If I were a rich man …
If I had a billion dollars, here’s how I’d spend it:
First, I’d invest $600 million with a goal of earning 2% annually — about $1 million a month, forever.
Then, I’d buy five houses at $10 million each. (Nothing extravagant — just your standard $10 million house with good security, of course, since four would usually be unoccupied.) Add furnishings at $2 million each, $10 million for cars, boats and planes, $6 million for taxes and $24 million for a contingency fund.
That leaves $300 million for donations to fight hunger, homelessness and other needs.
According to Forbes, the U.S. has 902 billionaires with a combined net worth of $6.75 trillion — averaging about $7.48 billion each. If the “average” billionaire followed this plan, each would own 37 $10 million homes, have income of $7.4 million per month and $2.4 billion left for charity. If all 902 did this, we’d see $2.16 trillion going to urgently needed social programs. (To grasp what a trillion is, consider the following: a million seconds is 11 days; a trillion seconds is 31,700 years.)
However, these billionaires demanded tax cuts for themselves, debt and health care cuts for the rest of us — and Republicans gave it to them.
Eric Peterson
Santa Rosa, California
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: If I had $1 billion, here’s how I’d spend it | Letter
Reporting by Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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