# If you had a trillion dollars... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 13, 2003, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-a-trillion-dollars/154797 "2003-02-13T11:05:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-a-trillion-dollars/154797/61 "2003-02-16T02:22:23Z")
Geez, people. Why are you wasting your money on all these charities? Damn hippies didn’t earn my trillion dollars, they ain’t seeing squat! OK, I might make a nominal contribution to Monkeys Without Instruments, but that’s it! ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-a-trillion-dollars/154797/62 "2003-02-16T02:29:40Z")
Another vote for a privately funded space program: something that needs to be done, and might actually require a trillion dollars to do right. If it seemed possible that “only” a few hundred billion would give us a space elevator, I’d fund that project. Otherwise I would invest in a truly cost-effective rocket based launch system. Then if the price of getting into orbit was low enough, then I’d see what I could do if I had some billions left over. Alternatively, I would take a look at buying Russia. Imagine a Russia Inc. with it’s infrastructure rebuilt and placed on a for-profit basis. It could be **at least** as rich as the European Union and maybe as rich as the US. And I’d own it all. [sub] Like Thurston Howell III, who when asked if he wanted to rule the world replied that he’d always envisioned owning the world and hiring someone to run it for him.[/sub] I would of course like to spend some money fullfilling my fantasies, but really I can’t imagine needing or wanting anything that a mere billion or two couldn’t buy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-a-trillion-dollars/154797.md?page=3)