Now that I’m out of college, I
thought it was time to ask my elders for advice about investing in
the stock market. They must have seen how confused I looked,
because a week later, an investment letter arrived that promised to
answer all my questions, and, incidentally, make me rich, fast.
The letter featured a Nevada water company that’s
guaranteeing to make millions by pumping rural water to Las Vegas.
The identity of the water company was not disclosed; to get the
real skinny, I had to pay $49.50 to the creators of the newsletter.
That’s more money than I wanted to spend, but as I read the
newsletter, a novel idea occurred to me: Just as the people who got
rich during the Gold Rush were merchants, the people getting rich
from Nevada’s water deals won’t be small-time investors but those
who enable them. That led me to comb through the newsletter to
decipher what made it tick, and I’m happy to share with you –
for free! – the gist of what I learned:
This may come as no surprise, but many of us are greedy. The Nevada
water come-on promises that investors will “pocket 381 percent in
the short run.” This may sound too good to be true, but people want
to believe.- All of us are bored. Create excitement about
your investment by making it seem dangerous. The Nevada water
solicitation does this perfectly by telling potential investors
that tensions in rural Nevada are so high, “ranchers are toting
rifles.” The image of gun-toting ranchers reminds people of the
Wild West, a region practically built by speculators. Reporting
that the Arizona Republic “calls it a classic Western showdown”
will make the historical connection clear, and since no one knows
what “it” is, they can’t prove you’ve misquoted anything.
- Investors yearn to feel smart. Play up the secrecy
surrounding the deal by telling your readers that they’re part of
an elite group that includes politicians and executives. Include
quotations from well-respected publications to create an air of
authority, which then allows you to be vague on details like dates
and names. Another tactic is to choose words that sound like
they’re part of a lexicon. Examples include like “a mountain of
cash hitting the books” and referring to Wall Street as simply “The
Street.” Your readers will feel so smart they won’t bother to
double-check the information you do give them. - Nobody
wants to know the downsides. The creators of the water investment
guide never once mention the birds, fish and other animals whose
habitat is threatened by groundwater pumping, or the rural areas
that will dry up and blow away. They tell us that Nevada is one of
the driest places on earth, but only so that we understand that
water is valuable. They also mention that “city planners are
fighting to quench the growing population,” but notice how cleverly
this is written: Are the city planners trying to control growth or
enable it? It’s fine to create ambiguities, as your audience will
interpret them however it desires. - Most of us feel
helpless. Make the deal seem like it’s inevitable, and you will
encourage this sensation of helplessness, which most people feel
anyway when faced with environmental catastrophes. The water
come-on includes water-transfer permit numbers, reassures us that
all environmental impact plans have been approved, and guarantees
that all the wells and infrastructure for transferring the water
are already in place. It even quotes a county engineer’s office on
the progress of the pipeline (although it doesn’t bother to specify
which county, (see principles #3 and #4). This final principle is
designed to win over anyone who suspects that pumping water from
rural Nevada to fill suburban swimming pools is a terrible scheme;
not worth supporting financially. The goal is to get them to figure
that since they can’t stop it, they might as well benefit from it.
(This ties in nicely with Principle #1; People are greedy.)
I was so inspired by this get-rich-quick
scheme that I’ve written my own book, “How to Turn Catastrophe into
Cash,” which will provide you with all the information you need to
make big bucks during drought, hurricanes, floods and the global
climate change that’s predicted to cause deadly heat waves
throughout the West. Don’t be a victim; exploit what’s coming! Mail
me a check for $19.99, and get started getting rich.
Lissa James is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org.) She waits to get rich while
working on her family’s oyster farm in Lilliwaup,
Washington.
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