If I Had Ten Billion Dollars
What would you do if you won a $10 billion lottery tomorrow? What luxury items would you rush out and buy? The latest in sports cars, the latest in technology… I wonder how quickly we would tire of buying things and set our minds to saving the world.
Here’s a top ten list for your “Brewsters Millions” style shopping list:
Items #1-#8: The Millennium Development Goals
The MDG offer a perfect guide for the first few items on your list. If you take Canada’s National GDP of 1.274 trillion dollars and use the suggested 0.7% goal, we’ve got a price tag of a cool $9 billion dollars. If you ask me, at that price, these MDG are a steal.
With actual jackpots in the hundreds of millions of dollars these days, if we directed lottery winnings towards global aid, it is conceivable that we could make real progress. Bill and Melinda are making headway. Stephen continues his passionate plea for government support of the MDG. Perhaps it’s time to go get a ticket for the next 649!
If every developed country set and followed through on a timetable to reach 0.7% by 2015, the world could make dramatic progress in the fight against poverty and start on a path to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and end extreme poverty within a generation.
Item #9: The Morgan Life Car. A luxury sports car is top on the list for many new billionaires. If you’re going to go for this luxury item, why not go green? This concept car was recently launched at the Geneva motor show. As for price tag, you might burn up few million from your last billion here.
Item #10: You could become one of the first five humans to have your genome sequence done. Join James, Craig, and Dan… and talk in a whole new way about personalized medicine. For only $350K, you can have your own genetic map deciphered. For just a drop in the bucket, you will literally be able to walk around with your genome in your pocket!
4 Responses to “If I Had Ten Billion Dollars”
The Millennium Goals represent a global partnership for development.
The deal makes clear that it is the primary responsibility of poor countries to work
towards achieving the first seven Goals. They must do their part to ensure greater accountability
to citizens and efficient use of resources. But for poor countries to achieve the first seven Goals, it is absolutely critical that rich countries deliver on their end of the bargain with more and more effective aid, more sustainable debt relief and fairer trade rules, well in advance of 2015.
Lets all join this campaign:
http://www.orkut.co.in/Community.aspx?cmm=47234928
If I had 10 Billion dollars, I would find nine single people willing to travel the world avoiding gated communities. Single people would not have any stress for leaving a family behind. They would each get a billion dollars. Their job would be to find interesting people with interesting ideas, and finance and possibly help to implement long term solutions to common problems in different areas of the world. They would be required to leave the US to help though. Here in the states we have so much money and the potential to do well, but it is clouded by greed and evil people. This should be a much nicer place to live. Personally, I live in Minneapolis, but right now it looks more like Mogadishu. Now we are skipping bad childhoods and just importing evil.
If I had 10 billion dollars, I would donate 90% of it for making the world’s food system more sustainable.
The 1 billion left would be used to make a reality TV show: people who won the lottery (grand prize, of course) and are willing to donate 50% of their winnings to which ever cause they like will get their 1 hour of national TV fame.
Anything left…well I haven’t decided…
well if i won ten billion dollars my family will come frist and pay off all my bills off i will buy my two daughters what ever they want and give some to charity and to the children hospital for the sick keds. and get me some stuff for me to and buy me a new house for my family to live in . anything else well i havent decided…