With college graduation looming ahead and the future looking grim, many of us are facing down the inevitable problem: why are we not having sex like the movies made it seem we would?  Also, we’re terrified about our financial future, and how we’ll make a living (perhaps the women can smell the fear on us.  (If only fear smelled like Axe Bodyspray! (Maybe I should use “Fear: by Axe”))).  Being a philosophy major hasn’t helped, either (‘what is money, anyway?  Arbitrarily valued slices of green-dyed cotton?’).  And it’s my understanding that making money isn’t actually as simple as putting a silver thimble on the railroad.  Or is it?

            Over the years (especially since Reagan) there’s been this magical world where savvy young men have managed to make a lot of money without really doing anything: investment banking.  (“We don’t make sandwiches.  We make the market perceive value in sandwiches”- “No you don’t.  Everyone loved sandwiches before you were even a thought in your pretty little mother’s head”).  A few years ago, Mortgage Backed Securities were the greatest way to make a billion dollars without lifting a finger (well, you had to click the mouse).  Derivatives are a classic.  Credit Default Swaps can pad the pocket.  And now, of course, with Quantitative Easing in full play, it’s a convenient time for those of you sitting on Treasury Bonds (anyone with Grandmothers) to cash in on the Fed’s quest to make the green cotton worth… about the value of green cotton.

            Now, you may be asking, ‘how do you do these things?’.  Well, to my understanding, you simply have to wrap a double-windsor around the neck, find another guy with a double-windsor, and proceed to shake his hand while your net worth steadily rises, like the Health Meter in Mortal Combat.  The catch, of course, is before you can do this, you have to get into Harvard, and then you have to wrestle naked over a bed of hot coals while these guys in blazers pour Scotch on you.  But then you’re in.

            For the rest of us, the problem persists.  My first idea was to sell myself to Science.  You see studies published from time to time that read something like this:

Effect of Riptophane on Male Pectoral Glands

Researchers paid three subjects $1,000 each to have fifty milligrams of Riptophane injected into each pectoral epidermis.  The results sparked some interest.  For two of the subjects, the outcome was positive.  They now wear size C brassieres.  The final subject grew breasts as well, though researchers found a peculiar scaly texture to the skin around the lower neck.  The next morning, he’d turned into a toad.  Regulatory Agencies are now considering a proposed investigation into the Ethics of the program.

            If you’re anything like me, your reaction went something like this: “One thousand dollars?!  Sign me up!”.  However, when I said this in front of my mother, she called my Pediatrician and had him mark on my record that I have every health complication imaginable so as to prevent me from volunteering in the noble advancement of modern medicine.

            So with every opportunity appearing out of reach, I did what every inquisitive, proactive college student would do.  I researched online and found the only pizza parlor that delivers at 2 am.  Then I ordered a pizza.  Then I called my Father, and asked his advice.  And, akin to that scene in The Graduate, he had one word: Persimmons.  Hear me out, I’m serious (this is a true story).

            My Father was at a conference golfing (drinking) with some guys when he met Dave, a farmer from Indiana.  He was wearing jean shorts.  Now, like all of us who don’t have sex, Dave had thought to himself, ‘what do I need to do to change things around’.  And his idea was, naturally, to plant a grove of persimmon trees on his land.  ‘Indiana has everything’, he thought- ‘A basketball team, Waffle Houses, the guy who created Garfield.  But nobody has cornered the persimmon market.  Until now’.  What a genius!

            So, Dave went to work, digging up dirt and planting the persimmon trees that he’d purchased with the money he got from pawning a bunch of farming equipment supposedly owned, at one point, by George Washington (the pawnbroker was also the town moonshiner).  And as Dave was planting, he went on a little mission to see what kind of ground well he could tap into, in order to water the trees.  Well, in one spot, the water shot up a bit stronger than he’d expected.  A lot stronger.  Dave’s spring now supplies ¼ of the water that fills Kirkland brand water bottles, nationwide.  And he’s never had to wrestle naked, ever.

            So, you may be thinking, ‘wait, what’s that about Quantitative Easing?’, to which I reply, ‘why are you reading this column?’.  Some of you may already be in the labs, getting probed with needles for two grand an hour.  And hopefully you creative types are conjuring up your own ‘Persimmon!’ idea.  This nation has been an economic super power because of the spirit, inventiveness, and persistence of its wide-eyed citizens.  And, well, for the rest of us, there’s the lottery.