If I had a billion dollars

Dear A.R.T. Letters:

If I had a billion dollars, here’s how I’d spend it:

First, I’d invest $600 million to generate about $1 million a month (at 2% APR). Then I’d buy five houses at $10 million each, furnish them for $10 million, spend $10 million on cars, boats and planes, set aside $10 million for taxes and keep $20 million for contingencies. That leaves $300 million to help with homelessness, hunger and other urgent needs.

If all “average” billionaires followed this plan, each would own 42 luxury homes, enjoy monthly income of $8 million and have about $2.5 billion for charitable contributions. Altogether this group would have $2.5 trillion available for critical public needs.

The United States now has about 989 billionaires with a combined net worth of about $8.4 trillion —averaging roughly $8.5 billion each. Many of these morally bankrupt billionaires demand more tax cuts for themselves, debt and health care cuts for the rest of us — and Republicans gave it to them.

For perspective, a million seconds is about 11 days; a trillion seconds is nearly 32,000 years. Regardless of political persuasion or social standing, we all need to come together, have mercy on these poor misguided souls, and save them from eternal damnation by taxing the hell out of them.

Eric Peterson
Santa Rosa, CA