If you controlled 10 Trillion dollars

[BballTim]

  Buy the franchise of every sports team that I like and spend whatever it takes to make them winners.

[D.o.s.]

 Interesting D O S, could you eloborate on this point here,   

  "Enable each country to establish a citizen's income"

I could, but I think I'd rather let Bertrand Russell do it:

the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful…When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free.”

[Redz]

Find 9,000 of my favorite philanthropic cause and give them each a million dollars.  Keep the other trillion.  Bequeath the rest to my family and a few other favored ideas that could operate in perpetuity after my death.

[incoherent]

I would use the money to set up some really elaborate pranks.

[Eja117]

Hire an all star team of Private Investigators to look into various sports cheating events. Find me proof of Joey Crawford cheating and the Yankees cheating. It's out there. It can be found

[slamtheking]

 Interesting D O S, could you eloborate on this point here,   

  "Enable each country to establish a citizen's income"

I could, but I think I'd rather let Bertrand Russell do it:

the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful…When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free.”

sadly I knew several girls growing up that thought Welfare was for just that purpose and couldn't wait to collect.  Even planned to get knocked up so that they'd boost their income   

[slamtheking]

I like the idea from earlier of using 1 trillion as an incentive to get someone to develop clean energy to the point where we can get away from fossil fuels as much as possible.

On a personal level, I'd buy all the tickets for all the Laker home games for a season, especially Jack Nicholson's seats.  I'd let them play in a completely empty arena every home game.  I also use the tickets for toilet paper and then deliver them to Jack with a note saying "I know you miss your crappy Lakers so here's something that'll take their place" 

[Fan from VT]

Find 9,000 of my favorite philanthropic cause and give them each a million dollars.  Keep the other trillion.  Bequeath the rest to my family and a few other favored ideas that could operate in perpetuity after my death.

Let's see. 9,000 x 1,000,000 is 9,000,000,000, which i think is 9 billion. So if you are keeping 1,000,000,000,000 then you still have 8,991,000,000,000 left to do stuff with.

[SHAQATTACK]

If I had that money ,   I d buy my own country and island ...and have my own naked babe volleyball league


 

[LooseCannon]

On a personal level, I'd buy all the tickets for all the Laker home games for a season, especially Jack Nicholson's seats.  I'd let them play in a completely empty arena every home game.  I also use the tickets for toilet paper and then deliver them to Jack with a note saying "I know you miss your crappy Lakers so here's something that'll take their place"

Why don't you just buy the Staples Center and make them play in the newly re-dubbed Clippers Center?

[D.o.s.]

 Interesting D O S, could you eloborate on this point here,   

  "Enable each country to establish a citizen's income"

I could, but I think I'd rather let Bertrand Russell do it:

the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful…When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free.”

sadly I knew several girls growing up that thought Welfare was for just that purpose and couldn't wait to collect.  Even planned to get knocked up so that they'd boost their income   

Right, and that's a misuse of a social safety net, which is kind of a different point of a basic income--which should be an unconditional amount appropriated for basic level of living necessities (food, shelter, etc)... You could go a long way towards making that happen with a portion of 10 trillion dollars.

[KGs Knee]

 Interesting D O S, could you eloborate on this point here,   

  "Enable each country to establish a citizen's income"

I could, but I think I'd rather let Bertrand Russell do it:

the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful…When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free.”

sadly I knew several girls growing up that thought Welfare was for just that purpose and couldn't wait to collect.  Even planned to get knocked up so that they'd boost their income   

Right, and that's a misuse of a social safety net, which is kind of a different point of a basic income--which should be an unconditional amount appropriated for basic level of living necessities (food, shelter, etc)... You could go a long way towards making that happen with a portion of 10 trillion dollars.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but, what happens if everyone thought this way, and decided to "collect"?  Where's the money come from, the magic money tree?  For that matter, who'd need money anyways, nobody would be doing anything.  Better be able to hunt your own food and build your own shelter.

[D.o.s.]

 Interesting D O S, could you eloborate on this point here,   

  "Enable each country to establish a citizen's income"

I could, but I think I'd rather let Bertrand Russell do it:

the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful…When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free.”

sadly I knew several girls growing up that thought Welfare was for just that purpose and couldn't wait to collect.  Even planned to get knocked up so that they'd boost their income   

Right, and that's a misuse of a social safety net, which is kind of a different point of a basic income--which should be an unconditional amount appropriated for basic level of living necessities (food, shelter, etc)... You could go a long way towards making that happen with a portion of 10 trillion dollars.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but, what happens if everyone thought this way, and decided to "collect"?  Where's the money come from, the magic money tree?  For that matter, who'd need money anyways, nobody would be doing anything.  Better be able to hunt your own food and build your own shelter.

I'm game to discuss it if you are, although since you brought up the "magic money tree" it should be pointed out that this is a thread about controlling 10 Trillion dollars.


I think you underestimate the power of commodity fetishization. There's nothing stopping you from working to afford those courtside Celtic's tickets, Corvette/Jag/Auto of choice... there's simply an amount allocated to each citizen regardless of whether they work or not--so you get the "basic necessity" income on top of whatever you do for money.


There have actually been a couple real, actual studies done on the idea that've shown that the "disincentive to work" criticism could be pretty groundless as far as this particular idea is concerned, but we're just talking in big picture ideas in a big picture ideas thread.

[LB3533]

Does Jeff make 10 Trillion dollars off of Celticsblog?

[KGs Knee]

 Interesting D O S, could you eloborate on this point here,   

  "Enable each country to establish a citizen's income"

I could, but I think I'd rather let Bertrand Russell do it:

the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful…When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free.”

sadly I knew several girls growing up that thought Welfare was for just that purpose and couldn't wait to collect.  Even planned to get knocked up so that they'd boost their income   

Right, and that's a misuse of a social safety net, which is kind of a different point of a basic income--which should be an unconditional amount appropriated for basic level of living necessities (food, shelter, etc)... You could go a long way towards making that happen with a portion of 10 trillion dollars.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but, what happens if everyone thought this way, and decided to "collect"?  Where's the money come from, the magic money tree?  For that matter, who'd need money anyways, nobody would be doing anything.  Better be able to hunt your own food and build your own shelter.

I'm game to discuss it if you are, although since you brought up the "magic money tree" it should be pointed out that this is a thread about controlling 10 Trillion dollars.


I think you underestimate the power of commodity fetishization. There's nothing stopping you from working to afford those courtside Celtic's tickets, Corvette/Jag/Auto of choice... there's simply an amount allocated to each citizen regardless of whether they work or not--so you get the "basic necessity" income on top of whatever you do for money.


There have actually been a couple real, actual studies done on the idea that've shown that the "disincentive to work" criticism could be pretty groundless as far as this particular idea is concerned, but we're just talking in big picture ideas in a big picture ideas thread.

I'd be willing to discuss, but if you truly feel it is acceptable to give people who CHOOSE not to work and contribute absolutely nothing to society a cut of my hard earned money, well, there really isn't anything to discuss.

I've never shied away from helping those that truly cannot help themselves, but helping the disinterested is beyond the pale.