What would you do as a billionaire?

[axlmaus]

They say that what all men want is money and power. The desire for money is easy to understand, you know, freedom and cool cars. But what about "the desire for power", is that an ego-thing? To feel valuable, and significant?

We propably would. BUT, have you ever thought about the power to be able to contribute to the world?
I know that sounds so.. new age almost, but even though most people don't have this as a direct motivational factor in their life, it's one of the most profound things you can do for yourself. Yes, yourself.

It directly nurtures you as a human to contribute outside yourself. Those of you into any type of spiritual enlightenment know that you are only a part of the whole, and that every other being and living thing is born of the same source that you.

To be able to be finacially free is great, and we should all work to get there, but have you ever thought of the kind of power you would have if you were a billionaire?
I mean, you could change whole cultures propably, in poor parts of the world.

Today I read a disturbing story. It was about ritual killings in some places in africa.
In this particular story, teenage boys were to kill a bull with their bare hands, as a sort of manhood test.
You know, to prove their courage and virility.

They kinda tear this poor bull apart alive. It takes like 40 minutes for the bull to die.

This disturbs me. And it is so easy to accept that "I can't do anything about that".
Just as sidewalkers "can't do anything about their life situation".
I think that what we accept and not is only a matter of choice.

I'm not promising to be a billionaire within my lifespan, because it's not something I can control completely.
What I can control though, is my focus and my dedication. I can control to accept responsibility for whatever I dream of.

Is it realistic to think about being a billionaire?




Ok, enough of my ranting. Now you know I care about animals and that I despise cruelty and injustice.
And that I'm on to something about this billionaire-thing.
Of course, you don't have to be a billionaire to impact the world, but if you were, you REALLY could.

What I am asking, is: What would you do if YOU were a billionaire?

 

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[PatrickP]

I would put money to feed PEOPLE and stop the killing of PEOPLE.

Once that was done and only after than was done would I think about donating money to help animals.

 

[kevinsheridan]

Winston Churchill said that Megalomania is the healthiest state of mind for humans. Power is healthy. Combatting strong animals is also healthy and breeds strong men which is what tribal culture needs. Imagining that you need a billion dollars to do something about what you don't like in the world is looking for excuses... Does a young man need 1 billion dollars to fight a bull half naked? I'll put my money on the bullfighter...

 

[comment]

I would buy 2,401,921,537 red crystal light packets and dump them all into the ocean.

 

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[BrucetonGuy]

I would put money to feed PEOPLE

Beat me to it.....

This is exactly what I would do. Taken from the Feeding America website..."1 in 6 people in the United States...hunger is a reality"

 

[JEdwards]

I would hoard it all, Keep it in the best investments, fight the government to lower or eliminate all my taxes, I might even move some offshore to make sure that I have to give back as little as possible.

See I believe you have to pay for your sins when you die, so I have no idea what sins cost in heaven. maybe each sin is a million bucks, who knows maybe heaven goes by income in charges for sins. A billion might not be enough. I would hate to give it all away, and not have it when I need it.

And besides, I would love to watch from upstairs my kids and grandkids squander it away.

 

[The-J]

Microfinance. Lend $25 to 40 million entrepreneurs (mostly farmers and food merchants, cuz, you know, we need food to live) around the world and see how much money I get back.

Or buy the government of the Congo, arm their military and forcibly expel the foreign companies taking their diamonds.

Or give it to a person running a non-profit with way too much time on his hands.

I dunno, having a billion dollars isn't really that useful.

 

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[kevinsheridan]

See I believe you have to pay for your sins when you die, so I have no idea what sins cost in heaven. maybe each sin is a million bucks, who knows maybe heaven goes by income in charges for sins. A billion might not be enough. I would hate to give it all away, and not have it when I need it..

Maybe Heaven is part of the scam that has people working for peanuts already...

 

[JEdwards]

Maybe Heaven is part of the scam that has people working for peanuts already...

Maybe it is, but then again maybe it isn't. I am not 100% sure.

 

[The-J]

And besides, I would love to watch from upstairs my kids and grandkids squander it away.

How long does it take to squander $1 billion? Apparently, it only takes a year to squander $1 million. Will it then take 1000 years to squander $1 billion?

