Let’s say you had the ability to travel to any time in the past. Further assume that your primary goal is to get yourself into a position where you could become wealthy and/or attain a luxurious lifestyle. You can take with you any knowledge and experience you can attain, but can bring no tools, money or other physical assets (other than period appropriate clothes and, say, enough period appropriate cash to support you for a week or so). Once you travelled back in time, you would have to life out your life there. Where would you travel to and what would you do to achieve wealth?
I’ve been having a bit of difficulty coming up with anything I really would have been capable of pulling off. Most of what I’m coming up with is pretty parasitical, such as going back to the 60s, getting a job and saving up a couple of thousand dollars, then looking up Bill Gates and offering to invest my cash for 1/2 his future earnings. Or maybe going back to 1980 or so and coming out with Beanie Babies (just saw Ty high up on the list of billionaires). Or getting an early exclusive contract to import Pokemon or somesuch crap.
I guess I could simply study the stock markets, and go back in my own past a couple of decades and invest heavily in the right stocks, and get out at the right time.
What about you? Would you discover gold in California or the Yukon? Invent velcro or panty hose? Sail to India to exploit the spice markets? Marry an heiress?
Go back to 1920 and get some radio licenses. They were practically giving them away. The radio business exploded between 1922 and 1925 and you’ll have gotten in on the ground floor. Then sit back and collect your money for a couple of decades until they start handing out television licenses - radio station owners were given preferential call on television licenses. Sit back down and collect more money as TV takes off.
Invest your extra income in stocks - don’t forget to take a six month break in the second half of 1929. And buy lots of real estate around the big cities where the suburbs are going to go.
Go back to the when the NFL was first televised and commercial slots were going for a hundred bucks. Offer the network 10,000 for a lifetime slot reservation for the ad company you’re about to start. Sublet your ad spot annually and be a millionaire!
Alternately, take the winning lotto numbers back to the drawing the week before the mega million thing was won and win your 300 million or whatever it was then.
Create the “perfect bracket” in NCAA hoops CHA-CHING! (and legendary fame).
I would think gambling would be safer than the stock market in its affect on the future (present?). Who knows what Bill Gates may have done with a huge cash flow from your sudden investment?
Yep, sports betting. Hasn’t anyone seen Back to the Future II? I can see it now, a wife with big fake boobs and a giant casino in the suburban town where I grew up with my name in lights and my likeness all over the place.