April 11, 2013
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On the California powerball
I heard my math teacher talk about the powerball during the last lecture and I was curious as to what it was. Turns out that this is some kind of 60 million dollar jackpot. I thought “wow, imagine if I won all that money!” And then I realized that I wouldn’t know what to do with all of that money. I’d give some to my friends and family who needed it, but at the same time, how would I know if they were going to use it right? Would they have given me a cut if they won the jackpot? Probably not, since I often feel like a superficial accessory friend or person in their lives.
I think in the past, I would have parsed out the money equally to everyone in my family, but now that we’ve grown distant and some have strained relationships, I don’t think I’d easily come to that decision anymore. Likewise, my friends are generally not in need of any money. I guess I’d help people with payments or loans, maybe set up a college fund for my nieces and nephews, but I wouldn’t just give them money straight up because people always spend money on dumb shit they don’t need, myself included.
Thinking about this has made me realize how little I trust people. If I ever came into a small fortune, I’d just be paranoid that everyone was using me.
Comments (4)
Actually, there are interesting studies on how people who win large sums of money rapidly often have their lives fall apart (they tend to alienate their friends and family and end up isolated and miserable, and they sometimes have no idea how to manage their money). The moral of the story? Don’t tell anyone if you win the lottery ;’D
@jedeyeyam - I was thinking about that too, but how much of a secret could you keep it? People will start to notice if you always have a lot of money around. I think if you don’t want to tell anyone, you also can’t spend anything. The best solution would probably be to set up several trust funds or charities and then live off the interest as a modest income. I did see a show in which they documented what happened to those who won lotteries. Most of them end up in bad situations like you said.
Well. You could spend stuff. You just couldn’t spend *too* much (and why should you anyway? Most of the stuff people overspend on anyway is crap). Travel and food is nice though (on the other hand, if you had great food and great traveling experiences all the time, you wouldn’t appreciate them as much anymore). I’m sure it’d be possible to hide your actual wealth. Especially if you made up a job. No one would know that you don’t actually have that job.
I am enjoying thinking about how to hide money. I think people who hide money should be renamed Money Squirrels. Squirrels who do that should also be called that.
Anyway, back to mourning. Later.
I had a violin teacher once. He lived in a beautiful ranch and owned a stradivarius. (I.e. he probably owned at least a few million). He drove around in this *super* shitty car.
Right now I’m watching this show called Curb Your Enthusiasm. A fictionalized version of the life of the Seinfeld Creator. One of the unspoken premises is that he’s *uber* rich. Well. He lives in a modest (for a mega millionaire) house in the valley (maybe worth 1-2 million *maybe*) and wears clothes that sometimes look like he stole them from a homeless man. Or woman.
A lot of rich people don’t do conspicuous consumption. Though they certainly do consume…