|
| |
|
|
So
That's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
by Mad Dog
|
The question is,
how is it that I can consistently buy a couple of lottery tickets and
not match a single number, yet for the life of me I can’t make a match
and win a lousy dollar? |
|
There are 7.3 million
millionaires in the world. To put that in perspective, if they were to
lay down head to toe starting in Los Angeles heading east, over 5
million of them would fall into the Atlantic Ocean and drown, meaning
with luck I could skim the surface with a fishing net and make off with
some of their money. Hey, fishing’s a time-honored, respectable
profession.
It’s strange to think that one of
every 863 people walking around is a millionaire. Okay, maybe most
millionaires don’t walk, but we can pretend, can’t we? I think
it’s safe to say that I’ve known at least 863 people in my lifetime
and, to the best of my knowledge, not a single one of them is a
millionaire. I don’t know what the odds are of this, but it seems
closely related to the phenomenal anti-luck I have. Take the lottery,
for example. In California the odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 14
million. According to Mike Orkin, author of Can You Win? The Real
Odds for Casino Gambling, Sports Betting and Lotteries, you’re
three times as likely to be killed in a car accident if you drive ten
miles to buy that ticket than you are of hitting the jackpot with it. If
that’s not an argument for getting plenty of exercise, I don’t know
what is.
|
He’ll be handed
more than $12 million a year—which comes to $1,071,428 a month or
$35,225 a day—just for wearing shoes. |
|
The question
is, how is it that I can consistently buy a couple of lottery tickets
and not match a single number, yet for the life of me I can’t make a
match and win a lousy dollar? It seems to me the odds are just about as
high for losing big as winning big. My brother once told me he could
calculate this for me but unfortunately I mistook a “c” for a
“w” and am still waiting. Not that it will help my chances, but some
days it’s nice to remind ourselves we’re good at something, even if
it is being a loser.
The
number of millionaires is growing. Last year the ranks swelled by 2.1
percent. This year the club will welcome at least one new member, and he
didn’t have to buy a lottery ticket to join. It’s LeBron James, the
18 year-old high school basketball player who, without even being signed
to a team better yet having played in a pro game, picked up a seven-year
endorsement deal with Nike for a whopping $90 million. That’s right,
he’ll be handed more than $12 million a year—which comes to
$1,071,428 a month or $35,225 a day—just for wearing shoes. You know,
those things you have on your feet right now, except you had to pay for
yours.
I’d like to meet some of these
millionaires just to find out what they’re really like, but apparently
I hang out in the wrong places. Millionaires, like sea slugs, prefer to
spend time with their own kind. And they do it in their own places. You
know, places like country clubs, investment seminars, and Tiffany’s.
Strange, but I don’t seem to bump into them at dingy rock clubs, time
share presentations which don’t come anywhere near making the free
weekend stay worth while, or the Dollar Store.
|
Bush hopes to raise $175 million, which means he’s going
to have to give about 21 hours’ worth of speeches. That’s a lot of
words to potentially stumble over. |
|
One place you
do find them is at presidential campaign fundraisers. These are
gatherings in which people with too much money hand over large sums of
it so for the rest of their lives they can tell people they had dinner
with the President. Hey, if they sat across from him and shared a Grand
Slam Breakfast in Denny’s I’d be impressed. And curious about which
one George W. ordered. My guess is it would be the All-American Slam. Or
possibly the Grand Slam Slugger. Something tells me it wouldn’t be the
French Slam. I mean, the Freedom Slam.
During
the 2000 presidential primary, Bush raked in about $100 million through
political fundraisers, which is more than any candidate had ever raised.
This time around he’s trying to break that record and may just do it,
considering that the other night at a dinner in New York City he took in
$4 million and all he had to do was give a 29-minute speech. That comes
to almost $138,000 per minute, which is a close second to what LeBron
James will probably earn playing basketball. Not counting his
shoe-wearing allowance, of course.
Bush hopes to raise $175 million,
which means he’s going to have to give about 21 hours’ worth of
speeches. That’s a lot of words to potentially stumble over. But
he’s going to have to give it his best since his campaign staff plans
to spend $426,640 a day between now and November 2004 trying to get him
re-elected. That’s a lot of money, especially when you consider that
just one day’s expenditure could buy 12 days of endorsement from
LeBron James, a three-minute speech by Bush, or 426,640 lottery tickets.
I wonder what the odds are that out of all of those I wouldn’t match a
single number?
©2003 Mad Dog
Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country.
Read them while making your first million.
|
|
