#fuck bezos musk and zuckerberg with a saguaro cactus

[akorah]

Ok but, what WOULD you do if you had 200BN dollars?

So I've been thinking about a lot this over the last two weeks. Initially, I wanted to come back with a spreadsheet that detailed every penny. The longer I let it sit, the more issues I remember.

I would love to fix the world, but even with all of the money in the world, one person can't do everything.

Obviously, I would take care of my friends and family first--pay off mortgages, student loans, etc. I'm not talking about buying new homes or Lamborghinis or anything, just getting everyone comfortable where they currently are.

I'd love to single-handedly dismantle capitalism, but that's not realistic. I would take about 10% of the money ($20B) to put toward my own specific interests--indigenous issues, water issues, homelessness, etc--which would include a significant amount of lobbying. Like it or hate it, lobbying moves mountains in US politics.

Where I live, we have a ton of empty strip malls that I'd like to rezone from commercial to residential and retrofit into apartments. They would go to low-income or no-income households, but without an income cap so no one's worrying about getting kicked out because they're above the income threshold. Housing is a right, not a privilege. Dignity is a right, not a privilege.

The ex-Christian in me wants to reverse-colonize the suburbs. I learned religion at the knee of teaching pastors and missionaries. Instead of introducing Jesus to villages in Africa, I want to introduce critical thinking to planned subdivisions. Get banned books in the hands of the children whose parents had them pulled. Explain what a land acknowledgment and colonization are.

The rest of the money ($180B) would go to scholarships and grants for meticulously verified nonprofits. I know there are bad actors, but most are good. There are amazing people running life-changing projects I can't even imagine.

I know I'm forgetting things, but this is the absolute most basic. If you ask me this question again two years from now, my answer may be different. My answer six years ago certainly would have been.

Your turn. How would you spend $200B?