Obviously this is for both, men and women, you know, the song “if I was a rich man” and i saw the meme with…
sigh just answer the question
Obligatory.
All day long, I’d biddy biddy bum
If I were a wealthy man
I’d have one long staircase just going up and one even longer going down.
And one more leading nowhere just for show.
Came here to say this
I would buy up as many apartments as possible and lower the rent below market value, this driving other landlords to compete. Since they could not maintain a “sustainable” business model with their profit driven mindset, they would sell and I would buy. I would still seek a modest profit, which would be rolled into further acquisitions to further infect the market with sanity. It would be a McDonald’s or Walmart approach to housing, positive effect by volume and low margins, but actually provide an undeniably good product.
I would also work with local businesses to offer discounts to residents of the apartments and employees of other businesses that also wish to partner, with the end goal of creating incentive to shop local and increase foot traffic, and therefore profits for those small businesses.
I would find residents who would be interested in starting a business, startup costs covered by my organization, and outcompetes with businesses who do not wish to be our partner. I would endeavor to provide free childcare and animal daycare/boarding. Ideally a pseudo private and free school system could be established to further promote the ideals of the community. Ideally provide free therapy. Ideally offer scholarships to traditional higher education or trade schools. Ideally create a system to help homeless people get back on their feet.
Overall the end goal would be to keep as much money within the local economy and maintain businesses that embody the values which create a healthy local economy, lower the costs of living, and restore the community to a healthy social state.
Or maybe I’ll just start a sex cult in the woods.
I think the housing market plan doesn’t seem likely to work. The real issue is not that current landlords are exceptionally greedy (the rules of capitalism assume and encourage everyone to be as greedy as possible), it’s that there isn’t enough housing stock to give everyone who wants one a unit. In economics, housing is more or less a commodity like everything else and thus follows the usual rule of supply and demand, i.e. insufficient supply drives up price until demand tapers down to meet it. If you buy up the city’s housing supply and then price them below the equilibrium price, the result will just be that far more people want a place than you will ever have supply for, since you are not actually creating any new housing supply, just buying existing supply from other people.
I would think you’d have more success getting into the property development and construction business, buying up vacant or derelict lots in the city, building them into blocks of flats, and then letting them out on the cheap. You’d also have to hire lobbyists to prod the council to change zoning laws to allow for this development and obtain planning permission. It takes a lot of political maneuvering to make a housing project successful, not only because of legal restrictions, but also because you’ll need amenities for your new development. Parking is a big one in the US unless you build a dense mixed-use development which is bureaucratically difficult to get planning permission for, but there’s also considerations like whether the nearby bus line can handle the influx of passengers, whether the neighbourhood school can handle a hundred more pupils, whether there’s a grocery store nearby, whether the area “feels safe”, and so on.
Kind of the reason why State-run public housing schemes are so successful is because they are a government agency that has the power to brute-force the solutions to these problems. Zoning codes? Overruled. Public transit? Ordered. Schools? Built. Private developers don’t have the power to do these things and have to beg the council for them instead.
That was worth reading to the end.
Well played friend. Well played.
So a commune?
I’ve been thinking if I could ever afford it, maybe work with section 8 to actually buy the property for the “renter”. Sort of a lease to own, except section 8 pays. Once I’ve gotten my money back plus a small profit the home belongs to the tenant, and I build more housing, rinse and repeat. Would probably need to hire someone to help people manage that though. Some people don’t know how to maintain a home because they’ve always rented or because mental illness or whatever.
We have this really cool cafe in my city where you can buy buttons when you eat there, like 20 bucks worth, and people who can’t afford to buy food can come take six buttons and use them to get a hot meal. I would subsidize the fuck out of it and hopefully open other locations so we could help as many as possible.
If I were “influence the government” rich I’d probably start an organization designed to facilitate and encourage the spread of cooperatively owned businesses by providing loans to unions to purchase stock in their employers and by loaning money to start cooperatively owned businesses.
I’d also probably lobby the government for more protections of individual rights and environmental protections and more human focused urban development prioritizing shared mass transit and bicycles over cars.
Lifestyle, I’d stick to a middle class life. I don’t need things to be particularly nice to be happy, just more time with the people I love and the ability to partake in community
What this person said^
Two chicks at the same time.
I like you
One chick at two different times.
You don’t have to be rich to do that. I’ve done two chicks at the same time a bunch, and I’m far from rich. You just have to follow rules 1 and 2
Yes, I’m aware the line is referring to his cousin doing nothing.
If I was a rich man, the only thing that would really change is the anxiety of losing my job and not being able to pay rent would go away.
Buy a place in Montreal. Try to do random acts of kindness on randos where I can. You can’t generally change the world, but you can make personal impact.
I miss living in Montreal, great choice :)
Pay the debts of myself and all my close friends.
House with a yard is already a check for me but I have a neighbour on both sides. I want a standing house.
Then I’d invest a lot in art, my own and others. Work less, play more. See the sights. Meet people.
Move out of the US.
Get my healthcare dealt with (not bad, but i definitely avoid stuff just so I don’t have I pay or deal with the VA absolute bullshit…I am thankful for it Incase something tragic happens…but otherwise, I’d rather suffer.).
Then I would build a house and start a mellow business like a boardgame cafe or something of the like.
There would be other stupid frivolous spending, but getting set and comfortable would be priority.
I always wanted to buy up a bunch of section 8 housing and make the really nice. Like, free wifi, gym, day, care, maybe some simple shops on the bottom floor. It would hold events, regular stuff like bingo or what have you, but also job fair/workshops, health talks, etc. I would partner with local business (hell, even big ones), so people living in my property get discounts for food, clothes, etc by showing their apart key or whatever. I wanted to make a really nice living space for people with lower income because they always get the shittest stuff. I wanted people to have a place of pride to come home to, a place safe for them and their families.
My follow up was to buy luxerh condos/apartments for the stupid rich, up the rent, and use the difference to continue funding my stuff, or, if I didn’t need it, make a months raffle or something.
Move to a different country
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star, daydream
Think I’d buy me a football team
At this point, setup a refuge for disabled people in similar situations as myself. I would help people make the best out of what they can do without the misery of fighting for the fundamental right to survival in a suicide inducing system of terrorism from government and those that do not understand chronic pain and unfixable problems.
I’d also likely get an Iron Man like exoskeleton to fix my weak and useless torso.
if I was billionaire rich, I would buy companies that provide essential services and make them non profits.
buy useful tech services and convert them to non profits without advertising. e. g. YouTube etc.
lobby to ensure environment protection laws are made to protect the environment and not profits.
stop government subsidies on anything that’s bad for the environment. meat. fossil fuels.
I’d fund online counter propaganda campaigns. Drown out the voices of the troll farms attacking our democracies.