When Paul Fischer checked his bank account Friday night, he had a happy surprise. His balance had exploded to $88,888,888,888.88. A very lucky number indeed, and close to $89 billion.

Of course, the balance was a technical error by SunTrust Bank (NYSE: STI - News), which quickly fixed the problem. It also may have occurred in other accounts.

"You say, 'Eighty-eight billion, what can I do with that?'" said Mr. Fischer, who owns a jewelry concessionaire for Florida theme parks. "Maybe a handful of us could have brought down SunTrust Bank."


Mr. Fischer had other ideas as well. Before the problem was fixed, he asked a SunTrust rep if he could move the money to an interest-bearing account until it was reclaimed and donate the interest to charity. Total interest: more than $7.3 million.

The bank said no.

The money was stripped out of his account by Saturday morning.

"It's all gone. I'm poor again," he said. "I was a billionaire for five hours."

This kind of bank error happens frequently. But Mr. Fischer raises an interesting question: What if, for five hours, you truly did have $89 billion?

What would you do with the money? The ground rules are that you would have to give the money back — and whatever you bought or invested with it — after five hours.

With my luck, the feds would be right behind me, waiting to confiscate it.

No chit!!

Now, in my fantasy world, I'd take it and blow it. And have fun bopping around buying things, and tossing a bunch to charities I support.

Yep, same here. In my fantasy world, I'd enjoy it to my little heart's content.

I would buy a plane and take a little trip to anywhere

withdraw it and take the next flight to the Bahamas where it couldn't be touched. Then donate it to my favorite charity.....single moms....I would make my donations $1 at a time by tucking those dollars into thier g-strings while they dance around those shiny brass poles.

my workmate and i had this discussion.

i would have used my electronic banking to move a large portion of that money to a bank in a non-extradition country and then quickly bought a plane ticket to that country.
to hell with all of my stuff here.


. . .

this works too.


. . .

cough* passport !! cough*
in five hours?
can you just get on a plane out of the country with no passport anymore?
maybe a private jet?
i guess id have to take maya with me,she must know how to fly a plane

perhaps a boat might be a better choice.
you could bribe some guy for a million n be gone in an hour.
or
89 billion would buy a pretty big boat im thinking.
among other things of course
and then its Vacation!! wooohoo

theres the charity angle too,you could do a lot of good with 89 billion,if you spread it around wisely.
boy wouldnt that piss the bank off,
seeing their money actually being spent on good things instead of their fat pockets

^^^^^Hehehehe passport is covered here.......Heck I would move as much as it I could and take a couple of million with me just in case they were able to find it. And be on the next plane out of town but not before dropping off several million to different charities in the process.

I would be on the beach drinking margarita's by morning

wow

I would figure they would be taking it back soon so I would try to do just that

I would buy a lot of drugs.

It is unlikely you would beable to move a substantial amount of the money in a way that you could get to keep it. For a start, no bank would allow a mutli million dollar transaction to occur without several checks being made.

I would just print off a copy of my statement and then spend my life trying to con Nigerians into sending me money for a portion of it.

I'd invest it for 5 hours and live off the interest then
I'd buy the tract of land next to where I work, pay for contractors to build a housing unit on it then give alot to the aspca, Hab. for Humanity, go visit my family, buy a new truck, fix up my little home

I'd know that was too good to be true & tell them of thier mistake & to get it out of my account.Honest but boring.

i have my passport. so a flight it is.


. . .

....drugs,.. " at first I thought you said dogs,..

that`s what I would do,..open a huge shelter for animals that need a home,..all kinds of animals

5hrs

well first I'd call all my girlfreinds

then












Shopping!!!!