I chuckled when I read this piece on MSN Money. Brad Duke of Star, Idaho, is planning to turn his $125 million Powerball lottery winnings into $1 billion in 12 years.

The fact that that's an annual return of nearly 23% doesn't seem to bother him: "I'm a little behind. I've reached nine figures, so I made more than $15 million in just over a year. I want to reach $2 billion by the time I'm 55."

How good would a 23% annual return be? At Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A), Warren Buffett has achieved an annual return of 21.4%.

To help him accomplish this feat, Duke says that "I have a financial team of three people who work for me full time. Two of them have a lot of experience building real estate empires, so we're focusing part of the money on buying raw land and building commercial and residential developments."

I would like to speak with these advisers. To me, it's completely inappropriate for these people to be telling a jackpot winner that he can earn him 23%.

Continue reading Absolute hubris: Win the lottery; think you're Warren Buffett

Absolute hubris: Win the lottery; think you're Warren Buffett originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.