business proposal: a Tumblr tontine!
Tontines … start paying off right away—the classic tontine basically is a weird annuity. You pay a specified nonreturnable sum of money and receive an annual interest payment for the rest of your life.
The twist is that the annual proceeds of the investment pool are divided among a smaller and smaller number of people as the participants die off. The last few people alive do very well indeed and the last guy makes out like a bandit. The last survivor of one French tontine received an annual income of 73,000 livres from an original investment of 300 livres. She was 96.
Tontines were dreamed up by a 17th century schemer named Lorenzo Tonti and were adopted by the perennially cash-strapped French court as a way to raise money. Tontine subscriptions were sold to the public, with the participants divided into age groups to make it more sporting. After everybody died off, the original investment was turned over to the crown.
Seriously, guys, let’s do this. Long cupcakes, short Ed Hardy. Upon expiration, all remaining funds revert to David Karp’s haircut. (The new niceness will mitigate any risk of foul play.)
