A Fortune in Pennies

As a youngster, I had a flash on how to get rich quick. All I had to do was convince everyone else to send me a penny. Doing the math for my hometown (Sikeston at the time), I figured a fortune of $250 could be had with no real sacrifice from anyone else. Everyone could afford a penny.

So I informed my mother than we needed to mail out some letters stating my case (before someone else beat me to the punch), and she asked why I'd spend 13 cents on a letter soliciting a penny. Party pooper.

Later, I expanded the concept and calculated that a penny collected from every American would net $2-3 million. But the postage problem continued to loom large.

My plan was finally enacted when the internet age hit. But not for me. It's called advertising. With no stamps or other distribution sites, content authors can post ads and make a penny per hit, and there are a lot of people surfing the net! This is why 24-year old billionaires now walk the earth. They discovered the simple secret of collecting pennies from a massive audience.

Some ideas just need time for technology to catch up.