Easy Money Is Just One Idea Away

If necessity is the mother of invention, a bad economy is invention's annoying, but motivating brother-in-law. During the Great Depression, all kinds of important things were invented including the electric shaver, penicillin, and Monopoly. The 30s also spawned the first laundromat, baby food, and nylon stockings. The car radio came out during the Depression, and so did photocopiers and radar. And let's not forget one of the greatest inventions of all time: the chocolate chip cookie, also a child of the Depression.

Since so many people were out of work with plenty of time on their hands in the Depression, they could devote those non-working hours to dreaming of ways to make life better for others which they hoped would make a fortune for themselves.

Today's economic conditions are similarly ripe to bear the (organic) fruit of people's imagination. Maybe we won't come up with anything as great as the first roll-on deodorant or the non-leaking ballpoint pen, but I predict historians will look back at the end of the first decade of the Twenty-First Century as a time of some very creative inventions.

Apparently, a lot of people are trying to make that prediction come true. According to its Executive Director, Patrick Raymond, membership in the United Inventors Association has grown 20% in the last six months. Attendance at the Silicon Valley Inventors Alliance meetings has doubled lately.

People all over the country are sitting at their kitchen tables or pacing about their backyards, trying to think of The Next Big Thing. Some of them have probably enlisted their kids in this effort. They're saying things to their children like, "Sit down and tell me what kids your age would want. We can change your diaper later." Similarly, when a spouse asks, "Why don't you look for a job?" it may be answered, "Are you crazy? I don't have the time. I have to think of a great invention before everybody else does."

Thomas Edison had 1,093-patented inventions. How hard can it be to think of one? I'll prove it to you. Here are some things that I think would make great inventions, and I'm offering the ideas to you, free of charge. All you have to do is work out a few minor details:

SEX

Viag-bowow – is a sex drug and/or gadget that not only gets you in the mood, but also walks your dog while you're enjoying yourselves.

COMMUNICATION

Caller ID Switcherooni -- This device is for people who want to call their old boyfriend or girlfriend and then hang up once they hear his or her voice. (You know who you are). Nobody wants their old love to find out their identity by seeing their phone number on their Caller ID. No need to worry anymore. The Caller ID Switcherooni doesn't show your phone number; it shows the number of that good looking, but shallow, person who stole your love many years ago. And that's who gets questioned by the police for stalking.

COMMUTING

Wait No More -- An alarm clock that also automatically wakes up all the other people in your car pool so you won't have to wait for anybody.

HEALTH

The Food Predictor -- This looks like a meat thermometer. You stick it in your food, and it will tell you if the FDA is going to declare what you're about to eat unhealthy in the next five years.

THE WORKPLACE

Instant Porn -- A device for your computer when you're at work. So you won't get caught by your boss, it quickly changes your computer to a porn site from a job search site.

AIRLINE TRAVEL

Grand Canyon This -- enables you to talk to the pilot from your seat and tell him about what you're reading whenever you feel like interrupting his trip.

DIET

Mirrored Dessert Plates -- these plates show more of your chubby face as you eat, so you'll know when to stop.

You see how easy it is to think of inventions? Now, you try. Oh, I almost forgot. I have an idea for an invention for use after the economy recovers and people go back to investing the same way they used to. I call it the Yes It Can Machine: every time you look at your stocks and are about to put even more money in the market, you'll hear a recording that says, "Yes, it can happen again."

Greed: Not So Good

A question that many of us would love to have answered is, whatever happened to those original billions in Wall Street bailout money? Would we be wrong to say that some of that went down the toilet?

It's hard to remember since there have been so many plans, but wasn't the money from Bailout #1 supposed to help the banking and mortgage crisis? Well, have you or any of your neighbors felt that your mortgage problems have gotten better since the banks got this money? Or maybe they decided to help us another way: has your savings account interest gone up since they increased the amount of cash in their vaults? I don't think so.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, "The rich are different from you and me." Ernest Hemingway replied, "Yes, they have more money." But now it's obvious that some of them also have more gall, chutzpah, ego, selfishness, and imported area rugs.

Like the rest of us, the wizards of Wall Street saw how foolish the Not So Big Three automaker heads were when they flaunted their luxurious ways by flying to Washington the first time in their private jets. Yet Citigroup didn't cancel the order for its new $50 million jet until it was pressured by the Obama administration. Now that it cancelled it, Citigroup might not get its deposit back. Do you feel as sorry for them as I do?

As billions flew into banking coffers courtesy of, well, us, millions flew right out of those coffers in the form of bonuses. That's right. Some bailed-out banks gave big bonuses to their bosses. I didn't watch every minute of the news during those early bailout days, but I don't think that's what the money was intended for.

Oh, there's something else that some of these greedy executives are -- clueless. What's missing in their brains that tells them it's okay for them to accept huge bonuses while others would consider it a bonus to just still have jobs?

Their rationalizations are succinct, but absurd. In the case of the GEO's (Greedy Executive Officers), they claim that their company needs to attract the best people to do the best job, and those people sometimes like to be pampered.

John Thain is an executive who liked to be pampered. The recently fired GEO of Merrill Lynch & Co., spent $1.2 million last year to renovate his office. His office. While he was at his very beautiful desk, his company gave out an undisclosed amount of bonuses. These bonuses were paid after, you may recall, Merrill Lynch was rescued by Bank Of America which was helped by – you guessed it, us.

But back to Thain's office. Among the things he had his company pay for were $87,000 area rugs, a $25,000 pedestal table, a $68,000 19th-century credenza, an $18,000 chair, a $16,000 custom coffee table, and a $35,000 antique commode. It wasn't even a new toilet, but the guy spent thirty-five grand for it.

Once Thain was caught with his pants down, he said that he would pay the money back to the company. He added that considering the times, this expensive redecorating was a mistake in judgment.

Hiring Thain was the real mistake in judgment. He wasn't just fired because of his extravagant office tastes. He was let go because while he was in charge, Merrill Lynch lost more than $15 billion in one quarter. That's $5 billion a month or about $166 million a day. If he put in an eight-hour workday, he lost about $21 million an hour, $346,000 a minute, or $5,787.04 a second. This business expert lost money probably faster than anyone can print it.

That's what's so aggravating about all this. These people who have been buying islands and giving their kids platinum pacifiers aren't necessarily geniuses. They are the same jerks that got us into the big financial mess in the first place.

Whoever came up with the idea of giving bonuses to people who do a bad job probably never filled up his car with gas by himself, never took out the garbage, and never uttered the words, "Is this going on sale soon?" If these people had done a great job, their desire for money and luxurious things wouldn't seem so absurd. Let's put it this way: if any of them had made a profit instead of a loss of $15 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, they'd deserve to have any kind of toilet they want in their office. But I still think that 19th-century credenza is a bit much.