If I Had a Million Dollars

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October 10, 2014 by JImbo

CUTENESS WARNING: Thar be Kittens in that thar video. Ye have been warned.

(Not my video. I just saw it on youtube. Give the creator a “like” for the compilation and the music is by the band “Barenaked Ladies.” Yes, I’m old enough to remember them coming in person to our college campus back in the 1990s)

Anyway.

I was thinking about that song “If I Had a Million Dollars” today while getting a coffee at McDonald’s. I know the food is awful for you, but hey you can’t beat $1.00 coffee. It’s just as good as the stuff at the gas station but half the cost!

It’s that time of year again. No, not Pumpkin Latte Puke or whatever it is. HELL NO!

I was pondering actually ordering something to take part in the annual McDonald’s Monopoly Contest.

Then I noticed something.

The grand prize is a million dollars.

ONLY a million dollars.

Granted that’s better than nothing but… a million dollars? Back when I was a kid that was a lot of money. However, thirty years later… not so much.

Do the math. For convenience, McDonalds did it for you on the game board.

Twenty years at $50,000 a year. I guess that’s okay if you’re already 60… but that’s not all that long in the scheme of things. And $50,000 is not enough money to quit your job or even buy yourself anything extravagant like a yacht or private jet. It won’t even pay off many peoples’ mortgages! And a Cadillac Escalade is more than that.

So no, you won’t be rollin’ with your homies cashin’ in the dough.

That got me thinking… it seems like it was a million dollars last year… and the year before… in fact since I can remember. How long has it been a million dollars?

So, I looked it up.

The prize amount has not changed… EVER! The grand prize started at a million dollars back in 1987!!! I may not be an economics professor, but I do know that a dollar just doesn’t go as far as it did 27 years ago.

Take for example that Lincoln Towncar for the Red Properties. $25,000 hm? Well it’s about $50,000 for a similar Lincoln today.  I checked some inflation calculators.

Yup, stuff costs about TWICE what it did in 1987. Yet still McDonald’s is offering a measly ONE MILLION DOLLARS. Bastards!

Think that’s bad?

Look closer.

In 1987 it was “One million OR MORE”… since it was $1,000 a week FOR LIFE!

So, to begin with it wasn’t $50,000 a year. It was $52,000 a year (52 weeks remember) and it was FOR LIFE! If you lived 60 more years, you were getting it for 60 years!

So, to begin with they offer half the original amount in real dollars… and then they cap it at just 20 years. Man they are making out like BANDITS! Good thing people still think a million dollars is a lot of money…

Every price has been downgraded. A shopping spree? One short flight in an airplane? THAT is supposed to make us rush out to wolf down all those extra greasy calories? Selling the American public a bit short, aren’t we Micky Dees?

Even the poor “Brown” people in the “slums” of Baltic and Mediterranean are worth HALF AS MUCH! They used to be worth $100 and now it’s $50… which we know is half of what it used to be. So, in 1987 dollars it’d be the equivalent of just $25 measly bucks.

I’m not sure if that’s intentionally racist or just a coincidence that the slums are brown colored. Either way I can’t blame that on McDonald’s. The original game board game was like that when it came out in the 1930s.

I CAN blame McDonalds for being cheapskates! I’m onto your little trick, Ronald! Thought you could pull one over on us didn’t ya? Well okay, you did the 99.99999% of people who don’t read or obsessively research useless trivia information… BUT NOT ME! I AM ONTO YOU!

And if I thought I had a shot at winning anything I might care enough to boycott your cheap, delicious coffee. Fortunately for you I know the odds are astronomical anyway and I’m a believer in the free market.

Yes, dumb people who don’t realize that a million dollars has changed in value since 1987 probably deserve to get such a cheap prize. Then again I’m not sure how much of your business consists of trivia geeks and economics professors.

Probably not much.

Kudos.

Way to know your customers.

Although I might look at changing the color of Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues.

Just sayin’.

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