Billions and billions of dollars! Get yours today! I've written before about the massive lobbying game in Washington to get your own special interests written into the stimulus and budget bills. And about the efforts to pressure governments into spending that money NOW. Today a friend sent me a new piece of the incredible expanding stimulus economy. A publishing company has created a new newsletter on how to keep up with "ever-changing opportunities and the complex requirements to apply for them" -- The Money for Main Street Monitor. Yes, for only $229 a year, with this special offer, you can keep up with the lucrative and ever-changing "new stimulus funding opportunities." I'm omitting the specifics so as not to give this parasitical industry any more publicity, but here's the text of the email advertisement:
Dear Nonprofit Professional, Billions of dollars from the Obama stimulus plan are becoming available daily for funding thousands of new state, local and nonprofit programs! And while it’s extremely time consuming and difficult to keep up with the ever-changing opportunities and the complex requirements to apply for them, we can help make that task easier than you’d imagine. That's why [the company] is proud to introduce our newest and much-needed online service: The Money for Main Street Monitor. Just click on or cut and paste the following link into your Web browser to take advantage of a special one-week offer on this continuously updated service: ... Continuous Stimulus Funding Updates While we have diligently kept our readers up to date on the billions of dollars in funding coming from the Obama stimulus package, many tell us they need much more coverage! Consequently, we have assigned a team of experienced Washington, DC-based editors to focus exclusively on new stimulus funding opportunities for health care, family services, education, mental health, disabilities and substance abuse programs, housing and community development!< Through continuously updated articles, subscribers to this new online service will be kept up to date on the latest funding opportunities as soon as they emerge. And with our online format, subscribers will have access to our user-friendly search tools to instantly find the funding opportunities most suited for their organizations! Plus, our updates -- unlike those on government Web sites -- are in plain English and easy to find.  And, we’ve included a wealth of grant-writing tips designed to help your organization get its share of stimulus funding! We know how important it is for every organization to watch their dollars closely these days, and we’re doing are best to help. That’s why we are offering you a specially reduced rate for this much-needed publication, The Money for Main Street Monitor. Just click on or cut and paste the following link into your Web browser to find out more about this special one-week offer: ... Or you can call in your order toll free at 1-800-[GET OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY].
This isn't the only company making such offers. Lobbyists, consultants, newsletter publishers, and others will be making money this year guiding their clients to the pot of gold at the end of the stimulus. But in economic terms, all this effort is deadweight loss. Instead of devoting time and talent and resources to the production of real economic value, these people are being lured into the parasite economy, jockeying for money extracted from productive workers and businesses and redistributed by a Washington bureaucracy and the lobbyists that revolve around it.