Presto: You're the richest person in the world

[Zkribbler]

I dunno how it happened...maybe you won some super lottery or maybe Bill Gates died, naming you as his sole heir. But you're now the richest person in the world

What do you spend your money, say on...

(a) conspicuous consumption
(b) financial investments
(c) humanitarian gestures
(d) excentricities


For me:

(a) conspicuous consumption a "sky yacht" a luxurious zepplin...maybe solar powered...in which to cruise the world.
(b) financial investments; invent cheap desalinization of water (didn't Azreal have a thread on this once?)
(c) humanitarian gestures: (see (b) -- be nice & make money )
(d) excentricities Build an underground, solar-power mansion in Death Valley; drive to town in a solar-powered car.

[Spec]

First off, I buy the rain forest, no one can touch it no more.

Second, I finance who ever's got a great idea for a business.

Third....I dont know...

Spec.

[Wycoff]

(a)Conspicuous Consumption: I'd by some German castle and fix it up.

(b)Financial Investments: genetic research, energy research, and space exploration

(c)Humanitarian issues: Leukemia research, many others that I can't think of right now.

(d)Excentricities: I'd do some major investment in the Kaliningrad area. Eventually, I'd take control of the local government and seceed from Russia. I'd change my last name to von Doom, rename the city Doomstadt, and rename the oblast Latveria. I'd call myself Dr. Doom, and I'd be a firm but just autocrat. Eventually, President Jenna Bush would come and regime change me.

[Spec]

Oh I know I know!!!! I'd give 2 million dollars to Dis so he could get chicks cuz he'd be rich!!

BOOYA!!

That's the kind of hero I can be sometimes.

Spec.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

(a) Conspicuous Consumption: I'd buy a world-renown jazz club, or maybe two: one in New York and one in Paris.

(b) Financial Investments: Vietnam. Vietnam is getting ready to explode, in a good way, and I want to be a part of it.

(c) Humanitarian issues: Bill Gates has this one right -- malaria and other treatable diseases in the 3rd World.

(d) Eccentricities: My own cable channel, a massive money-losing venture that shows only movies and TV shows that I feel were unjustly neglected in their own time -- frequently hosted by me, Masterpiece Theater style, in a smoking jacket.

[Lancer]

I'd go with the zepplin idea. Put a mooring dock on top of the house.

Still in the Phils Zkrib.

[mrmitchell]

Re: Presto: You're the richest person in the world

Originally posted by Zkribbler
(a) conspicuous consumption
(b) financial investments
(c) humanitarian gestures
(d) excentricities

(a) A warehouse of Dr Pepper
(b) Energy research
(c) Education
(d) Buy an island and live out Tropico (minus the part where my starving citizens revolt and overthrow me)

[asleepathewheel]

beer

[Stuie]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
beer

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Presto: You're the richest person in the world

Originally posted by Zkribbler
(a) conspicuous consumption
(b) financial investments
(c) humanitarian gestures
(d) excentricities

(a) A nice house somewhere. Lots of open space. No need for a lot of bathrooms
(b) "How to feed more and more people," exotic materials, biological research, FOSS stuff (following IBM's lead)
(c) Clean water and education in Third World countries
(d) Collecting weird and wonderful items

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Lancer
I'd go with the zepplin idea. Put a mooring dock on top of the house.

Still in the Phils Zkrib.

That gives me an idea: Start a manufacturing plant in the Phils, with good working conditions , and unlike other employers , pay the minimum wage...or even more.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
That gives me an idea: Start a manufacturing plant in the Phils, with good working conditions , and unlike other employers , pay the minimum wage...or even more.

That's not a bad idea, but providing cheap eduction to the poor kids is the only way out for them. Otherwise they'll just be stuck in the same deadend jobs as their parents.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Originally posted by Spec
Oh I know I know!!!! I'd give 2 million dollars to Dis so he could get chicks cuz he'd be rich!!

BOOYA!!

That's the kind of hero I can be sometimes.

Spec.

hire a polly person to run the empire!!!!
I dont suppose id do anything really but get up go to work after I buy the hospital.
Id give a lot of loot to the main kids cancer hopitals.

oh and give dis two mil to get laid

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Otherwise they'll just be stuck in the same deadend jobs as their parents.

"Deadend jobs" with adequate pay, decent benefits, and, most importantly, stability can make many people's lives relatively happy and comfortable. Plenty of people are content with making enough money to keep a roof over their head, feed their family, and have a little extra for leisure. I know from personal experience how much people miss their "deadend" jobs when they're gone.

[JohnT]

Re: Presto: You're the richest person in the world

IIRC, Gates is worth about $50 billion. Since we don't want there to be any doubt as to my worthiness to mankind, we'll make the amount $100 billion.

conspicuous consumption

Travel, especially to cities (the wilderness is for other people), a new house on a more spectacular piece of land here in Tennessee (I really love the geography here). I want an arcade, complete with cabinets. I'll likely get a new car every year.

financial investments

I would actually probably receive the entire amount in the name of a family trust that I would set up for the express purpose of receiving and managing those assets - there would be quite sizable tax and inheritence savings were we to do that. The three of us would each own 1/3, and we would set it up so that dissolving the trust would be very, very painful for whomever decided. Our wills would be set up so that we our portion goes back into the trust - at least, as much as law allows.

Most of the trust would be to fund the humanitarian effort, and it would last until (I don't know the exact number) 25 years after Sophie's passing... or over a century from now. I would likely put a billion into generating income for the family, the rest into the humanitarian effort.

I'd probably just play a wide index of funds and asset accumulation... foreign, large-cap, small-cap, REIT funds for the "paper" side of the investment plan, gold, silver, real estate, and maybe an oil well or three for the "asset" part of the portfolio. $250 million would probably buy my silent interest in almost any venture capitalist firm but the most elite... and if I felt a need to break into the KPCB ranks, I'll just increase the ante by an order of magnitude.

humanitarian gestures

I would devote the $99 billion towards ridding mankind of the scourge of death.

I ain't kidding. $99 billion should be enough of a Manhattan Project that gets us going well along those lines. We could upload our consciousnesses into computers, create clones to which we transfer our memories, create a rejuvenation process that "cleans" our body, giving it another 50 years... when you're old, go to the doctor, reset your body clock and make yourself 20 again. Repeat as needed.

If that would prove impossible (I'd do some heavy-duty research into the various options), I would do something about getting rid of sleep. 70 damn years on this planet and we spend 30% of it unconscious - WTF? Let's cancel that ****... or at least reduce it to 10%.

eccentricities

As if the above wern't enough, probably not. If I succeed on the death thing, however, I'm probably gonna coast for a century or two. I mean, why do you think I eradicated death? It's because there are a lot of books, movies, and video games I have to catch up on. It'll take a while.