Making Million$ on Legal Con Games and Pyramid Schemes by William W. Walter

The title and cover of this book looked so intriguing, I just had to read it. After all, how many books out there promise to make you a millionaire by legally swindling people? I just had to see what this was all about.

An examination of the book's cover revealed some telling clues as to what I was about to read. The author is posed next to a fancy private plane with a wad full of cash in his hand. A much closer look revealed that the author was only holding a wad of $1 bills, sported a cheap suit, crooked teeth and hair that was badly in need of combing. I was starting to feel that the author might not be the "millionaire" that he was trying to project himself to be.

The inside of this book revealed much more than his cheap suit. This emperor was truly without clothing. I could write a whole book on what this book is about, let me start by telling you what it is NOT about. This book is not about making money. It is not really about business schemes, as one would traditionally think of them at all. It isn't about how to get rich quick. It isn't about how to get rich slow, or really how to do anything, for that matter.

What the book is, is living proof that literally anyone can get a book published nowadays. It is a long, rambling, sometimes completely incoherent look at life from one man's unique perspective. It touches upon many issues, in no particular order. Chapters begin and end much like doorways in the Winchester Mystery House. No real pattern is apparent in Mr. Walter's writing style, other than it's disorganization. Words are often misspelled, underlined for no apparent reason, and have the word "conspiracy" placed after them more times than not.

From reading this masterpiece of modern American schizophrenia, you get the feeling that the author is one of those old guys who lives in a trailer house, filled with so much junk that you can't find a place to sit down. That's just a guess though. Then again, he may actually be rich. It's just too bad that wealth can't buy sanity these days.

Enough complaints though. What are the good aspects of this book? Well, much like the parable of putting 10,000 monkeys in front of typewriters (one of them will eventually write Shakespeare), Walter does have some interesting insights. They are generally rather philosophical in nature. The closest work that I can compare this book to is actually Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard. In fact, Hubbard was probably the world's best example of making millions on legal con games and pyramid schemes, but alas, I digress.

Actually, I did find one or two nuggets of common wisdom in Hubbard's book, and you may find a few in this book as well. You just have to sift through a lot of new age mumbo-jumbo and rants to find them. Some of my favorite quotes from this book are listed below. Believe me, the whole book is chock full of such gems.

To sum up the underlying "plot" of the book, if you can call it that (a plot, or a book), humankind is currently being controlled by a "corpo" power structure. This giant, corporate conspiracy rules every single aspect of our lives. Corpo controls just about everyone, and everything. Even science itself is part of the corpo conspiracy! Some of the other groups (conspirators) and things that the author rants against include education, unions, the Catholic Church, media, small business, the U.S. and foreign governments, child actors, weddings, coupons, seat belts, birth control, doctors and hospitals, radar detectors, pornography, The Kansas City Star, highways, apartment buildings, taxes, the stock market, flush toilets, the list just goes on and on. About the only positive things he had to say in the book were about Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler.

So, bottom line, is this book really worth $11? Maybe. Is it worth your time to read it? Maybe not. If you need a good laugh, or are REALLY stoned, this book may be just the ticket though. Get them while supplies last, or before the corpo power structure confiscates them all!

P.S. If you loved this book, you'll also love Mein Kampf, which the author notes is also produced by the same publisher.

Some memorable quotes from Making Million$ on Legal Con Games and Pyramid Schemes:

"The best trick of all to deplete the land is the flush toilet."
(Page 174)

"Hitler was the innovator of the 20th century."
(From the chapter "Learn From the Experts." Page 159)

"Tricky pope!"
(From his diatribe against the Catholic Church on page 103)

"The public school now serves as the uneducator for the masses in accordance with the corpo master plan."
(More "corpo" conspiracy. Page 96. Repeated on page 97!)

"The corpo publishers want to maximize the printing of degrading materials as they distract people from citizen responsibility and from what will provide wisdom and a better world."
(This book is certainly living proof. Page 83)

"Man cannot handle endless temptation and misinformation from the corpo and women particularly cannot, as they are out of their element in a man-made world."
(Another pearl of wisdom. Page 81)

"In a young U.S. the corpo bought furs from the hick Indians with cheap trinkets It taught the Indian a love of booze so it could buy cheaper."
(Yet more ramblings against "corpo". Page 42)

Amazon: $10.95
Powell's: $6.95 (used)