Deal or No Deal

I read today that 71 year old Bernie Madoff has begun his 150 year sentence at a low to medium security federal penitentiary in North Carolina. Unless you just emerged from a cryogenics chamber, you know he's the fellow who's fraudulent investment fund managed to evaporate 1.2 billion dollars of other people's wealth. His sentence does have some good behavior incentives built in which could allow him to drop as much as 20 years from his stretch.
So here's a question to toss around in your gray matter a bit: Suppose somehow or other (just play along, ok?) you were given the opportunity at, say 25 years old, to have unlimited wealth-a Visa debit card with a billion dollar balance. If you used up the billion, you can reload another billion. You can have a million dollar Park Ave. pad in Manhattan, a muti-million dollar Palm Beach, Florida home, a Gulfstream jet, a Ferrari, and a Mercedes SL. You can fly to Paris for lunch, then to Rodeo Drive to shop, and tan on the beach in Fiji. But at some predetermined age-say 65-it all went away, you would be penniless and alone, and you would spend your remaining years in a minimum security prison-would you take that deal? Would you trade 40 years of material Nirvana (or 30 years, or 20 years) for 10 or 15 years of shame, poverty, and imprisonment?
I posed this question to Lori, over salads at Marinos, the other evening, and she thought it was absurd-she asserted that no one would take that deal-it's a no brainer. I disagree. No, I don't mean I'd take the deal, no no no! But I think there's zillions of people who would trade anything for 40 years, or far less, of limitless wealth, comfort, and self indulgence. Very few people would admit it, but I think many people, like in the legend of 30's blues guitarist Robert Johnson who met the Devil at a crossroads in Mississippi and traded his soul for the ability to play guitar, would in fact sign that contract in a heartbeat!
What do you think? Would you make that deal? Or do you think Lori's right, that nobody would, that people are not short-sighted, self centered, greedy fools? Hmm?