Thursday, April 5, 2012

Billionaire for a Day (audio)

David Wright, The Madeleine Brand Show (scpr.org); Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly
Monty Burns, once the most despised man in America, is part of the one percent, making Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart, Maggie, and just about everyone else in "Springfield" the 99%.

Kevin Roose lives in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, New York, and like most young Americans, he buys his clothes on sale, takes the subway whenever possible, and rarely eats at fancy restaurants.

But for one day, all his financial problems disappeared. Roose became a billionaire.

He didn't win the lottery. He didn't find out he was secretly related to

He didn't cash in merit in exchange for riches beyond belief. He didn't find it under his mattress (or his diversified portfolio which branched out to include his pillow case, coffee jar, and Wal-Mart fire safe). And he didn't dig up buried treasure.

Instead, Roose spent a day pretending he was an "ultra-high net worth individual." And he wrote about the experience for the New York Times' financial news site, Deal Book. The idea behind Roose's project was to better understand what it really feels like to have an virtually unlimited supply of money. LISTEN

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