If You Were Insanely Wealthy, What Odd Things Would You Do With Your Money

[THUNDER HANDS]

For me, I'd buy a house and put a queen-size bed in every room - even the bathrooms, that way I'd always have a place to lay down.

I'd have a bed in the kitchen, the living room, den, the basement, the attic, the bathrooms, the walk-in closet. Everything.

Just because I could.

[tk2kewl]

1. I would buy full page DSM ads in every major news paper for a month

[NewJeffCT]

12. How about pulling a Ross Perot?

Buy time on the networks so you can discuss it on TV - after all, most Americans don't believe it unless they see it on TV.

I would put on a fair & balanced panel, too:
Democrat: John Conyers
Republican: Lowell Weicker (former liberal Republican Sen. from CT who railed against Nixon at the Watergate hearings...)

[tk2kewl]

13. Good point!

and what is Ross Perot up to these days? you would think he'd have something to say about this insanity.

[bertha katzenengel]

2. Odd things? Hmmm....

After philanthropic issues were well in hand, I would have a large house custom-built to suit animals.

I'd have cat-sized cutouts near all the ceilings, with ramps built onto the walls -- ramps and catwalks. For cats, of course. I'd have some walls with carpet on them three feet up from the wall, and some walls with raw wood.

I'd build rooms for dogs, too, although I don't know what special needs they'd have.

[Heidi]

9. The wiley and excellent boy-cat named Ginger wants

to come and live with Aunt Bertha when she's wealthy. :hi:

[bertha katzenengel]

14. Oh - and another thing: I'd commission several works of art

from a pal in Switzerland, then produce a show for her out here . . . :hi:

[Heidi]

16. You're too sweet, bertha.

:hug:

(I'm almost finished with a new one that I'll post on the weekend. I've been workin' my butt off. :silly: )

[Hugin]

3. I'd put lots of effort into building notoriety around myself...

While at the same time secretly doing all kinds of philanthropic
deeds.

[aden_nak]

4. How many people read this and didn't reply for fear of a banning?

:P

[BOSSHOG]

5. Lots of Money to the American Cancer Society and to

the Alzheimer's Assn. Buy a 1970 Mustang Boss. Hve the ultimate kitchen where I could play and concoct and cook all day.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Pay someone to mail GOPisEvil is a jello salad every day

[Dez]

7. I'd build housing for the homeless

and do what I could to get them back on their feet again.

[Heidi]

8. I don't even aspire to immense wealth, but . . .

if it happened to me, I think it'd be great to:

1. Endow a public interest journalism project, giving regular folks the tool, experience and guidance necessary to become citizen journalists.

2. Endow a public interest law firm, like the Appleseed Centers for Law in the Public Interest. These folks do great work, and they need all the help they can get.

3. Endow a public interest art project to help working artists manage their business and market their work independent of galleries, with stipends for health care, etc.

4. Pay for my goddaughter to attend art school in Florence.


The selfish things: Vastly increase the number of fountain pens I own and build a meditation room and much larger studio. Oh, yeah . . . and Dr Pepper and Hidden Valley Ranch dressing flown in from the US whenever I wanted it. ;)

[maddiejoan]

10. You said Insanely wealthy right?

Tiki Room. I'd build a house that was an expanded version of Disneyland's Tiki Room, but with an indoor/outdoor pool. It would have waterfall fountains of Pina Colada and Lucy Lawless and Gina Gershon would come over and play pool with me.Then I'd bribe every Republican in the House to Impeach Bush, and make my cat Samwise wear a strawhat and dance while I play the ukelele.

[Trigger Hippie]

11. Make one of those

swimming pools made of coins and jewels to swin in just like Scrooge McDuck. Yeah, I know it would probably be a painful swim, but hell it's my money. :)

[havocmom]

15. Buy some small apartment units & duplexes near a couple of Universities

and provide well maintained, decent housing at below market rent for deserving kids busting their asses to put themselves through school. The better their grades, the better their rent deals. When they got their degrees, they would get a present: all rent $$ less actual building maintenance costs would have been put into interest bearing accounts and they would get those balances back as a gradation present.

Havocdad worked from the time he was six to squirrel away money for school. He damned near froze to death is one of the hovels he rented. We would make sure a few kids with that sort of determination got a decent place to live and something besides student debt at the end of it.

And we would by 50 acres, build a house with a nice garden and make a peaceful life for ourselves and those who visit. There would be a couple more dogs & cats too ;)

[barb162]

17. I'd give a lot to animal shelters and probably start my own

[BreweryYardRat]

31. Same here.

[Ikonoklast]

18. I would become.......

.....Batman!!! Beware Neo-con Evildoers!! Bwahaahahhaaaaaa!!!!

