You have 300billion dollars to use for the good of the country/planet. What do you do?

I buy social medias and news outlets. Then I weaponize them to support a clueless gullible idiot candidate for POTUS.

I use my influence on him to get a position that will allow me to get grossly richer by favoring my own businesses, including crushing unions and force my employees to work to death on low wages.

When I reach 1 trillion $, I'll have much more resources to improve the planet and living conditions of my fellow humans.

But wait! Maybe I could do even more for humankind with 2 trillions $??

Assassinate the other billionaires. I genuinely believe billionaires are the source of all the biggest problems the planet has right now.

here are a few ideas I had:

• invest / subsidized green tech
• lobby to stop oil and gas subsidies
• lobby to stop meat subsidies
• lobby for stricter environmental taxes and regulations.
• subsidize repair services so that it's cheaper for people to fix things instead of buying new
• offer bad politicians a lot of money to resign
• buy companies that provide essential services (water gas net) and make them non profits
• do the same to things like Uber Facebook Google, and make ads optional
• make public transit free
• make affordable healthcare
• set up a charity with whatever's left. withdraw 4% a year and split evenly it between to anyone who asks for it

Solve the billionaire problem

Assuming it's the US

• set up a fund to provide free school lunches until the government provides them
• give grants for people to set up housing co-ops
• hire my own army of Russian trolls (they do not need to be Russian, I am inclusive to all trolls) to fracture conservative unity/support progressive
• buy up some social media companies. (YouTube would be best, but I don't the 300 billion is enough) make the algorithm progressive
• whatever is left over goes to renewables and conservation efforts

bribe (sorry, i mean lobby) politicians to vote in interest of humanity. Environmental protection, public healthcare, solve the housing crisis/homeless epidemic, increase education budget spending, etc.

Trains

Fund free education and health care for everyone in the world regardless of race, nationality and creed. Imposed no matter how much kicking and screaming certain countries might do to oppose it. With appropriate countermeasures for each specific country that opposes it. A random country in the middle east that hates educating girls or whatever? Armed guards and other related measures as needed. US has entrenched for profit health care? Fund legislation that rips out the entire system by the roots etc.

Excess funds would be invested in such a way as to fund those programs in perpetuity. With safeguards put in place so that I can be reasonably certain that it won't be easy to dismantle from within or without.

Assuming I have enough money left over, I'd do the same for housing.

If I still have money left over if also fund ways of tackling the climate crisis and changing corporate strategy so instead of chasing infinite growth in a finite world the mentality is more about stability and stewardship, of the company and of the planet.

Assumption is thats in dollars:

Buy every single relevant news outlet, social media platform and information network. Then you remove all the right-wing garbage and replace it with the actual truth. Agressivly ban accounts who spread lies and hate for violating guidelines. Make accounts visible if they are bots or not.

Be partisan about it: Progressive ideas over conservatism.

In essence: Remove as much poison from the internet as possible, so people are no longer getting sucked into conservative pipelines and bubbles.

Reminds me a little of this short text adventure https://direkris.itch.io/you-are-jeff-bezos

My initial thought was that since 10% of the population hoard 50% of the wealth, that I would take that 300,000,000 and divide it amongst the other 90% to flip the corporate script on it's head. But it turns out that's only 40 bucks per person....

I've long held the belief that the greatest damage to the working class is the phrase "you should feel lucky to even have a job." Because it allows the corporations to largely do whatever they want, creating a top-down economy by default.

But imagine if people only had to work if they wanted to. A writer could write without needing to get a "real job". A carpenter who loves making homemade furniture and selling it no longer has to limit his hobby because he's unable to make a living doing it. A person has a dream of running their own coffee shop, but can't because they need all of their hours to just make sure the kids are fed.

If everyone can pursue a living how they want to make a living instead of stepping on our passions because there are bills to pay, then suddenly, the corporations have to deserve US, and not the other way around. I don't need your shit wages. I don't need your lack of health care. Make it worth my while for me to give my skills to your company or GTFO.

That's essentially the dream of a UBI, and I initially thought I could kick start that by spreading my 300 billion around to the 90% rank and file. But it turns out I'm shit at math.

Try to buy over 50% of ExxonMobil or Shell (Saudi Aramco and Sinopec probably aren't up for grabs) and shut down everything I can while holding on to the owned/leased land so nobody else can start there either. Fossil fuels get more expensive, hopefully pushing for a green change, and at least some of them remain in the ground.

Is it new money or money that already existed? If it already existed, burn it.

Am I allowed to say I’d take out a few hits - in this totally fictitious scenario? Because that’s what I’d do. When the scum rises to the top it’s always best to wipe it off so it doesn’t suffocate what’s underneath. .

$300 Billion is both a huge sum for the individual, and a tiny sum for the world economy.

Lead by example, educate, and leverage.

Lead by building or converting one town to car free and 100% renewable.