 

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[biggeemac]

I've taken a big interest in the past two or three years about hunger and food. The fact that anyone is starving is one of the biggest indicators of how backwards we really are. Imagine if everyone that owned property......even a little bit....converted everything like grass and ornamental plants into something that can be consumed by humans and beneficial insects. How could there possibly be a hunger problem? How many resources would we save just by growing food in our own backyards and parks....not to mention the resources that could be saved by composting? To me, the hunger problem is very low hanging fruit, but do we really have the guts to tackle something so simple? I bought my first house here in the dallas area a few months ago. It sits on a third acre. I am in the process of converting the backyard into an edible garden. I hope to inspire others here in Garland to do the same. The hunger problem is ridiculous. Take a look at aquaponics.....its amazing.

 

[JAJT]

Apparently, it only takes a year to squander $1 million. Will it then take 1000 years to squander $1 billion?

If it takes someone a year to squander $1 million they aren't very good at squandering.

 

[axlmaus]

I would put money to feed PEOPLE and stop the killing of PEOPLE.

Once that was done and only after than was done would I think about donating money to help animals.

Are you making a point of the fact that I used an animal in my example of ONE thing that disturbs me in this world?

Winston Churchill said that Megalomania is the healthiest state of mind for humans. Power is healthy. Combatting strong animals is also healthy and breeds strong men which is what tribal culture needs. Imagining that you need a billion dollars to do something about what you don't like in the world is looking for excuses... Does a young man need 1 billion dollars to fight a bull half naked? I'll put my money on the bullfighter...

Seriously, I can't find the words to debate this.

Ok, are you saying that it's healthy for the world to have people with the mindset that you can abuse anyone weaker than you?
Combatting animals isn't healthy, it's selfish. The only part of you that can derive pleasure from that is your unhealthy ego.

 

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[The-J]

If it takes someone a year to squander $1 million they aren't very good at squandering.

True. I could probably squander $1 million in a couple hours. A house there, a Lamborghini here...

 

[Pinnacle]

I believe I am the only person (or one of an extreme handful) on this forum who actually aspires to reach this level of wealth. But I do so for specific reasons.

I would set up financial fitness schools in distressed communities. My team and I would train local, home-grown instructors to teach the kids of the community everything that we Fastlaners know and more. We would also teach about real economics...not the variety we all learned in school, but real economics. Then we would teach students how to build cash-flowing assets for both individual and community benefit. For example, we would teach students how to make personal loans to other members of their community with interest in order to fund new businesses for said community.

We would also teach community members how to trade with other communities and states to facilitate inter-community and interstate commerce.

There is more, but this is how I plan to start.

 

[PatrickP]

I think you could do that for a WHOLE lot less than a billion.

 

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[Pinnacle]

Come to think of it, me too. But I have to wait a lil' while.

Who's going to listen to someone who hasn't made it yet?

 

[BostonH]

I've taken a big interest in the past two or three years about hunger and food. The fact that anyone is starving is one of the biggest indicators of how backwards we really are. Imagine if everyone that owned property......even a little bit....converted everything like grass and ornamental plants into something that can be consumed by humans and beneficial insects. How could there possibly be a hunger problem? How many resources would we save just by growing food in our own backyards and parks....not to mention the resources that could be saved by composting? To me, the hunger problem is very low hanging fruit, but do we really have the guts to tackle something so simple? I bought my first house here in the dallas area a few months ago. It sits on a third acre. I am in the process of converting the backyard into an edible garden. I hope to inspire others here in Garland to do the same. The hunger problem is ridiculous. Take a look at aquaponics.....its amazing.

I disagree. Humans are a biological population. IE at a macro scale we are no different than any other feeding population. We literally are made of the food we have to eat. Therefore, by making more food available, the population will increase. My reducing the available food available, the population will decrease. Therefore I am in favor of reducing food supply.

Now, I am for locally sourced food (ie, similar to your backyard garden idea)... I do think that would be healthier in general.

 

[PatrickP]

Come to think of it, me too. But I have to wait a lil' while.

Who's going to listen to someone who hasn't made it yet?

Do you already have a profitable business? If so just start doing what you want to now. Don't wait until you have a billion dollars.



If not that is sort of putting the cart before the horse I think.

