Option B clearly is absurd. What if I want to buy, say, Wal-Mart? Would I get 75% off that too?
How much work?
Let’s see I walk into the local car dealer and sit down with the owner and say “Sir, I have a proposition for you. I’ll buy every car on your lot and then just give them back to you for half price. Whaddya say?” He says okay, and we sign the paperwork. I never even sit in a car; I just sign papers and we transfer the money on paper. I walk away with 25% of the value of the cars in real cash money; the car dealer still has all his cars plus half their cash value, all thanks to our anonymous paymaster. WE could do this 50 times a day. Of course, we’d have to cheat on our taxes, I guess. Still, you can envision many scenarios in which you could buy things in massive amounts and resell them to make absurd amounts of money.
The government wants a fleet of Joint Strike Fighters at a price tag of $100 million each? No problem; they sell them to me, for which I pay $25 million per (but they get the full sticker price) and I’ll sell them to the various Allied governments at $50 million an aircraft. I make $25 million a plane, the governments get their shiny new jet fighters at half price. They’d probably give me tax free status just for brokering the deal, and now I have so much damned money I can’t barely count it all.
Maybe it’s me, but the way I saw the question it was:
Would you rather (a) not ever have to work again or (b) have to work?
(A) is the obvious choice. My expenses are few. I could make $2 mil last a pretty good long time.
You ain’t rich if you’re still punching a clock.
I agree that the 25% choice is the clear winner for me.
The reason that I did not state that you couldn’t sell items is because it is common for people to sell things they purchase. If I chose option B, would I then be required to keep any house I purchase for life?
On the other hand, perhaps that should be the downturn of option b…okay, let’s try this:
a) 2 million in cash
or
b) 25 cents on the dollar, no selling what is purchased. (Because the stock market has some inherent risk, stocks are not included and may be sold.)
(You can still get a $200,000 home for $50,000 but will be stuck with the home for life.)
I think I’d still take the 25%. That would leave me with a fair amount of my income remaining each month which I could invest - and all the return on it is worth 4x the normal amount because of my discount on items. Also, with 2 million dollars, I’m afraid I’d go nuts. I don’t want to blow it all and I need some consistent structure so the 25% would still be a better deal for me.
Tibs.
Such is the price to pay for drinking (decent) beer in Atlanta.
Now, [grandpa rant mode] Back when I was a yougin in Pittsburgh, we could get pints of beer for 75¢ if you knew the right shitholes to frequent. And $1.50-$1.75 Yuengling’s were everywhere. AND WE LIKED IT.
Also, I was thinking about this more last night. If you still have the “buy/sell” options, you could just get into day trading and quadruple your money with every transaction, and fire those puppies off one right after another.
You could have trillions of dollars in no time at all.
Hmmm. At my age and income level, I’d go for the 75% off.
Reasoning: I’d still treat everything I bought like I had paid full price for it, but that 75% difference would go into a bank account, stock market, bonds, etc. Or even if I put only 25% of the money I ‘saved’ with option B into something that will make money over the long term, I’d still have a very comfortable nest egg for (early) retirement.
<< Join the IRS! Be audit you can be! >>
I’d take the 2 mil. My reasoning is (and of course I’m assuming that it IS 2 mil, not 2 TAXABLE mil) that my current CD is paying four percent. However, even four percent of 2 million is 80K per year, which is about three times my current salary–or, to put it another way, this would effectively do the same thing as getting 75% off but I wouldn’t HAVE to work if I didn’t want to. See, I’m not much of a consumer; I have few needs and I tend to like to make things and go places and see new stuff, all of which is cramped by the necessity of spending a third of my time working for other people.
So, if I don’t buy a lot I can bank most of my income, or I can blow it and have fun travelling around, and I don’t have to work unless I feel like it, which is just fine with me…
As I say every Monday morning, “I don’t need a JOB, I need an INCOME!” :rolleyes:
I’d take the cash. I figure if I took the 75% option, I’d have to spend at least $2,666,666.67 over the course of a lifetime, PLUS whatever interest the two mil would have earned, to make it worth the trouble. If I live for another fifty years (longer would be nice, but that’s all I’m counting on), that would mean I’d have to spend over $53,333 per year – which is considerably more than I make, and more than I expect to make for quite some time.
I suppose the possibility of buying and reselling stuff adds an extra wrinkle, but shoot – I don’t want to spend all my time buying and reselling things, particularly if the alternative is becoming rich beyond my wildest dreams WITHOUT lifting a finger. As far as I’m concerned, two million dollars is plenty.