Educate people on how to improve the world. Creating or buying radio and TV stations, producing entertaining programming.

Leverage by buying large fractions of companies to change their policies. Setup investor funds to do the same. Ensure all people I employ are paid well and treated with respect.

I think about this all the time and I still have no idea.

A good chunk of that money would end up going to experts to advise me how best to use it since I would want to maximize what good I could bring... 😩

There is a danish researcher called Björn Lomborg who has been researching this type of question a lot. He tends to get a lot of hate because the most cost efficient ways to spend money to do good isn't what people want it to be.

Start a new political party in the US that actually represents the people.

Bounties.

Give 299 billion to Ukraine

Well now, that would spoil the surprise, wouldn’t it?

Free public transit and then a transition of car leasing businesses into public sector too so owning a car would be unnecessary and needed changes like switching to e-cars and building infrastructure goes smooth and according to general city planning. Regular commutes make people unequal in that it costs some people hours of life and a wad of cash to compete, and it's possible to undo the latter and ease the first. It doesn't sound like a non-issue if we consider districts sometimes getting inhabited by people sharing culture, religion etc, so having a shitty or expensive transport connection to that exact area basically means they have less opportunity to work\study\shop\whatever in the city center. 300 billions is what it'd likely cost to transit a couple of russian states to public transportation miracle as an experiment, this includes buyout of a leaser, renewing public fleet of vehicles, upping wages in that sphere so it becomes a place to compete for, compensating the lack of revenue (like it has some lol) and building a charging infrastructure with a sane distance between charging posts. Ah, and they buyout of private cars into that leasing to reduce the amount of them.

One point to consider though is that this dream is kinda unneeded in the current climate because gvnmt tracking all your car rides is exactly what you wouldn't like. Right now speedcams is a less optimal way they track everyone, and giving them an actual GPS data would trivialize surveiliance.

First off, whilst it might seem selfish, I'd get my personal shit fixed up, would take at most 50k and if I bought some apartment house to own as well, maybe a few hundred k on top.

Okay now I'm settled and healthy. Start making a media company. Hire some great talent. Hire some video game designers, politicians. Essentially start a very weird sort of studio.

Then a sort of a think-thank, a little bit. Focusing on what would be the most efficient ways of approaching systemic change. (I've tons of ideas already for those meets, notebooks full. Not too organised, I'm unafraid, and it's hard to start reasoning them here due to the char limit of 10k).

Start a foundation, a league of some sorts. What I mean by that is have some sort of guiding ideology, a very rough and not too ideologically narrow, but also definitely what would be called leftist in traditional terms.

Then te work starts. Charity projects where they're the most efficient, so they'll have the largest effect. What that means will take a few comments to argue I'd wager.

Start promoting cooperation and whatnot. Fund streamers who join the league, so that for instance some streamers traveling in a poor country would have the ability to access the funds of the foundation to for instance help build some infra for a tiny village which will take away 50% of their travel time or work load or something, giving that community a better chance to grow.

So all these hundreds if not thousands of streamers going around the world, and if bigger infra projects are needed, the foundation can help with those as well. Like building some huge solar power/water distillation plants.

Just building from the ground up.

But that wouldn't help jack shit with political issues we currently have. That requires another plan I have. Except if the league was also on point with what's going on in local politics said places and could promote change with the amount of influence it had, when directed to smaller political entities it might be enough to sort of clean them od corrupt people as well if there is a democratic process of some sort at least.

Like using the foundations entire population to focus on some minor local election should overwhelm it. Do that enough and there's a substantial effect. Maybe

Make my own monopoly and use that fund to make non profits instead

Hire a competent hitman pronto. We can still prevent the dark age.

Practical and hardly any fun, I'd start looking for a local charity I trust. I have one in mind but I'd get a lawyer and hire a couple experts I trust on charity management and basically private detective them.

Once I had one charity I was happy with I'd start feeding it what it needs. In this example, it's a local food bank style community center, so I could blow that place up with maybe 10 million.

I'd be fairly involved for the next 6-12 months as things got going, while also researching and finding the next, larger scale charities. Most of the money would sit in fairly safe investment accounts and depending on what I learned over the first 1-2 years I'd try and have it all out into the world within 15 years.

When I signed the last cheque for the last couple million, I'd hope to have a coalition of well funded, well run charities all over the world that would have the cashflow to maintain their new service levels and the oversight to continue that good work for the next 100 years.

Shutting off Twitter would cost what, $1?

Take over the world. Run it properly.

I really like the idea to Fund a global election. Of a global government to act on global problems. Politics is not a zero sum game.

Build houses

Not a shit ton

Just as many as I can build that are high quality and easily maintainable

Start a shroom church. Create wizards. Lots of wizards.

I would probably just feed as many hungry people for as long as possible.

Donate to cancer research

Start building nuclear power plants for a start. Maybe spend half of the 300 on that.

