It’s almost as if there were millions of people out of work and looking for anything to keep themselves and their families afloat. Every day my spam box fills up with various schemes for getting rich quickly by working at home with so-n-so’s new wealth generation system. It’s even on the radio!

I have to congratulate these selfless entrepreneurs. They have found the key to easy wealth and rather than just retiring on their millions they are deigning to sell us the secret. The only way they could be any more charitable would be to just give it away! But I won’t hold my breath on that one.

No, tough times bring out the best and worst in people. The worst are out there coming up with new schemes to separate the desperate from their cash. As I’ve indicated before, I may even have fallen for one. But some should be pretty easy to see through. If these “wealth generation systems” are so wonderful, why do these people have to sell them? And why do they need to pay for bulk emailings to market it? If the results are so amazing, we should have noticed their sudden affluence and be beating down their door to get it!

But no, chances are their “system” is to tell you how to get other people to fall for the same scam you did. Fleece enough people and you can make good money too. For awhile. Unfortunately, as long as the economy stays bad I suspect many of these people will actually do quite well.