The Last Billionaire
The year is 2058.
Daniel Elliott is now the world's last human billionaire. On the red carpet at the Louvre Gala he is surrounded by flying cameras and cheering fans. He is old fashioned and charming: Simple suits, a smartphone in his pocket, retro things like that. His family tree can be traced back to the Vanderbilts, and he is male almost all the time. 'Just like the billionaires of the 1900s!' swoons one young fan in the livestream chat. But some critics say that Elliott's funds are not a real reflection of his economic value. '70%, 80% of his money is sustained only by donations,' remarked blogger Moneygulch into their microphone as they walked to a Lagos coffeeshop Tuesday morning. 'It's oligarchy theater, not real oligarchy. People want there to be a human left in the game, so they throw their money at him.'
The second-last human billionaire, known by their username Beachfight, decreased last week to a net worth of 700 million USD when they signed a lifetime membership contract with the financial firm New Sparrowhawk Hearth Opportunity Chocolate Limited 14, a computer-run legal entity that has signed similar contracts with 134 human billionaires since 2054. Like many firms in the modern economy, Opportunity Chocolate 14 is a computer-directed firm with a known revenue in the tens of billions but only a couple dozen human employees, all in marketing and public relations. Opportunity Chocolate 14 may be more familiar to readers by the names Bright Love Service Affection Limited 077 and 3 Heroic Lover 2, two Singapore-based legal entities who merged last year and rebranded under a name that is the hash of their concatenated names, plugged into a table of the 1000 words with the most positive-rated connotations. Beachfight's automated secretary said in a press statement that the now-millionaire 'is looking forward to enjoying the ease of life, security, and exclusive beachfront housing that a lifetime membership with Opportunity Chocolate 14™ provides'.
