Good-bye to all that, that being lots and lots of money.
Mike Bloomberg has packed up his gilded tent and officially ended his presidential bid, after spending around three months — and, reportedly, more than $500 million — on his self-funded campaign. Think about it: $500 million. It’s extremely difficult to comprehend, since most people on planet Earth will never possess even a fraction of that wealth.
Yes, it is a staggering number, but it did not get him very far in clinching the Democratic nomination. Despite dropping a quarter of a billion on ads in Super Tuesday states alone and paying Instagram influencers to publicly neg him, as of Wednesday morning, Bloomberg had only netted 44 delegates for the Democratic convention, putting him in a distant fourth place behind Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden.
But what’s more shocking than how much Bloomberg spent is the fact that it was just a drop in the bucket of his vast fortune. Compared with his $64 billion, $500 million is nothing. For a typical American family that makes around $97,000 a year, that’s the equivalent of spending $700 to $800. And based on his quick endorsement of Joe Biden, it seems clear Bloomberg is going to keep spending his billions to help elect his chosen candidate (the one who is not proposing to tax him an additional $5 billion a year). In the end, Bloomberg is probably more than fine with this arrangement.
You know who is not fine? Us! Everything! There are so many better ways this man could have spent $500 million than on 30-second television spots in Maine, from the farcical to the extremely serious. Below are some ideas of how he might have better spent that sum:
Fix the Flint water crisis.
Cancel student-loan debt for 15,000 people.
Provide a month’s rent to every homeless person in America.
Pay the exorbitant hospital bills of 150,000 people who want to get tested for coronavirus.
Fund Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s personal security for 50 years, so that Canada doesn’t have to stress about it anymore.
Buy every single Kardashian or Jenner house, including Rob’s.
Pay for at least seven more Sex and the City movies and buy off Kim Cattrall’s participation.
Wipe out Amber from Love Is Blind’s $20,000 in Ulta Beauty credit-card debt — 25,000 times over.
Gift an Ulta Beauty credit card to every American with $1.50 on it.
Buy and subsequently delete Twitter dot com (that would cost more than $1 billion but it would be worth it).
Repair the windows in my apartment that leak every time there is a thunderstorm.