You want to teach low income kids how to be a successful business owner.

If I were you I would focus on making $40 a day with a business.

 

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[Pinnacle]

Do you already have a profitable business? If so just start doing what you want to now. Don't wait until you have a billion dollars.

If not that is sort of putting the cart before the horse I think.

You want to teach low income kids how to be a successful business owner.

If I were you I would focus on making $40 a day with a business.

You're definitely right.

I exited a failing business about 2 months ago. So, I'm still in recovery mode and preparing to build the next opportunity. I've found a few opportunities, but I'm in a cost analysis/planning stage while I let my job keep me afloat.

The interesting thing about understanding cash flow management is that if there is no income (or not enough), then there is no cash flow to manage. This only matters if your assets have not yet matured, which was the case with me. My asset never matured to the point where it sustained itself.

I'm taking another crack at building, scaling, owning passively, and then exiting a successful business before I jump on this teaching opportunity.

 

[PatrickP]

As some said above.

Donating to help feed hungry children is a great thing in my opinion.

The problem I used to have was making sure the money actually went where it should. And also how much was taken out for administrative costs.

To help solve this I created a website a year ago. Helping Children Directly - Home

I am VERY glad this thread was made as when I went to that site it showed the domain name had expired. I check on Godaddy and sure enough it expired yesterday. So I went just an hour ago and renewed.

I see the website just came back up now.

Either that or PETA hacked Godaddy again lol

You simple have Amazon send the food sent directly the the charity of your choice. The food is sent direct, so no one can get their sticky fingers on the money before buying food.

YOU the donator, determines where your food goes.

When you go to Amazon you are following an affiliate link. What this does is gets money from Amazon for each item purchased through Helping Children Directly which is used to send more food.

If you prefer you can simply go to Amazon Directly
Then you select what food you would like to donate and the name and the address of the charity you would like the items sent.

IF you do go from the website links to Amazon, then Amazon will pay a percentage to Helping Children Directly. 100% of which is used to purchase food for disadvantaged children.

I made this decision because I thought better to get that money from Amazon to use for this cause rather than just have Amazon keep that extra money.

OR you can just not even go to the website and donate food directly to the charity of your choice. That is what I do. I just wanted to help others who may find it frustrating when they found out 10, 20, 30% or more of the money sent to a charity is going to 'administrative costs'

 

[Kak]

Venture capital! I would love strategic investing and helping other entrepreneurs make their dreams a reality.

I would own and frequently operate a gulfstream business jet, a helicopter, rolls royce phantom, and multiple yachts.

I would continue tithing to my Church on the same scale, which would make it an extremely wealthy church.

I would also look into what very large companies I could control.

 

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[JAJT]

PatP - you might find this interesting.

This looks to be just Canadian in nature but here is a chart done by Moneysense magazine that rates 100 charities and how the money breaks down: The 2012 Charity 100 | MoneySense

 

[Rj20708]

Create more jobs for America citizens everywhere.

 

[DeletedUser2]

1 BEEEEELLLION DOLLARS!

probably more of what I do now. or just the same of what I do now,

only faster???



I will let you guys know



Z

 

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[cants]

I'll buy all the stuff that I need (worth around 2-$3M), send all my worthy relatives to college. Be an angel investor and create a foundation for dogs. I will hunt down all the bastards who kill and sell dogs for a living.

 

[LightHouse]

No one said Hookers and blow yet?

 

[cants]

No one said Hookers and blow yet?

you don't need hookers when you got money unless you're really ugly.

 

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[cliqflip]

Start a company only a billionaire could start, think about all the possibility's!

 

[Turboboost]

In my opinion donating money to feed the starving people isn't really a longterm solution. As a billionaire I would try to develop whole communities (the location is not important). If we take Israel and their agriculture for example. The same thing could be done in Africa. In the hottest desert there are water resources deep under the surface. This water could be used for hydroponic agriculture like they do it in Israel. I would invest a part of my money in such a thing where people are the poorest. Of course I would include these people in development of their community to get them educated so in future they would help their neighbours the same way I helped them. I think this would be a longterm solution to beat the hunger and not just sending them food (of which they only get 10%, the other 90% usually get stolen by the corrupt officials on the way).