The 75% off is tempting, but I think I’ll take the $2 million. I can invest it in some low-interest funds and guarantee myself some financial security for the rest of my life.
Speaking of financial security, I know someone who lives off the interest from his savings, and since interest rates are extremely low in many places (I think <1% where he lives) he’s having a tough time right now. So once you factor in inflation, tax, and a boom and bust economy, the 75 percent off might be more attractive. I’d still take the $2 million though. If I can’t sell anything again, it’d be a pain in the ass when I want to buy a bigger house, new car, etc. (However, just losing the initial 75% savings when selling would be another thing, and thus, a house is still an investment as most houses are, but you’d just lose the initial 75% savings when selling. I still would probably go for the 2 mill anyways, though.)
I had the same thinking as Fretful Porpentine, initially - that I’d have to spend at least 2.67 million in a lifetime to make it worthwhile.
But you can also think of it this way:
You could purchase 2 million dollars worth of stuff for .5 million. So if you plan on spending $500,000 in a lifetime, you could get 2 million worth of stuff.
Tibs.
Some of you people are being silly. With the 75% discount and some wise choices in buying/selling, you could make enough to live for a year in one day! What are you talking about working “all the time?” Make your money reselling some big ticket item, but it in the bank and live off the money (just like if you took the $2 million) until you needed to spend one more day working.
Diver
Excuse me, but I really REALLY hate selling things. It’s worth it to me to not be “rich” in order to not be a whore. See, to me selling things is “work.” Working a normal “joe job” is not work as long as I enjoy it. I’m not talking specificly about “living off the interest” of the 2 Million. I plan on keeping my current job, and having the intrest of the 2 Million as “mad money.” That makes me more than plenty richer than I need. How greedy are some of you bastards anyway? Ptoui! and Humph, for good measure.
That’s not greed, that’s just making a better choice.
After a day or two at day trading I’ll have enough to buy Wal-Mart. Then I don’t have to earn a living for the rest of my life.
And anything I buy I can just have some bums from Wal-Mart to flog for me 
75%, of course. Buy a few stocks or bonds, sell them the same day - the price won’t go down much, unless you choose really badly. After a few days (or hours, depending on how much money you started with), you could have a large fortune, for very little work.
Now you invest that money (lots more than two million) and get four times the value than anyone else would for the same money. After that, you just live of the income from your investments, very comfortably - you’re still getting 75% off, remember. No effort at all, and as rich as you want to be.
I have a question.
How does option two affect your personal credit rating?
I mean I don’t have 50k to buy a 200k house. If the bank isn’t in on my deal how could I buy a house? Do they know that Mr. Zebra gets a 75% discount?
I mean I could buy some nice items for say 500 to 1000 bucks and then resell them to work up to buying houses left and right but I couldn’t do the house thing right away.
But still I would talk the discount and keep my job. I think a 400% increase in my buying power would have things great for me right away and really perfect in about 5 to ten years depending on how hard I worked the buy/resell thing.
But you know what? I would win every auction on EBay that’s for sure.
To make the75% off option reasonable (okay, more reasonable), allow folks to sell whatever they want – but the anonymous benefactor gets 75% of the sale price.
I’d go for the 2 mil as well, with this setup. With the other setup, I’d break the world’s economy.
Daniel
Still a very easy choice. Just spend some time day trading in blue chip stocks. It’s pretty unlikely the stock will decline 75% in the few minutes it takes to buy and sell. Or you could play some interesting games with options and futures. You could make much more than 2 million in a relatively short time.
If I can use this word in this hypothetical (but fun) absuridity, this would seem to be more realistic. It also does change the parameters (day trading, real estate speculation, etc) to a more resonable point, it ends the geometric progressiion and forces you to consider both points much more strongly.
I think I would still go with 75% off. As was posted earlier, having a garunteed 400% increase in purchasing power for the rest of my life means a great deal. Imagine the amount interest saved in long term purchases like housing and vehicles, or how about a T1 line to your house for ~$80/month, heck, an OC3 for ~$500 ;). You can still have savings accounts, CD’s, what have you. Unless, the benefactor gets 75% as well, that would completely change the picture, again.
Even then, I think I would still go for it, $2 million is nice, but not as much as it used to be, and I have (I hope) a lot of years left. To think, you could really retire on Social Security if you chose. A lump sum would certainly help out, and it could, if I were willing to make -ahem- sacrifices, allow me to not have to work again. Unfortunately, I’d go bonkers if I didn’t work, so that really isn’t a huge selling point for me. Trading in my current ride for a Big Dog, or buying my mom a house (if that’s allowed; to buy stuff for others) means a heck of a lot more.