How can I make some money?

I can program. Why does it have to complicated to get some fucking jobs, do them and get paid for it?

Is there anything anywhere I can develop that pays the bills without having to invest years and tens of thousands of dollars in formal education?

suck dick, program in C# and Java and forget about ``good'' languages, try and relate to the interviewer (i.e. if you find out they like sports, try and talk about their favorite team or something... something they'll like)

turn into a yes-man and leave your dignity at the door

You can establish and bring an open source project to maturity or contribute some significant work to one or more existing open source projects. This gives you credibility as a programmer who can write code and develop systems. From there, perhaps you may have to find internship programs that'll place you into a programming role.

>>2
All the interviewers I've experienced can tell the difference between a yes man and a dignified and yet agreeable person who will disagree politely.

>>4
And are you employed?

The company I work for is always hiring contractors. We do Android and iPhone apps mostly. What kind of skills do you have?

Unlikely. Most companies require a CS degree or equivalent just to be interviewed for a Java.NET Enterprise Beans codemonkey position. You might have better luck being hired at some ``start-up'' without formal education, but don't expect much more than a toilet scrubber's salary.

>>7
Opinion?: PhD; PhD's value in industry.