《余震》的生意经：兜售全球经济末日论

    想在现今的市场上赚钱吗？要做的就是预言市场将会每况愈下。至少这是末日论《余震：如何在新一轮全球金融危机中自保进而获利》（Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown）一书作者的生财之道。该书的三位共同作者，大卫•韦德默和罗伯特•韦德默兄弟以及辛迪•斯必茨，预测在即将到来的金融危机中，失业率将达到50%，股市将暴跌90%，年度通胀率将达到100%，因此建议人们应及时变卖房产，兑现人寿保单、抛售所持的股票。他们三人现正通过这一途径日进斗金。

    总而言之，《余震》一书认为一连串的泡沫已将国家推向崩溃的不归路。首先是互联网泡沫，然后是房地产泡沫。现今，美联储（Federal Reserve）对市场的“操纵”和“公共部门，即美国政府，极不负责任的态度和严重的误判”将使拉美国家在2012年不可避免地出现严重通胀。他们的建议就是：变卖一切资产，然后购买黄金及与通胀挂钩证券。

    《余震》一书现已发行了第二版。该书在上个月一直位居亚马逊网站（Amazon.com）商业书籍销量前五。基于此书，右倾媒体Newsmax新闻网发起了一场声势浩大的宣传活动。该书也成为了美国有线新闻网（CNN）、福克斯（Fox）和CNBC电视台各大名嘴热议的话题。这一切都使得该书的销量节节攀升。据出版商John Wiley & Sons公司透露，新增的20万册已在印刷当中。

    该书的版税将达到80万美元左右（版税按书价的15%计算），然而比起三人在副业当中的收益，这一数字微不足道。据大卫•韦德默透露，该书为总部位于马里兰州贝塞斯塔市的投资管理公司Absolute Investment Management带来了1亿美元的资产进账。兄弟二人曾是该公司的合伙人，现任公司的董事总经理。除此之外，有1,000多人已花钱购买韦德默兄弟的投资咨询服务，年费为399美元。随着读者的增加，这一数字还在进一步加速增长当中。（书中经常号召读者加入兄弟二人的投资队伍）

    现在，兄弟二人又有新动作，两人的新作——《余震中的投资指南》（Aftershock Investment Guide）一书将于明年春天面世。Newsmax新闻网与罗伯特达成了咨询服务协议，目的是通过赠阅《余震》一书来招揽该书的读者订阅该新闻网的电子版投资通讯。该书位于佛罗里达州西棕榈滩的出版商声称，最近有100万人观看了该公司主办的“余震求生之道峰会”（Aftershock Survival Summit），而且该出版商在活动几周前在华尔街日报（Wall Street Journal）还刊登了整版广告。罗伯特在峰会的录像中言之凿凿地预测了未来的低迷前景，其间穿插播放的画面则充斥着奥巴马以及身着清洁工作服和快餐店服装的老人。然而大卫的理想更为远大，他说“我很想成立一个共同基金”。

    虽然找到了发家致富的法宝，但是韦德默兄弟并未因此而变得不切实际。兄弟俩现在仍经营着位于弗吉尼亚累斯顿市的商业评估中心（Business Valuation Center），在该书热销之前，该中心的业务在很大程度上依赖于政府扶持。 2006年以来，小企业管理局（Small Business Administration）总共向该中心支付198万美元用于评估潜在捐赠接受方的财务情况。但是大卫说这项资产管理业务目前运营得非常成功，所以他们正在逐步减少政府的资助。”

    Want to make money in this market? Just predict the market is just going to get much, much worse. At least that's the very profitable tack the writers of a doom-and-gloom tome, Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown are taking. The three co-authors, brothers David and Robert Wiedemer, and Cindy Spitzer, are raking in a multimillion-dollar payday by advising people to sell their homes now, cash out their life insurance policies, and dump their stocks ahead of what they predict will be 50% unemployment, a 90% stock market crash, and 100% annual inflation.

    In a nutshell, Aftershock argues that a succession of bubbles have set the country on the path to ruin. First came the dotcom bubble, then the housing bubble. Now Federal Reserve market "manipulation" and the "incredible irresponsibility and bad judgment of the public sector" -- i.e. the U.S. government -- make banana republic inflation levels inevitable starting in 2012. Their advice: Sell everything, and pile into gold and inflation-linked securities.

    Aftershock, now in its second edition, has spent the past month in the top five selling business books on Amazon.com (AMZN). It is the basis for a massive publicity campaign for right-leaning media outfit Newsmax, and it provides fodder for talking heads on CNN, Fox, and CNBC. All that has been good for sales -- publisher John Wiley & Sons says 200,000 copies are now in print.

    But the $800,000 or so in book royalties the authors may receive (based on a standard 15% cover price royalty rate) pales in comparison to the trio's ancillary businesses: David Wiedemer told me the book is responsible for $100 million in assets flowing into Absolute Investment Management, a Bethesda, Md.-based money manager with whom the brothers partnered and where they are now managing directors. On top of that, 1,000 people have paid an annual fee of $399 to receive the Wiedemers' investment advice, a number that is growing faster as more people read the book. (Periodic exhortations to subscribe and invest with them pepper the chapters.)

    Now the brothers are branching out. Next up is a follow-up book , the Aftershock Investment Guide, due out next spring. Robert has a consulting deal with Newsmax, which is giving away copies of Aftershock to entice its own readers to subscribe to its own investment newsletters. The West Palm Beach, Fla.-based publisher claims one million people watched a recent "Aftershock Survival Summit" it hosted and publicized a few weeks ago with a full-page Wall Street Journal ad. In the video of the summit, Robert enunciates dire predictions between shots of Obama and elderly people wearing janitor and fast food uniforms. David is thinking bigger. "I'd really like to do a mutual fund," he says.

    But the Wiedemers seem less ideologues than two guys who finally found a bubble they can make money from. Before the success of their book, the brothers' day jobs were heavily dependent on government largesse: They still run the Business Valuation Center, a Reston, Va.-based outfit that the Small Business Administration has paid $1.98 million since 2006 to provide financial valuations of potential grant recipients. But David says the asset management business is so successful they are "sort of phasing that down."