Gov Corruption

GURPS · Thursday at 9:39 AM

In 1936, Napoleon Hill wrote “Think and Grow Rich,” the nation’s first major self-help book. It became an instant classic, has withstood the tests of time, and still remains a best-seller, with “updated!” and “revised!” versions repopulating shelves every few years. It’s practically its own industry; Napoleon would be proud. (He’s long dead, of course.)

(What I would most like to know is why Hill’s parents decided to name him “Napoleon.” But I suppose that’s beside the point.)

To develop his classic enrichment method, Hill studied Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and other millionaires of his day. The book offers readers who are yearning for riches Hill’s Thirteen Principles, including then-revolutionary ideas like building a burning desire, using positive self-talk, organizing a ‘mastermind group,’ and overcoming fear.

Hill didn’t specifically mention overcoming the fear of germs, but I assume that was included in the wholesale lot.

Sorry fans, but Napoleon Hill is old news. I have developed a better and much easier self-help method. If you want to grow rich in 2024, it is way simpler than it was in 1936. Forget about all that babbling encouragement to yourself, trying to bully your reluctant relatives into joining your mastermind group, and all that getting up early and working hard and stuff.

That’s old-fashioned.

No, the new method for getting rich is: form an NGO aimed at a progressive policy goal and get yourself a generous government contract. Indeed, New York’s local The City ran an explosive story a couple months back headlined, “Homeless Shelter Execs Make Huge Salaries and Hire Family Members, DOI Report Finds.”

According to a very detailed report (linked here), the selfless progressives who run New York City’s government-funded homeless shelters get by on meager salaries of at least $500,000 a year and up to $1 million dollars. A year. (Video of city meeting; 0:58..) And these humanitarian icons also hire their friends and their relatives to work at the NGO, and pay them outsized salaries using taxpayer money.

The best part is, so far as I can tell, the government also pays for outsourcing all the actual work to subcontractors.

There was lots more. The Department of Investigation’s report ran 75 pages. But you get the idea. It is a gold mine of OPM — other people’s money. Just keep digging! And you never have to get your driving gloves dirty or even see a homeless person or drug addict. Subcontractors interface with the “customers.” The government gives you the money to pay the subcontractors. See how awesome it is?

It’s up to you whether you want to ‘negotiate’ kickbacks from the no-bid subcontractors who are doing the work. It can’t fail! You never have to fundraise or sell anything and you can even work from home.

Forget about Napoleon Hill. The new bestseller is NGO Hill. And you can collect your cool mil a year from the comfort of your home while simultaneously virtue signaling. You aren’t a greedy capitalist monster. You are a caring humanitarian selflessly laboring in the trenches of the progressive human desert that somehow keeps expanding every year.

They’ve subsidized homelessness and every other human vice. And now, unsurprisingly, vice is increasing. Which is exactly what you’d expect a subsidized sinful behavior to do.