Brewsters Millions

[Lord Hosk]

Rent 16 to 20 superyachts for the month and recreate historical naval battles.

Alternatively, space tourism (flights on Soyuz running 20-35 million)

I would allow either of these, UNLESS your intention was to destroy the yachts and then have to pay the owners for their destruction.

Also it would be hard to get space tourism in that window... Launches take a lot of planning.

[2stepz]

Can anyone think of why you couldn't throw the party to end all parties? Rent out Hertz castle, hire every platinum-selling artist in the past decade to play, fill the pool with imported water, fly guests out first-class, have Gordon Ramsey cater, etc.? If you focus on paying for services and consumable goods, it seems doable...

During my drive today I was thinking of something like this. I was considering what it would cost to be picking up all the tabs throughout Las Vegas at New Years... or during Mardi Gras in 'Nawlins. Would that be considered charity, if nobody is really benefiting?

I would consider this just over the line and call it no. The reason I say no to this but yes to the party idea is that this would not benefit you and would be along the lines of walking down the street dropping 10,000 bundles of one hundred dollar bills.

With a party you are spending the money for your entertainment, which includes having friends around.

Ah, but I'd argue that it is repaying previous benefits. The two cities I chose were carefully done.

I did live and work in Las Vegas for 5 years, and I know how much of that tax base goes to support the local parks, streets, library, etc that I used readily during my years there. This would be a repayment of sorts for never having to pay state income tax while I lived there.

As for 'Nawlins... the tax base help reparations after hurricane Katrina which is the partial base of my doctoral research.

[Metcarfre]

Rent 16 to 20 superyachts for the month and recreate historical naval battles.

Alternatively, space tourism (flights on Soyuz running 20-35 million)

I would allow either of these, UNLESS your intention was to destroy the yachts and then have to pay the owners for their destruction.

Also it would be hard to get space tourism in that window... Launches take a lot of planning.

By "recreate", I meant, "with water guns"

[Lord Hosk]

I dont just allow it... I encourage it.

[AlexanderDitto]

Can I just say that this thread is magnificent and hilarious?

Also you could probably buy a few small islands, fence them off, and shred the leases, so no one would technically own them? Or buy them under an assumed name for a non-existent person, so again, they'd just revert to being unclaimed land?

[empath]

That little "revert luxury possessions back to 'unclaimed parts of nature'" is DELICIOUSLY evil!

But it kinda skirts the line regarding 'destroying assets'; it might fall under the same loophole as buying the Penny Black and then posting it...or it might not.

There is one OTHER snag that I just thought of; if the deeds/leases/documentation of ownership disappears, wouldn't the islands revert to being 'crown land' of the related nation (the first island on that website was one in the Philippine archipelago, for example)...or worse yet, could you trigger a war of possession of this suddenly 'available island'?

[Wraith]

Can anyone think of why you couldn't throw the party to end all parties? Rent out Hertz castle, hire every platinum-selling artist in the past decade to play, fill the pool with imported water, fly guests out first-class, have Gordon Ramsey cater, etc.? If you focus on paying for services and consumable goods, it seems doable...

I will allow this, so long as you pay fair wages, fair market value for the food, and it is a celebration for which the expenditures can be justified.

IE: A party for 100 people could not have a staff of 3000, or 500 Lbs of caviar.

Right, it'd be a party for as many people as I could gather, and the catering/entertainment would be paid fair market wages. It just so happens that fair market wages for some of these people is just plane stupid-high.

[Metcarfre]

You could hold it in Andorra, for example.

[empath]

For all the people I want to invite? Andorra doesn't have enough room.

[Lord Hosk]

Can I just say that this thread is magnificent and hilarious?

Also you could probably buy a few small islands, fence them off, and shred the leases, so no one would technically own them? Or buy them under an assumed name for a non-existent person, so again, they'd just revert to being unclaimed land?

Im going to give this one a no, shredding the leases wouldn't make them not yours they are still assets.

Also a no on buying them under an assumed name would either be charity for the person who doesn't exist or destruction of property.

[Metcarfre]

Pay passage for probe to do a second impact study of the water content on the Moon, or some other experiment whose intended purpose were involves its destruction.

Heck, if a fireworks display is OK, what about a simple object thrown together to create a really cool flame trail on reentry?

[Lord Hosk]

hmmmm... Ill allow it.

