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I wish some game creator would create The Billionaire Game. I’m sure it would be hugely successful. 1
Each player starts with $100Billion, and the first player to spend it all wins. Sounds easy, huh? 2
The goal of the game is to show just how incredibly difficult it is to spend that kind of money. And it is nearly impossible to do. 3
Long before anyone amasses a hundred billion dollars, they have many dozens or hundreds of people working for them to invest that money. 4
And big money like that generates a significant return. A hundred billion dollars invested—even very poorly—makes hundreds of millions of dollars every year. 5
So, each player has to buy private jets, private tropical islands, giant mansions, coke habits, tech startup companies, you get the idea. 6
But you can buy your own tropical island for about 100 million. Jets are cheap at around 50 million. Mansions go for 25 million. You'd need to buy 40 mansions just to spend one billion dollars. 7
If often takes 3 months or more to search for, find, offer, negotiate, agree, then close a real estate deal, and that’s just a suburban three-and-two. It would take much longer for a 30 room chalet in Malibu or Newport. 8
Assuming that you could consummate a mansion deal in only 2 weeks in the game, it still wouldn’t be possible to buy a billion dollars worth of houses in one year. 9
With the GOP gutting America’s financial system, you wouldn’t even have to pay much in the way of income taxes. Most of your income is considered capital gains, so it’s taxed at a very low rate. And wealth tax? Fuggeddabbouddit. 10
Let’s say you decide to run for governor. The poshest campaign, with champagne dinners and around-the-clock TV ads can still be had for a couple hundred million dollars. 11
But, as governor, you would now be able to cut yourself some sweetheart deals with your portfolio of tech companies so you can make even more money faster and faster. 12
I tell you, it will be really hard to win this game. Once you have a few billion in the bank, spending it becomes near impossible. Game designers! Heed the call! 13
People keep asking about restrictions on spending, and the game designers would have to work that out, but I’m not sure that there needs to be any. Buy the Lakers? They are currently valued at less than four billion dollars. 14
Other people are joking about buying failing companies, like airlines. Honestly, the people with the most money have the biggest biz failures. I don’t see a connection between crappy, money-losing biz, and their owners losing any money, AS LONG AS THEY ARE BIG, BIG BUSINESSES. 15