After that, start buying large chunks of land and rewilding them. Old factories, plants, warehouses, that sort of thing. Make deals with local authorities so I can donate them and they'd stay rewilded.

If I can't make those deals work, well, that's what lobbying is for.

Burn it. Gas and Dynamite are cheap.

I'd make a development fund and fund renewable tech, green startups, lobby politicians for policy changes like a carbon tax to pay for social programs.

I think it's best to use the fund more or less like Bill Gates did.

300 billion, secure myself first, then build up companies in my interest, then use that capital to influence politics, then secure policies that will help my personal and business objectives, then create a charity that will have a tax exemption for planting trees and r&d a biodegradable, easy to manufacture, durable, plastic that will replace all current non-biodegrable plastics. Wouldn't become prime minster because you can get the most done behind closed doors. Also need to use some of the money to secure my kids future.

I'm going to fund and build a ton of mass transit projects.

Retire to some island in the middle of nowhere and build myself an evil villain lair. Once money runs out threaten for 1 Beeeellion dollars. If 300 billion usd isn't spent then donate the rest to some child cancer hospital or something anonymously post-mortem.

Any other choice would be suboptimal.

A question for the economist here, does paying my country's national debt help?

Raise my own private army

take over governments, be a benevolent dictator who forces people to lean that dictatorships are bad, that forces everyone to go to school (free education) and get a good minimum amount of basic knowledge

put a strictly controlled capitalist system in place that can make lots of money that will go to a socialist system that makes sure everyone can be happy.

force free healthcare (mental, dental, eye, all of it), free basic housing, decriminalize all drug, but school everyone in responsible recreational drug use and setup treatment centers for those that fall off the wagon.

Restrict free speech to the point where it makes sense. Everyone can talk whatever they want but if you have even a small following you better stop talking non scientific non democratic bullshit or I'll jail your ass

Put in a boat load of restrictions in politics. All money must be visible, period. Politicians cannot own companies, they ca not own shares. Politicians will not be allowed to make decisions that step into things that are good for them personally. Remove political parties, all politicians should be independent, no more party politics. Voting would be per post. All politicians can register themselves for a post, show why they could do it best, and then we vote for the posts. Voting would be a Nation holiday and voting would be obligatory for at least 50% of all available posts

Get rid of churches and imaginary bullshit. Humanity has entered the era where it needs to grow up and stop believing in fairytales. If this means that we won't get good horror movies anymore then I can veryuch live with that.

On capitalism: put a hard limit on howuch someone can own and owe. Debts would be limited to just a few thousand dollars per person. You can't ownore than 10 million, anything beyond that will go to 100% taxes automatically. This will vaporize the gap between rich and poor.

Nonmoree private planes, mega yachts, etc. if you want to have a house & boat, as long as it's under 10 million, go nuts!

Free minimum housing, make basic food items free, education free, healthcare free.

Switch to a 4/3 work week

Companies will he taken out of politics, they are not a person, they don't have free speech, they won't have speech. Company sizes will be limited to 5000-10000 employees, that's it. Beyond that, it will be split up automatically. Companies will have to work together on bigger and mega projects

Justice systems would be reformed, now focussing on keeping the innocent out, instead of the guilty in. Focus would be 95% on rehabilitation, education, self improvement, the rest on the punishment part.

Break up and where possible, remove banks, and make them as small as possible

Put extreme restrictions in what can be speculated on, and invested in. You can't buy debts, you can't bet on companies failing, you can just invest to try and help a company a little and get a bit of a reward for that.

Ban all discrimination under heavy penalty. Live and let live.

Guns and weapons would be available under very heavy restrictions for sports, hobby, etc.

Marketing would be severely restricted. Companies can't lie anymore, period. Commercials would be severely restricted. Nothing towards or for kids, products can just look what they are.

On the environment: a huge push will be made to transform car dependent cities to human dependent cities. Roads will be changed to parks. Cars will be allowed but cities will be humans first and it'll be easier to get around with public transportation or bike or walking than by car. This will immensely change everything. Humans will be healthier, everything will be quieter and more beautiful. Architecture will change as giant depressing car parkings will change into beautiful parks. People still can have a car if they need to but most won't want to (see the Netherlands for the past 4 decades, and France where they recently started this too)

Once it's all rolling smoothly, I will then step down, and start the elections, and I'll move on to the next country to invade and take over to deploy my evil plans. Heeeeehehehehheheeh.

Nuclear Warfare

For the low-hanging fruit answer: Invest it. Too many things to do for 300 billion to be enough.

300billion of what?

burn em

Eradicate cars, have reliable public transit that runs 24/7 and departs every 5 minutes. All deliveries are via helicopter for businesses and drones for personal orders. Turn parking lots into something actually useful. Make all fast food places completely automated and open 24 hours. Eradicate homelessness and poverty.