Dr. Seuss was rejected reportedly 27 times.
And the creators of Trivial Pursuit had to go to a different country to find backers for their game.
Of course we all come up with good ideas (or at least we'd like to think so), but it is an issue of finding somebody to financially back it into reality. And ironically, it's the most revolutionary ideas that are least likely to get backing simply because it disturbs the blissful ignorance of the status quo and forces people to think outside their comfy little box.
Enter the Captain's crazy idea.
It not only disturbs the status quo, it just blows it right up.
I came up with this idea about 6 years ago and have alluded to it in the past. I never came outright and said what it was because;
1. I didn't want the idea getting out
2. I was debating whether to actually pursue it.
I tinkered with it, toyed with it, and soon it just wouldn't go the frick away. I knew I would have to at least give it a shot otherwise it would just gnaw at me for the rest of my life. And so over the summer when I had some time, I pulled a ton of data, ran some charts, made some financial projections and put together a 20 page business plan.
The idea?
How to fully privatize governments.
It's actually quite a simple concept, but a revolutionary one because I believe I have found the optimal form of government, or at least the "next stage" of governmental evolution. An improvement upon democracy, or perhaps a better way of putting it, democracy on steroids.
Under this new concept, government would be inoculated against corruption, greed, theft, graft and all other ailments that have ailed democracies since they were created. Politicians would not be able to wield the power over the people like they do. Rich or influential people could not override the desires of the people (or perhaps shall I say, brainwash them with propaganda and mass media into voting against their own long term interests). And economic growth, to paraphrase Brad Pitt from Inglorious Basterds, "would be a-BOOMIN'!"
It also is about the only silver bullet that could genuinely save the US (and all of Europe for that matter) from the financial problems we face today and keep them going as a viable economic entites.
Oh, and it also wouldn't hurt that it would easily make me and any major investors the world's first trillionaires.
But you all of course know where this story is going.
As expected, after spending the better part of a week on research and drafting a proposal and after spending cumulatively another week trying to get investment banks or VC firms to take a look at the proposal, all I managed to do was waste two weeks of my summer at an opportunity cost of enjoying the decline. What was particularly irksome was not the fact investment banks, financiers of different sorts and VC's shot it down, it's that they just plain wouldn't return the damn phone call. That you could easily spend 20 minutes on the internet and one the phone trying to locate the right person to call and when you leave them a voice mail, they never call you back. And in the rare instance you actually got to talk to a real live investment banker they would dismiss it on frivolous grounds having nothing to do with the idea.
It's too much money to be raised.
It's too little money to be raised.
We're not in that industry.
We were in that industry, but not this time of year.
We might have interest, but now right now with this market.
We only do private placements.
We only do public placements.
It's Tuesday.
It's not Tuesday.
You're wearing blue socks and we have a policy against investing with blue sock wearing people.
I literally told only 2 people about the actual idea. One was an investment banker who was at least sporting enough to entertain the thought. And the other was Peter Theil's "Founders Fund" who actually requested an abbreviated 12 page Power Point presentation I put together. The rest of the time my idea was dismissed without them even hearing about the idea, and not ONE business proposal was sent out.
Naturally the curious person by now would want to know, "Well, what precisely was this great idea? How do you fully privatize a government and make trillions of dollars from doing so? Let alone, how do you make government "corruption-proof?"
And seeing how it is more or less impossible this idea will ever get financing, the next best thing would be to go public with it. Ergo, I am happy to announce the business plan's publication now available on Kindle.
Yes, I am charging for it, because I spent a lot of time on it and some of you will notice how the posts this summer have been more linkage than Cappy Originals (in part because of developing this business plan and also in part due to moving).
Regardless you can find it here for $5.64 (the reason for the odd price is I tried to price it at $3.99, but Kindle likes to add odd fees - will be tweaking the price in the meantime). Sorry, only available on Kindle, but for the price of a glass of beer you will be rewarded with infinitely more than $3.99/$5.64 worth of intellectual stimulation. And yes, no doubt there are going to be some of those endearing grammatical errors or typos that my English-nazi readers love pointing out.
In the meantime, enjoy the decline (which will probably be the title of the next book).
POST POST-Some of you have expressed interest of just mailing me $4 and me e-mailing you the MS Word Document, which is kosher too.
E-mail me at CAPTcapitalism (at) yahoo (dot) com, click on the Rumpleminze and make a donation to my paypal account. Or I can send you a safehouse address to mail $4 bucks to.
No comments:
Post a Comment