cornellsun.com. Although I was tempted to just print the same column again, to drive home a point, I instead decided to do some research and “oil my gears with the truth.” The conclusion? They have an agenda and I don’t. And who was that guy who wrote to me that, “as a senior citizen and an observer of economic trends over the last 45 years … [more libertarian agenda]”? Was that you, Dr. Paul? I looked it up and 45 years is actually about how long Ron Paul has been claiming to understand the economy. Ron Paulites, you made this personal.

You know what really grinds my gears? People. People who say, “Do you hear me, local representative?! I will not re-elect you. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

First off, saying, “local representative” instead of, “Kucinich” or whomever is generally a good indication that you don’t know who your local representative is. Second off, who votes for local representatives? Did you vote for your local representative last year? Do you know whether or not he voted for the bailout bill? Were there actually local elections last year? Did he hear your voice? If you did not have a representative, would you even know the difference? All valid questions.