If we're serious 042425
Thought experiment - How much is enough
Imagine a billion dollars. Imagine having a billion dollars. Imagine trying to store a billion dollars in 20-dollar bills (since 100s can be hard to negotiate). It would take a room 24’x24’ with 9’ ceilings to hold them all and allow a little room for you to get in and out. Imagine spending a billion dollars; if you spent $1000 every day, it would take you 363,636 years to spend it all if you just left it in the room and took out a thousand every morning. If you did any sort of investing, even a savings account, it would take even longer. With an average life span of 77 years in America, you and 4,721 of your best friends could spend $1000 every day for their entire lives. Now imagine having 240 billion dollars like “the world’s richest man” says he has – what would you do with it? Why would you want that? Why would you fight tooth and nail not just to hold on to it, but to increase it? Why would you bribe legislators and other politicians to charge people whose annual income you make in less than an hour so that you wouldn’t have to pay more taxes? At what point do you say, “enough is enough, I can’t even use what I have.”?
I really like this thought experiment. It really gets to the core of our collective collapsed value system. Why do so many people worship people who are billionaires?
The money doesn't make them happier. I've known a few very wealthy guys. Shit happens to them that money can't fix. Wives who cheat. Sons who commit suicide. Illness without cures.
And it begs the moral question: Why should anyone have more than a 24 by 24 by 9 room of money?
Good one, Dave!
Yep. A few years after my first wife and I divorced, she married our former next-door neighbor and moved to California. He was then an executive VP of a very large company in electronics. A year or two later, he was named CEO. My daughters told me that when that happened, they asked him if he wanted a Lincoln. His response--this was back early '90s--was "No, I'll keep the Taurus." To him, while the money was very good to have, and he used it, the pay and benefits were more symbols of achievement. (About that thing of my ex-wife marrying the former next-door neighbor, it's true. But not as dramatic as it sounds. He and his first wife had been transferred to California. A year or so later, his first wife started having headaches the doctors could not diagnose--until she fell into a coma. She died of a brain tumor at age 37, one of the nicest people in the entire world. I never inquired about what happened after that, but my impression is that my first wife was a good friend and things developed from there. And he was a terrific step-father.)