BJORN LOMBORG in an opinion piece at the WSJ asks:

If you had a spare $10 billion over the next four years, how would you spend it to achieve the most for humanity?

This is an absolutely amazing article where eight of the world’s top economists identify the global challenges that can be solved most cost-effectively. Preventing terrorism? Not a great investment. Vitamins for children in Africa? Great idea.

The article also asks readers to think about how they would spend that kind of money to benefit all of humanity. I’ve had the privledge of working with philanthropists before so I’ve done my share of do-gooder daydreaming, but never at that dollar level.

Taking the “benefit all humanity” requirements to mind, I think my first inclination would be a major campaign of micro-investments and loans into developing countries coupled with a large push for the dissemination of prescription drugs.

I would also pour money into the arts, both here and in the developing world. I’ll never forget seeing a canvas painted by African orphans. They didn’t have many supplies so they had to work together on the painting, resulting in an incredibly interesting combination of styles and perspectives. Food, shelter and medicine only work to heal part of a person–the arts are integral for the health of souls.

Rod Dreher at Crunchy Con tipped me off to this article and also shared what he’d do with the spare cash. Here’s my favorite of his ideas:

I would also spend heavily on an array of Benedict Option pilot projects — providing land and seed money for various experiments in traditional, religious, self-sustaining communal life, to see what works and what doesn’t in a modern context. The idea would be to pioneer ways of preserving the best of our religious, cultural and agricultural traditions, and handing them down to the next generations.

What would you do with the money??