Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#101

Post by potatolicious » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 8:26 PM UTC

biohacker42 wrote: post #34

sfamiliar wrote: post #4

give $11,000 to each of the 62 million households in the u.s. making under $50,000. watch the ensuing chaos with glee.

$50K is a lot of money! Can any household still be considered poor with $49K a year?

Not that much. $50K after tax is what, $40K? Just a tad over? Rent? Food? That's all assuming you're young and single. Have kids? Good friggin' luck. You can't even afford a mortgage on $50K a year.

I've got a $100K job offer pending my graduation, and even with that I still have to be aware of my budget to even save something.

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#102

Post by danw » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 8:31 PM UTC

Try and fix poverty, hunger, clean drinking water in a sustainable way.

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#103

Post by iamdave » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 8:40 PM UTC

Probably keep enough to retire on, and give the rest to my alma mater and have a football stadium named after me :)

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#104

Post by rms » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 8:44 PM UTC

Cure cancer

Cure HIV

Eliminate hunger

Eliminate thirst

Take over Equatorial Guinea

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#105

Post by DanielBMarkham » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 8:56 PM UTC

jm4 wrote: post #43

Two chicks at the same time. Seriously, I have no idea what I'd do with that amount of money. If I was completely selfish maybe I'd buy an island somewhere. I sure as hell wouldn't use it to bail out a bunch of failed businesses whose executives have been giving themselves multi-million dollar bonuses.

Two chicks? Must be like Bill Gates' sister and mom.

Seriously, since the moon base was pretty selfish, I should give a serious answer. I think a series of X-Prize ideas, in the $10-20 Billion range, would transform our society in ways we can barely imagine. Fusion, solar power, field propulsion -- it would be like having a war and pushing for new technology without going through all the death and destruction.

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#106

Post by raheemm » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 8:56 PM UTC

build my own university - maybe university on a ship, no a university on a ship with its own navy, wait - a university on a ship with its own navy, its own private islands and a jet plane and a space shuttle. Damn, it got crazy so quickly!

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#107

Post by michaelneale » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 9:05 PM UTC

Free renewable energy. Probably geothermal. About 100bn on research to develop the system, the rest to roll it out.

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#108

Post by nazgulnarsil » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 9:15 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #101

biohacker42 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$50K is a lot of money! Can any household still be considered poor with $49K a year?

Not that much. $50K after tax is what, $40K? Just a tad over? Rent? Food? That's all assuming you're young and single. Have kids? Good friggin' luck. You can't even afford a mortgage on $50K a year. I've got a $100K job offer pending my graduation, and even with that I still have to be aware of my budget to even save something.

you people are retarded. the things you think are necessary to live are clearly not.

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#109

Post by gambling8nt » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 9:19 PM UTC

ivankirigin wrote: post #7

Build a space elevator and start mining the asteroids. This involves a robot army that would need to be built as well. No, I'm not joking

$700 b is not nearly enough to make a space elevator with existing technology; you're off by about a factor of 1000.

Of course, if you're willing to wait ten years for the cost to produce carbon nanotubes to drop...

Re: Ask HN: What would you do with $700 Billion?

#110

Post by einarvollset » Thu, Sep 25, 2008, 9:23 PM UTC

samwise wrote: post #89

jm4 wrote: post #43

Two chicks at the same time. Seriously, I have no idea what I'd do with that amount of money. If I was completely selfish maybe I'd buy an island somewhere. I sure as hell wouldn't use it to bail out a bunch of failed businesses whose executives have been giving themselves multi-million dollar bonuses.

hehe I would invest it. I would buy most of wall street and wait for it to bounce back. Turn that 700b to 10 trillion.

Yeah cause you're gonna notice the difference between 700b and 10trillion..