An Interest Generating Idea

An interest generating idea

In the late eighteenth century, rags to riches trendsetter, Benjamin Frank-lin bequeathed in his will $100 to his native Boston. This money contained a contingent: to be placed in a fund, to gain interest over a hundred years, and then used for a public benefit. By 1890, the money had compounded to $40,000 and Franklin Park grew out of the endowment.*

In Idaho another rags to riches innovator could create a similar earmark. J.R. Simplot has set prime examples of the high value of scrimping and saving, spinning gold from potato and computer chips, and is now worth over $2.6 Billion.

Imagine Mr. Simplot bequeathing a small chunk of his fortune to his beloved State of Idaho, under the condition that it not be touched for three hundred years. Let’s say Mr. Simplot donates a mere $1,000, to gain com-pound interest at six percent over three centuries. In the year 2323, this money will have grown to one hundred billion dollars –or almost twice as much as Bill Gates merits today.



From this pocket change of a thousand dollars –which is now like a 25 cent piece for Mr. Simplot, Idaho could then start buying back for itself many of the public lands that the Feds will have sold off by then. Research paid by this fund could fast-forward plutonium-decontaminating processes, so simple plots of spud can return, alongside nutritious camas roots, for free-range buffalo (and perhaps Mastodon hybrid) grazing. The Idaho quarter will replace the penny. En-graved on the front will be an emblazoned smile of Mr. Simplot, complementing Ben’s enduring beam from the $100. On the reverse, the scales of justice shall hold potatoes counterbal-anced by an active RFID computer chip dangling over Chinese Characters signifying trust.

Poor boys like me of the 24th century would then become dazzified by the simple ingenuity of frugal futuristic living and be further inspired to do the same as the straightforward champion heads-up on the innovative quarter piece.

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• Source: The Prodigy – A Biography of William James Si-dis, America’s Greatest Child Prodigy by Amy Wallace (page 243)
• Franklin Also donated a similar amount to his adopted Philadelphia, which accumulated to over $2 Million by 1990 and allocated for loan programs in that City of Brotherly Love. Franklin’s Boston public trust fund, along with a gift from Andrew Carnegie eventually helped found The Franklin Institute of Boston.
Related links:
Compound Interest Calculator:
http://mistupid.com/finance/compoundinterest.htm
Benjamin Franklin - Institute of Technology