[Metcarfre]

USA USA USA

[Fezzul]

Organizing an event seems like a good one. A music festival would be doable in a month, free entry... unless that's considered charity.

Renting seems to be the fastest way to spend the money. Renting a 747 is roughly 1,150,000 per month, so I'd continuously rent a fleet of them and fly friends, family and stuff to various elaborate parties in remote locations.

How about, finance a film? You can make a pretty decent film for $65 mil. Finance the film and then stipulate that you get 0% of the revenue. That would be a business deal, so not charity, you wouldn't own shares in the film company, so you wouldn't own assets, and when the money was gone and the film was made, you wouldn't own the rights to the film so it wouldn't be an asset.

[Lord Hosk]

By financing a film and not getting any proceeds from it you would be hiring people without getting a real value from their services.

If you intentionally made a flop, it is unlikely to take less than 30 days. so even if it releases in a million theaters and no one sees it, it would be an asset.

[Fezzul]

Then I guess I'm hiring some 747s...

Also, I just looked in to renting islands... it costs approx $20,000 to rent an island for a night. More reasonable than I was expecting. That's less than a million a month. You'd need to rent out an archipelago to blow the 65.

Butlers are $10,000 a week. Pennies.

It costs $155,000 to rent Tiger Woods for a day... or that much an hour to rent David Blaine. Renting celebrities seems to be a quick way to blow some dough. You could knock out 3 mil just having David Blaine around for a day. But then you'd have to have David Blaine around for a day... I wonder how much Penn and Teller cost?

[Lord Hosk]

hire tiger woods, play vollyball all afternoon.

[AlexanderDitto]

Hire the entire cast of 30 Rock, have them recreate every episode of Night Court on a desert island in the South Pacific. All the sets and props are coconuts.

Tina Fey alone costs $750,000-$1,049,998+ to book for a speaking engagement. I imagine getting the rest of the cast for 30 days would definitely blow through the 65 mil, easy.

And no one would see it but you because it would be on a desert island. Perfection.

[Metcarfre]

hire tiger woods TOM CRUISE, play vollyball all afternoon.

[Lord Chrusher]

If the object is just to burn through money, why not recreate the scene from the Dark Knight where the Joker burns the Mob's money?

[Metcarfre]

You can't destroy it.

[Lord Hosk]

That would tread a thin line between a performance piece and just destruction but I am going to rule no, and here is why.

The United States, Australia, and every nation has some form of legal protection for its money meaning it is illegal to reproduce or destroy it. If you were to instead buy something like stock certificates which could be burned, the assets would still belong to you even if you burned the proof, it would just take time to reacquire them.

I would allow you to make color photo copies at a scale permitted by law in the US that is 50% or smaller and 150% or larger, then burn that fake money. Which wont be as bad as you could produce each bill for pennies but it would take time and you would have to hire a staff...

[Lord Hosk]

I dont think I ever answered, and I havent seen any of the responces from the 60% of you who chose option A.

I would take the 2.3 million today. 677.2 million to charity.

7.2 million would go to my High School with the stipulation that 1. It not be announced that it was given. 2. If it gets out, no one can know who gate it 3. 1 million may be spent on repairs and modernization, the remaining 6.2 million will be put into an trust with a yearly "gift" paid to the school for operations/salary...

50 million would go to childsplay, 1 million of that would be given by childsplay to desert bus, on day 6 of the next Marathon

50 million would go to Fisher House.

100 million would go to the National Endowment for the arts.

10 million to The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation

25 million to Books For Africa

25 million to Doctors without boarders.

50 million to Second Harvest

360 million to build and operate elementary schools 4YO, K-4th grade in the city of Detroit. These would be private schools which would have $10 a month tuition per student, that tuition would pay for supplies and two meals a day. A quality early childhood education will benefit those kids every day of the rest of their lives plus if the city doesnt have to worry about pre 4th grade they can focus more on the upper grades. Plus my hope would be that it might just encourage a few other large philanthropic endeavors. The Railroad/Timber Barons didnt just build great public works for the people they did it to try to out do each other.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

I'm not sure exactly which choice I'd take; 2.3 mill would be a perfectly nice little nest egg, but I have a profound dislike of both corporate greed and financial lawyers (since the latter usually goes hand in hand with the former. Plus... I could do an awful lot with several hundred mill. I have a lot of hopes for my life, and a nest egg that size could fulfil a few of the otherwise less realistic ones.

[auberginequeen]

Someone stole my coffee idea:



Darn it.