Lottery craziness!

   I have often joked with the kids about only thinking about buying a single lottery ticket if the winnings climbed above 500 million.  A bag of chips costs more, and if I traded a bag of chips for that ticket...........?
   Anyway, I had some time today in the car, where I was just sitting for 40 minutes waiting for someone.  I really had nothing to do, and one of the radio DJ's said something about more than half of Arkansas' population had purchased numbers.  They also mentioned how big the winnings are ($640 million), and I got to thinking.....What would that be like for "normal people"?  You know, not companies, or overpaid athletes, or "stars" who count their paychecks in 7, 8 and 9 digits.  What would be "relateable" to us "simple folk"?
   Well, small calculator handy, time to kill, so here are my "findings".
   All of this assumes, for the sake of simplicity, that one is dealing with a lump sum, post tax "leftover" of 297 million. (which is what several of the talkshows and radio programs indicated would likely be the amount left after state and federal taxes, for a single winner).  It also supposes no investments, no bank interest, no further income, just imagine a big pile of money dwindling down like in the movie "Brewster's Millions".  Now we also assume a 10% tithe or the like.  Leaves just at 267 million.
   I thought about housing, food, braces, education, missions, jobs, cars, travel and pets, just to "keep it relatable".
   Here we go:  You could:
      a.   put 3700 students through 4 years of college (assuming $20 grand per year and only 4 years)
     b.   employ 200 people at $74 K per year, and guarantee that employment for 20 years!  I guess if the group was smaller, you could guarantee a regular pay raise.
     c.   do the following for 330 people
                1. a $500 thousand housing "allowance"
                2.   2 nice cars
                3.   $ 12,000 for a vacation
                4.   $100 K cash, just to spend/invest/whatever
                5.   a 4 year college education (aforementioned assumptions, see "a")
     d.   feed over 4000 people for 20 years, assuming $200/month per person.!!!  That's a lot, by the way!
     e.   put braces on 3300 kids every year, for 20 years!!!
     f.   randomly pay for 100 heart transplants/year, again for the next 20 years!
     g.   buy 11,000 gallons of gas PER DAY for 20 years, if the price averaged $4/gal !!!!!
Oh, and still have about 3 million to just "live off of".

Yikes!!!  Maybe I should go scrounge some coins from under the car seats or in the drink holder!