What would you do?
April 2nd 2010 09:06
What would you do if you were a BILLIONAIRE for five hours?
Comments are welcome!
When Paul Fischer checked his bank account Friday night, he had a happy surprise. His balance had exploded to $88,888,888,888.88. A very lucky number indeed, and close to $89 billion. Of course, the balance was a technical error by SunTrust Bank, which quickly fixed the problem. It also may have occurred in other accounts. "You say, 'Eighty-eight billion, what can I do with that?'" said Mr. Fischer, who owns a jewelry concessionaire for Florida theme parks. "Maybe a handful of us could have brought down SunTrust Bank." Mr. Fischer had other ideas as well. Before the problem was fixed, he asked a SunTrust rep if he could move the money to an interest-bearing account until it was reclaimed and donate the interest to charity. Total interest: more than $7.3 million.
The bank said no. The money was stripped out of his account by Saturday morning. "It's all gone. I'm poor again," he said. "I was a billionaire for five hours."
This kind of bank error happens frequently. But Mr. Fischer raises an interesting question: What if, for five hours, you truly did have $89 billion?(My answer: Hire the best damn lawyer I could find, so I can keep some of it!)
What would you do with the money? The ground rules are that you would have to give the money back, and whatever you bought or invested with it, after five hours.
| 34 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
