In the movie he buys 200 strangers on the street lunch at 200 a head in a fancy restaurant. So why not 50 million people a cheeseburger?
Missed it while it was still alive…
I’d spend 29 days travelling all over the country, even a few other countries. See places I’ve always wanted to see, sample authentic cuisine from far-away lands, etc.
Say I took a bunch of friends and family with me and got really fancy, first class or even charter flights, 5 star hotels and restaurants, resorts, etc. Now this wouldn’t even put a dent in the $50 mil, but I and a dozen or so friends and family would have the time of our lives.
Then come home and buy the naming rights to a sports stadium for $49 million or whatever I have left. I’d maybe try to buy PNC Park naming rights (home of the perennial loser Pirates) and rename it Roberto Clemente Stadium. Or pick some other stadium and name it after some nearly forgotten great from the past. It’s not charity since no one benefits from it, and it’s not an asset since it’s just a name of a stadium.
I would give half a shitload of cash to the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of the Public Debt to reduce the deficit, and the other half to the Democratic National Committee to elect politicians I like. Neither is a “charity.” I win!
Holy crap this is an old thread! I don’t remember writing this thing. This is the second really old zombie thread of mine resurrected in the last month.
Spend it all on producing a Broadway show that’s guaranteed to flop. You know, like Mussolini in the Fall, something like that…
Buy up the entire world supply of a short-lived isotope that will be gone in thirty days?
Is there any reason I can’t just buy $50 million worth of pig iron, and dump it in the ocean for an artificial reef?
And cashing out the $50 million, and using it to make a giant paper-mache effigy to use at Burning Man is right out, isn’t it?
Weird. I was just thinking last night that someone should remake this and call it Brewster’s Billions. They could have a lot of fun in today’s luxury market.
Interesting question: what if you buy something that’s supposed to be destroyed?
Easiest solution in the world: Just give it away. People will pretty much take free cash if you’re just giving it away.
Doesn’t violate rule one (I wouldn’t have to tell anyone WHY I was giving it away, and I doubt very much that they’d care either as long as they were getting free money).
So yeah, if really hard up to spend the rest…give it away.
What if you bought something really valuable and let it get stolen? (I know I left those diamonds right there on the bench!). Is that cheating? What if you bought an asset you intended to get rid of and it really was stolen; how would that count?
I’d throw a really lavish party, like the most blow-out spectacular wedding you can imagine. 3000 people, five course meals, catered by the most expensive chefs money could buy, rent ten different historical mansions, pay extra people to organize the whole thing in a mad hurry, seven hundred videographers, swimming pools filled with rare champagnes, the whole works.
I’d spend several million on the dress alone. Think 7000 thousand diamond and pearl lace dress (paid extra to have it done quickly, of course). Then a “thrash-the-dress” photoshoot at the end, just to make sure It’s not a “asset”. This doesn’t violate the rule against destroying things, since I’m using it for art, not just destroying it for the heck of it.
Then I’d cover all my bases by taking out a loan for even more wedding stuff, just in case someone sends a wedding present.
That should burn through all of it, easily.
Don’t forget to have Adele, Beyonce Knowles, Pink, and Taylor Swift give a private concert at the reception.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Don’t forget to have Adele, Beyonce Knowles, Pink, and Taylor Swift give a private concert at the reception.
[/QUOTE]
But of course 
Any left-over petty cash goes into renting a private cruise ship, fleet of helicopters and food for the honeymoon. Anything still left, I’ll just hand over to a travel agent, with instructions to “arrange something suitably magnificent at Rome, Paris, Alexandria, New York and Rio”.
From the OP:
Elendil’s Heir, that’s not the same thing. Sports teams don’t give performances on command, but singers do. They have agents. I can phone up their agent, ask their price, and they can say yes or no just like any other entertainer. They are very much “normally rentable”. Granted, I’m a private person and not, say, a music festival, but the principle is the same.
I haven’t seen the movie since about 1985, but didn’t he hire the Yankees to play an exhibition game against his baseball team?
Indeed, a three inning exhibition match with Brewster as the pitcher against the Yankees.
What Septima said. Singers don’t talk about it but they do give private performances for large fees on a regular basis.
As an example we have Elizabeth Brook’s Bat Mitzvah. Aerosmith, 50 Cent, and Don Henley performed.
Saaay, like $50 million worth of…fireworks?