[NewJeffCT]

19. My list

1) Buy all the networks, fire everybody involved in their news process they have there & replace them with hard nosed investigative journalists. Tell them to get to work & not to worry about profits & losses. I'd keep a few faces, like Keith Olbermann...

2) Buy Clear Channel & replace all their RW radio hosts with folks from Air America and other independent LWers.

3) Buy up all the newspapers in the country & do the same as I did with TV, keeping a few columnists like Molly Ivins & Paul Krugman.

4) Build a large, but environmentally friendly home for my family.

5) use my media empire to promote national health care, progressive taxation, poverty relief, etc.

[luvLLB]

20. buy a villa on the french riveria, lay around nekkid all day while

hoards of pool-boys took care of my every need and desire.

[Karenina]

21. I'd support

musicians, artists and writers. I LOVE Havocmom's response!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

22. I probably would not live too long, since the powers

would not be happy with my activities at all.

[Orsino]

23. Build a subdivision of...

...eco-friendly houses with enough photovoltaic, wind and geothermal power to go off the grid during the day, and even sell some power back to the electric companies. The covenant would offer huge discounts on mortgage payments for families whose vehicles met a certain mpg/pound threshold. SUVs would be banned.

I'd also start a newspaper the charter of which guaranteed that it could not be bought, and in which only current and retired employees could invest.

[bugslsu9]

24. I want a trampoline room

Just a giant room with padded walls, a 30 foot ceiling, and the floor is a trampoline. Oh, there would also have to be over sized toys for the room too.

[TripAndFall]

25. I would put up billboards

with just a single word, chosen at random. Just to mess with people.

Damned If I Know

[Enraged_Ape]

26. I'd dress up in a bat suit and fight crime...

with all kinds of gadgets that my company made.

I am totally serious about this. It was my dream as a child.

[chemenger]

28. I'd dress up in a rat suit and fight corrupt politicians

[HughBeaumont]

27. Room filled with balls, continuously mist-disinfected

so it wouldn't smell like sweaty feet.

I'd buy a separate house, hollow it out and have it be a big-ass playroom, with sandboxes, waterfalls and swimming pools. Oh, and a Hawaiian Punch drinking fountain. Always liked that scene in Mr. Deeds.

[MrScorpio]

29. If I had Bill Gates money, I'd rebuild Detroit

It'll be the the new Technological capitol of the Western World

[hyphenate]

30. I don't think I would do much weird with it

One thing I might do is have a panic room, because today you just never know.

I think a good portion would be spent travelling, because I love to travel, and would have some kind of dwelling in England as well as in New England (Mass. preferably), Toronto (I love Toronto) and the West Coast.

One thing that might be considered relatively "odd" would be that I would hire someone to 1) label ALL my VHS tapes (I have quite a few without labels), 2) then have them all converted to DVD and catalogued. Then I would make a library behind a wall with a secret door, so they wouldn't clutter the house and would be in some semblance of order. We're not talking a couple of hundred tapes, BTW, but, um.....several thousand. Okay, you now know my deep secret--I'm obsessive compulsive about taping TV shows, and have been doing it for over 2 decades.

If I were to have one thing in every room, it would probably be either a TV system or a sound system piped into every room. Watch a 20" plasma flat screen while I'm taking a shower!

[yellowdogintexas]

32. buy some land with enough room for horses, and build a kickass

environmentally friendly house with a big porch, a fabulous kitchen and a decadent bathroom.

There would be a stable so my daughter's friends would have a free place to keep their horses, and probably a small house for my daughter and her friend to live in.

Travel

Command my sisters and their daughters to have a meetup once a year in a really neat place ..the three of us and our three daughters.

Other family reunious can include the brothers in law and the 2 nephews

Donate some scholarship money to my college
Donate some money to the FUMC Foundation
Donate some money to Cave REsearch Foundation

buy season passes to everything theatrical, or musical in Fort Worth.

get my boobs reduced to a normal size

I LOVE HavocMom's idea too. I have often fantasized about some sort of sponsored cooperative housing (like student co-ops) for single moms, big ole house w/lots of bedrooms and bathrooms, communal kitchen/dining/living areas where single moms w/a small child could live together, pool resources for meals, baby sitting, cleaning, tutoring, etc. while they went to college/grad school/

Or endow homes for elderly ladies who are healthy, but just don't want to do all that is involved w/maintaining a home anymore and just need to be around people. Sort of like a co-op except there would be a live in cook/housekeeper, and it would be NICE!!!!!!!

send my artistic daughter to a good art school...or a place where she could just study art without all the other subjects.

