If We Had a Billion Dollars, We’d Buy Unicorns and Trips to Space

This week, the Powerball reached $550 million, the highest it’s ever been. And last night, two lucky ticket holders – in Missouri and Arizona – won the jackpot. But how does one even begin to spend $550 million?
The Barenaked Ladies came up with a pretty good list of what they’d buy if they had $1 million. And it got us to thinking: What if we remade their song, but replaced word “million” with “billion.” And so we have, with the help of Takeaway listeners, real people on the street, and fun facts about how much you can really buy for a billion dollars.
A huge thank you goes out to Takeaway listeners Jeff from Detroit (who’d like a solid gold airplane), Chelsea from Augusta (who’d like a trip to outer space), Nina from Cambridge (who’d like a cat, several cats, or Cat Stevens), and Kim from Portland (who’d like a unicorn that she’d cross-breed with a miniature horse wearing tiny little shoes), all of whom shared their great ideas and singing voices for The Takeaway’s next top forty hit: “If I Had a Billion Dollars.”