Neal lassoes $232M Powerball lottery prize

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by August

I'd quit my job so fast my hat would be left floating in the air like in those Saturday morning Looney Toons cartoons. But I wouldn't leave the school hanging. I'd hire a local telecom company to teach the rest of my course.

Next I would throw a huge banquet dinner for all my family, friends and favorite acquaintances, flying them in if necessary. We're talking several hundred people, and this is the important part, the event would be open seating.

We'd have a great time hearing tales and stories and once everyone finished their dinner i'd tell them that there is an envelope taped underneath each one of their chairs which is my gift to them. Inside the envelope would be a bearers check ranging from $10,000 to $100,000. One lucky person would get $1,000,000.

In all the confusion i'd make my escape up to Maine and begin construction of my Island Fortress.

Awesome!!

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

First, I would take the day off to verify and do the basic groundwork involved in claiming the prize. Note my choice would not be to accept the "over time payout", but the full prize in one chunk. While this reduces the winning substantially, there is a reason for the decision.

Now down to about 180M due to the above decision,

Actually, more like $88.5 mill, according to the article.

[NealT]

Wasn't this Neal either...

[Jimbuna]

I'd make sure all my family and friends were comfortable for life....donate to some of my favourite charities and keep the rest aside to pay for my medical expenses because the minute I found out I'd won I would probably suffer a heart attack.

[bookworm_020]

This sounds like Brewster's millions! I would have thought that Neal would have bought a submarine!

[UnderseaLcpl]

The very first thing I would do is hire a good tax lawyer to help me get as much of the money under the IRS' radar as possible.
I'd probably quit my regular job, as well. Working for the railroad is a sweet gig, but I dislike working for a polygopolistic industry with a union labor force. Everything is slow, expensive, and inefficient.

After that, I'd like to start a business. I'm not sure what kind. I'd love to run a private security firm, or a private school, but the red tape and tax overhead would make either venture difficult, especially with such a small amount of capital. And it depends on what the tax lawyer says as well. There are many industries that recieve hefty subsidies, even if they aren't productive.
I would also invest a few million in agricultural futures, for the time being. The stock market is a bit too volatile for my taste at the moment, and there is going to be a general devaluation of currency, making traditional low-risk investments less rewarding.

Finally, I would donate what I could spare to charities I like and friends and family. I'd bank about half a million as a rainy-day fund in case everything goes horribly wrong. I'm not a person with expensive tastes, so that would more than suffice. If things looked really bad, I'd buy gold with that 500k. It would be a loss at that point for sure, but gold prices tend to go up(inflation adjusted) when the economy gets really bad, so I'm sure I would at least break even in the long run.

[Schöneboom]

Here's the submarine to buy with that loot... live at sea like Captain Nemo! In my case, with an all-female crew!

http://www.ussubs.com/submarines/phoenix.pdf

[nikimcbee]

Poor Moto-dude.