[ikojo]

33. I'd have a kickin' home theatre system complete with

THX sound (installed with the assistance of Lucasfilms...after all I would be insanely wealthy, right)....

I would then work on social justice issues...giving money to organizations that really need and use it wisely.

[flvegan]

34. A spay/neuter clinic in every borough...support the local shelters

both human and animal.

I'd use my money to shame (yes, I'm a bastard) into making other rich idiots open their pursestrings for those that really need it.

Oh, yeah...and two chicks at once. Again.

[Redstone]

35. Mrs R. and I don't think this is odd: We'd give it all away.

Every last cent, after paying off the mortgage and putting something in the bank for the kids' college.

Truth: the last time we bought a Powerball ticket, and the jackpot was $150 million or so, we sat down and spent an hour writing down who would get what.

Having a ton of money changes people (not for the better), and we like ourselves the way we are. Besides which, I'm lazy, and if I didn't have to work I'd become a real lump.

Redstone

[democracyindanger]

36. I'd dress like the Monopoly dude. All the time.

[maveric]

37. I'd buy CNN and turn it into an actual "news" outlet.

Fire evryone who's there now and hire some progressive reporters,
I'd keep Christine Amanapour.

[obxhead]

38. Hire a midget

dress him up like R2D2 with a drink tray on his head and have him carry my drinks.
(of course I'm rich so he get full union or better wages & bennies)

[arwalden]

39. I'd Help Out Whitman Walker Clinic

http://www.wwc.org/

[maveric]

40. Buy hundreds of chimps and release them at golf courses all over

the country. I'd dress them up in Superman suits.

[-..__...]

41. Blow it all on lottery tickets and scratch cards.

Just wondering how long I could stand at the register line annoying and delaying other customers before one of them put a bullet in the base of my skull.

[LastKnight]

42. pay off my schooling, pay off my parents' house and other debts...

and invest half of the remainder, the other half would be split... 3/4 of it would go to setting up a scholarship program... i dont know what it would be based on, and its not really important, cause i dont have the money to do so... and the remaining 1/4 would be some play money for me and my family and friends.

nice to dream huh?

[EC]

43. I'd build my log cabin, in the middle of my woods, fish in my pond, and

be a hermit...and secretly do good around the world...I'd be perfectly happy painting for the rest of my life...of course I'd have to make my own crockery and stuff...so I'd have to do some ceramics...

[Kathleen04]

44. I'd have 2nd and maybe 3rd iPods

The one I have now is almost permanently in the car even though I have a nifty speaker for it inside.

I'd also have my own rollerskating rink, because I think that would be fun--a rollerskating rink with YOUR own music and no one bumping into you..sounds like good exercise. :)

[tinfoilinfor2005]

45. Buy Crawford Texas and make it into a gay resort area.

But first I'd put a giant pretzel factory next door to bush's "cattle ranch".

[BlueIris]

52. Oh, man. That would be a beautiful thing.

Ha!

[EC]

46. Okay, with all the superheros I saw listed

I noticed no one wanted to be The Tick...He was a real hunk...

[NMMNG]

47. Buy a huge property in the Southwest with a tall fence around it

Then I'd donate huge sums to every charity/cause I could think of that would absolutely piss the fundies off--gay rights groups, free-speech groups, left-wing groups, comprehensive sex-education promotion funds, Atheists of America, Freedom From Religion Foundation, ACLU--you name it. :evilgrin:

[Niccolo_Macchiavelli]

48. get rich - rid the world of a neocon

i'd offer a handsom sum and a free plastic surgery for the head of a neocon of a selected list.


I'd build the EcoDome or my "green pyramid" sort of a shopping center/market with only ecologic produced products.

Invest in clean energy research

Invest in the exploration of psychicism

[ashling]

49. When I win the lottery,

I am going to pay off my mortgage and other stuff, pay for my daughters education, set up trust funds for my daughters, travel some, buy some more land around our place in the country, and set up a foundation to fund projects by Young Democrats and for college scholarships for promising young dems.

[RebelOne]

50. I would donate tons of money to animal rescue groups.

And buy a huge farm and rescue abused farm animals.

[BlueIris]

51. Probably go help all the barely-making-it businesses I know of.

If, for no other reason than I would like them to continue to exist so I can shop in them. And give in to my alturistic urge to help those who helped me get some of the opportunities I managed to accrue over the years, lot of good they're doing me right now. That psychiatrist who saved my life when I was nineteen? His student health center can have a large, anonymous donation. Those nice folks who taught me to register voters? Well, maybe they'd like some new, hybrid automobiles or something.