“I mix a good deal with the Millionaires. I like them, I like the way they live. I like the things they eat. The more we mix together the better I like the things we mix”
( “How to make a million dollars” by Stephen Leacock from “Literary Lapses”)
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I sometimes think I’d like to meet some billionaires. Or have a billion dollars. I can imagine one day just strolling down the street and a Gates or Murdoch comes walking along, stops me and says “You’re just the kind of person I’ve been looking for: worn-out, average looking, a bit overweight and with mediocre ability. Here’s a cheque for a billion dollars. Use it however you want.”
I admit it would be a thrill, but wouldn’t it also cause problems?
If my family and I suddenly had a billion dollars would we move from our average house in an average suburb and move away from friends and neighbours we’ve known for 20 years? How would the guinea pigs cope with the transition? How would they like the new grass in the new back yard? Do billionaires have back yards, or only country estates? If we had a billionaire’s backyard, our home made guinea pig lawn enclosure, now a bit weathered and rusty, probably wouldn’t fit in with a manicured, designer, billionaire backyard. What if the landscape designer had installed artificial turf? Would we have to buy real grass for the guinea pigs to eat?
We could of course stay in our average suburb but pull down our average house and build a mega mansion.
I’m not sure that the neighbours would like that. How could our friends, who bring in the empty bins when we are not there, get the bins in through the new fingerprint recognition security gate?
If I had a billion dollars, we could take more exotic and expensive holidays I guess. Recently we went to Cairns in northern Australia and happened to come across the Cairns Ukulele Festival.
Our son even bought a ukulele, learned how to play three chords in three minutes and took part in the world record attempt for the most number of people playing the ukulele in one place at one time.
They didn’t beat to record (missed it by about 1000 people).
I thought to myself “what would a billionaire do to win the world record?”
Maybe a billionaire would call up 2000 close friends or employees, buy the ukuleles, hire teachers to teach them all how to play and gather them together in a billionaire resort. Then the billionaire’s own TV network would film it as proof and hey presto – Guinness World Record. But then again, maybe they wouldn’t bother. Not everyone likes ukuleles, or Guinness.
But what about making a billion from scratch?
My hairdresser says if I give up buying one coffee a day I’d soon have enough to subscribe to pay TV. Then I could watch the football live instead of just the highlights package on free to air TV or trawling YouTube for some version of the match. (Often the commentary is in Bulgarian. This raises the deep philosophical question: which is worse? Turning off the sound completely or listening to commentary in an unknown foreign language?)
But getting back to giving up buying one coffee a day to pay for a pay TV subscription, perhaps I could give up more coffees every day and buy a pay TV network like the billionaires do. I estimate that would require me giving up buying 3969 coffees every day, 365 days a year.
I could manage that! I probably drink too much coffee anyway.
Another way to make a billion seems to be to buy other people’s debts, mix them together, slice and dice them, repackage them and sell them as high-quality exotic gourmet debts to those with a taste for such things – at a price premium. I’m not sure where to buy other people’s debts and how much they would cost. Perhaps I could buy some at the local Costco. I haven’t actually been inside Costco but one day I accidentally drove into Costco car park looking for somewhere to park the car near the ice rink. I was very impressed with the number of people wheeling large trolleys full of enormous packages of recycled toilet paper to their cars and vans. If Costco sells large packages of recycled toilet paper, perhaps they also sell large packages of recycled debts?
Then I could unpack the large recycled debts, repack them in smaller luxury packaging and sell them as premium debt for those who like those sorts of things.
I could offer a free debt for every 99 debts that customers bought. Everyone loves something free!
Or to make a billion perhaps I could hire lots of “virtual assistants”. I once read a book called “How To Work Only Four Hours A Week”. I like that title. The book was for sale at a discount price. I thought perhaps they had left a zero off the title and so had to reduce the price of the book but no, the author only works for four hours a week and hires virtual assistants from overseas to do his other 36 hours of work each week and pays them peanuts.
At least he says he pays peanuts. Therefore if I hired hundreds of virtual assistants, who work in foreign countries to do my work for me on the internet and pay them from a few bags of peanuts, I am sure I could make a billion dollars soon enough. How expensive can peanuts be?
Another way to make a billion seems to be becoming known as a corporate cost cutter with a middle name like “Chainsaw” or maybe “Whipper Snipper” (someone once called me a “whipper snapper” so I suppose that’s close enough).
All you have to do (apparently) is to fire all the “deadwood” in the company or government department thereby saving the organisation billions, and then pocket your million-dollar fee. Do it a thousand times and there’s your billion!
I’m sure I could do it. I once told someone on eBay I would never buy anything from them again and true to my word I never have – effectively firing them as my supplier of replacement laptop batteries.
I have saved a lot by firing him and not replacing my dead laptop battery, and I bet that supplier is worried about the effect on his sales budget of my once every three year purchase.
There are other ways to make a billion that I’ve seen in the media. One is to start up a chain of something or other such as childcare centres. Apparently all you have to do is start some (preferably staffed with virtual assistants whom you pay with peanuts) sell each one to a franchise holder, list the company on the stock exchange, sell all the shares to people who think childcare centres are a cute investment, and retire to Kazakhstan or someplace with no extradition treaties with any other nation.
A final way I’ve thought of to make a billion is to come up with an invention that everyone simply must buy, then sell the manufacturing licence to some mega conglomerate manufacturer. I wouldn’t want to manufacture it myself because as you can see, I’m an ideas man.
What could I invent? I’ve invented dozens of things in my head.
I see a crying need for a bicycle whistle. But, I hear you say, what’s wrong with a bicycle bell? Ah! I can see you have not spotted the intrinsic limitation of the bicycle bell. The problem is it’s a bit rude!
Picture the scene: you are quietly walking along the walking track or bike path peacefully humming along to AC/DC on your iPedal foot powered music player. Then, because you are walking in the middle of the path, a cyclist comes up behind you, coughs, blows his nose and runs into a flock of pigeons in order to get you to move aside. Why? Because ringing his bell is a bit rude! It’s like saying “Hey pedestrian! I’m faster, bigger and more important than you! Get out of my way!”
My solution to this problem is the Polite Bike Warning Whistle ™ you simply insert the PBWW in your mouth and blow politely at the appropriate time (before you hit the pedestrian). It has a switch on it to select different bird call sounds depending on the situation:
1. “Magpie” if the pedestrian looks like a music lover who would appreciate some carolling and would turn around to look.
2. “Seagulls Fighting Over Old Chips At The Beach” if the person looks like a fast food eater.
3. “Duck Quacking” if you think the pedestrian would respond to being laughed at.
4. “Parrot Which Learnt To Imitate A Police Siren”. Personally I find this is the most effective.
To see the ground breaking design and generous royalty agreement for this guaranteed-to-make-me-billions product email me today at
Iwant@aBillion.com
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© Geoff Milton 2015
