No Pain, Lots of Gain
Most of us chase success by working hard, sacrificing our personal lives and even our health in an all-out pursuit of Mammon. But it doesn't always have to be that way. For a fortunate few, it doesn't mean a Harvard MBA or years spent perfecting a new drug. It just means doing as little as possible and still making more money than you ever dreamed of.
As much as industrious overachievers hate to admit it, sometimes all you need to get rich is dumb luck. One Las Vegas woman has won the lotto four times since 1993. A man in the U.K. found buried gold worth millions with a me<x>tal detector. A family facing foreclosure found a valuable Superman comic book in their ba<x>sement. Not all stories are so whimsical. Other shortcuts to wealth come with strings attached: Marrying rich, divorce, or lawsuits, for example. Still, the point is that while the average Americans toils for an average wage of $22.59 per hour, according to July data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are the few who made fortunes without much labor. In other words, for the average wage earner to make a million dollars, he or she would have to work 40 hours a week for approximately 21 years. Doesn't it sound so much easier just to buy a lottery ticket?
Many metal detector enthusiasts never find more than old bottle caps, a few dollars in loose change, and some cheap jewelry in their searches, but on the afternoon of Aug. 14, in a horse pasture near Ridgeland, S.C., relic hunter Laszlo Eles unearthed what he believes to be a more valuable find: a silver half dime from 1795, minted when George Washington was President. The South Carolina resident has not yet taken it to an appraiser, but Eles estimates it is worth about $10,000—and he plans to hold on to the coin until the economy improves. In his 25 years as a hobbyist, this is not the first time he has come across a valuable item. In 2005, Eles found a South Carolina copper slave tag and sold it for $15,000 to a collector in California.
If only fate were so kind to us all. At a time when even those willing to work cannot find jobs and public disillusionment is high, according to a Bloomberg National Poll, it is tempting to dream of easy ways to make money—quickly and with minimal effort. After all, it has been done before.
First Texas Products, a metal detector manufacturer, and Kellyco metal Detectors, the world's largest distributor of hobby metal detectors, tell Businessweek.com that their sales are up. Also, lottery ticket sales in North America increased by 1.5 percent in fiscal 2010 over last year, according to the North American Association of State & Provincial Lotteries.
While many Americans dream of a windfall that will take care of their financial needs for life, the sobering reality is most of us are not getting far: U.S. Census Bureau data show median household income barely changed in the 10 years following 1998 as the price of housing and other goods increased. In consumer price index-adjusted dollars, the median household income in 2008 was $50,303, compared with $51,295 in 1998.
The odds of finding buried treasure or marrying a billionaire are slim, but true stories of average people striking it rich continue to kindle many dreamers' fantasies.
