Ideas For Those Who Have More Money Than They Can Spend

A Few Ideas for Those Rich People Who Have More Money Than They Can Spend
What should you do if the only asset you lack is imagination?
By Harry Cheadle

From Left: Bobby Murphy, Evan Spiegel, Rupert Murdoch, And David H. Koch At Some Time 100 Thing In 2014. Photo Illustration Based On A Photo By Larry Busacca/Getty Images For Time

Axios reported on Thursday that "wealthy people and corporations have so much money they literally don't know what to do with it." According to the outlet, a combination of low interest rates (making it easy to borrow from banks) and globalization (driving down labor costs) have fueled a Scrooge McDuck-style rise in corporate profits since the 2008 financial crisis.

At the same time, in a story familiar to generations of Americans, economic gains have disproportionately gone to the world's ultra-rich, who have also recently benefited from policies like Donald Trump's tax cut last year, which rewarded the wealthy and corporations.

And rather than using those windfalls to raise salaries for workers (lol) or even just spend on consumer goods, these entities are either buying back their own stock, sitting Smaug-like on piles of cash, or blowing it on dubious investments. From Axios:

Wealthy households and individuals are pouring money into asset managers, betting on companies that lose $1 billion a year, bonds from little-known Middle Eastern republics, and giving hot Silicon Valley start-ups more venture capital than they can handle…

But even that hasn't been enough to account for all the new money. The top 1 percent of U.S. households are holding a record $303.9 billion of cash, a quantum leap from the under $15 billion they held just before the financial crisis.

So what should the imagination-poor rich people do with all of those commas? A few suggestions:

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A Few Ideas for Those Rich People Who Have More Money Than They Can Spend