why would you choose straight cash over an annuity? The annuity would be almost $70million per year. What are you going to do that you would need more than $70mil for? Pretty much anything that you did that ate up the bulk of $900mil would end up with you bankrupt in short order as you wouldn't have the infrastructure set up to maintain that sort of investment and would be beset on all sides by grifters and charlatans. Even $70mil would probably destroy most people, especially if they are prone to gambling or drugs (more than likely if you're buying lottery tickets to begin with)
With $70mil per year for 29 years, you could set up a dynasty. One that would probably be squandered by your grandkids, but it'd be worth a shot.
I imagine that since the winner is in CA, the vast majority of the winnings would be taken in taxes though. So the headline should really be CA wins powerball jackpot!
Having nearly $1bn of liquid cash would be a lot more powerful (in terms of investment potential etc.) than $70m/year payments.
Plus, if you factor inflation, the $70m/year is even worse. Imagine by the time you had been paid the $997 million, the dollar will have lost another 50% of its value.
Meanwhile with the lump sum you could buy and develop extremely valuable (and ever more scarce) tangible assets like land, mineral rights etc.
Granted most people don't do this but that is personally why I would take the lump sum. But I don't play the lottery.
I would be a real estate tycoon if I was handed a billion dollars.
Same, that kind of capital would be sooo easy to develop more wealth with.
My actual plan w/ $1bn:
- Develop a private military contracting company
- Purchase African land rights for areas with precious minerals (gold, coltan, cobalt etc.) in war-torn Apefrican countries
- Send my PMC there to guard & monitor local shitskin workers and also kill anyone from the local government that tries to stop me mining my land
- Sell minerals to China and India at a markup.
- Purchase Chinese companies (via a Chinese front, via a deal with a CCP insider) that use said minerals for products.
- Purchase Western companies that use Chinese and Indian developed source components from the previous step.
- Put all of these into a company that can easily be dissolved, owned by a holding company.
- Use a trust with another company as the trustee to pay out my dividends from the holding company.
- If the government of the Apefrican nations change and the UN mandates "fair mining practices", dissolve the base-level company and declare bankruptcy, then found a new company owned by the holding company, repay the bribes and set everything back up after a few days hiatus.
With the annuity you have to rely on the lottery company staying in business (not being shut down for fraud etc) and making those payments (do the terms and conditions conti ue the payments if you die? That could be decades of filing estate returns and paying inheritance taxes). If you are older and don't know that you have 20 plus years, it could be tempting to get as much as you can now and see that your family is taken care of when you are alive.
I would take the annuity and then buy one fucking large life insurance policy and not worry about it, but I am young enough and disciplined to not blow the money on dumb shit.
(post is archived)