Cashing In on Self-Help
For East Bloc Folks

My Proposed Contribution to Solving
The Balance of Payments Problem

 

I hear that business opportunities for American firms in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are beginning to be considered "hot."  As a patriotic American, I’d naturally like to do my share to cash in. 

We’re already selling them McDonald’s and Coke and pizza by the metric ton.  What other kinds of American products might I be able to market to them?

We still have exportable music and movies—but both of these involve dealing with impossible personalities, not to mention requiring exorbitant sums of money.  Hey, I want my personal effort to turn around America’s trade deficit to be fun!  Besides, I don’t have enough relatives to borrow more than about $49 in seed capital.  So I’m going to have to wager my stake in America’s other booming industry.

That would be, of course, the self-help trade.

Take a look at your local Waldenbooks or Crown:  the racks are crammed to overflowing these days with self-help stuff.  And it only stands to reason that the more the old East Bloc countries become like us, the more they’ll pick up our stresses and anxieties and what-have-you, and the more demand they’ll create for self-help.

Still, it may be awhile before our current self-help titles will really be relevant enough to East Bloc folks to justify taking up much self space in B. Daltonski or Brentanovich’s.  Accordingly, I’ve decided to get a jump on the big guys, by creating an advanced-design pamphlet to fill the immediate transition niche.

What follows is a sampling of the material that will make me an all-American capitalist export hero, and fulfill my patriotic mission of raking in rubles and zlotis.

(c) COPYRIGHT 1998 ROBERT WINTER.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.