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[LordBucket]

Get as many NINA loans as possible before 2008

That's too long. You'd need to wait 15 years to cash in. Related, the people saying they'd invest in google...google didn't exist in 1993. You'd need to wait 5 years for the company to even be founded, and their IPO didn't happen until 2004. That's 11 years before you'd be able to buy stock.

We need a better strategy, and one that's applicable in the 90s.

You could buy just about any tech stock in the 90s and sell in March of 2000 for a massive increase. For example, Dell in May, 1993 was hovering around 50 cents per share, but in March of 2000 it was in the $55 per share range. $1000 spent in 1993 would becomes $110,000 in 2000. Microsoft went from ~$4/share to $50/share. $1000 becomes $12,500. IBM went from $12/share to $108/share. $1000 becomes $9000.

Not huge numbers, but the strategy has the advantage of being easy to remember: "buy any tech stock you recognize the name of during the 90s, sell on or by March 10, 2000." Get any day job, invest a couple hundred dollars per month up until it's time to sell, and in those 7 years it should be pretty easy to be a millionaire. For example...going with Microsoft since it's a more obvious choice than Dell...starting from May of 1993, if you saved up $200/month and (for simplicity of math) invested it all in Microsoft stock on January of the following year, then sold on March 10, 2000...

Accounting for stock splits:

94 9mo * 200 = $1800 @ 2.65 = 679 shares, stock split year: 2*679 = 1358 shares
95 12mo * 200 = 2400 @ 3.80 = 631 shares, 1358 + 631 = 1989 shares
96 12mo * 200 = 2400 @ 5.40 = 444 shares, stock split year: 2*(444+1989) = 4866 shares
97 12mo * 200 = 2400 @ 10.55 = 277 shares, 277+4846 = 5143 shares
98 12mo * 200 = 2400 @ 16.25 = 147 shares, stock split year: 2*(147+5143) = 10,580 shares
99 12mo * 200 = 2400 @ 37.50 = 64 shares, stock split year: 2*(64+10580) = 21,288 shares
00 hold

Sell 21,288 shares MSFT @ $50.50 on March 10 for $1,075,044

Hmm. That's less than I expected. It would end up being more since you'd realistically be buying monthly rather than annually, but it's still not enough.

If we had the benefit of couple hours with google before we went back in time we could massively improve this, of course. But the prompt specified that we simply woke up in 1993 without any planning. Without actually doing the math, buy Dell instead of Microsoft and you'd probably be in the 5-8 million range. But I only know that because I looked it up. And again, the prompt specified we didn't get to research in advance. Had I actually done this I'd probably have gone with Microsoft.

We need a better strategy.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In the 2000 presidential election, Ralph Nader was the candidate for the Green Party and ran a particularly successful campaign for an American third party candidate, garnering 2,882,955 votes, which works out to 2.74% of the total vote. Being from the Green Party, he drained these votes almost entirely from people who would otherwise vote Democrat.

By sabotaging his campaign, if not outright forcing his resignation from the race through scandals (or alternatively, trying to make him aware of the situation and getting a voluntary resignation and endorsement of Gore) the votes garnered by Gore will be more than sufficient to defeat Bush.

So what you are saying is that if you could time travel to any year, you would educate the founding fathers on the evils of First Past the Post?

I would impress upon them that the whole "agrarian republic" thing is not going to work out, that it is going to fail almost immediately, that Malthus over in Briton is full of shit, and that the consequences of this will haunt the US for centuries unless you put in some changes triggered by population growth. I'd mention that a slightly modified Article the First would be a good 11th inclusion in the Bill of Rights. I'd also get them to make it more clear that the US is intended as a secular institution because that is going to cause problems later (I imagine Jefferson will never stop gloating after that).

I'd mention that the slavery thing needs to be taken care of as quickly as possible, because even though you saw it as a potential threat, no, really, you were way more right than you ever could have imagined and it lead to the Union coming closer to destruction than it ever has in my time, the total disintegration of the South's economy, and a level of racial animosity that only faded a century later. For the love of god, include a mandatory state-sponsored manumission clause in the Constitution that will buy off and free all slaves in America and leave no avenue for new ones by no later than 1825.

Get as many NINA loans as possible before 2008

That's too long. You'd need to wait 15 years to cash in.

There's no reason not to play the long game. There's a lot of profit to be had in NINA loan fraud.

[Max White]

I'd also get them to make it more clear that the US is intended as a secular institution because that is going to cause problems later.

I thought this one was taken care of.
Don't you guys literally have an article in your constitution saying that?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'd also get them to make it more clear that the US is intended as a secular institution because that is going to cause problems later.

I thought this one was taken care of.
Don't you guys literally have an article in your constitution saying that?

It says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", which is good, but not quite good enough to keep fundies out entirely. Something that says "The Union and the States therof shall be separate from religion a secular institution", would be good.

[DJ]

We change time, but not place? Yeah, I'd be royally screwed. I'd drop in mid-war, when my town was occupied by enemy forces.

[Loud Whispers]

Wait, I just realized something about the hypothetical.

History would be utterly changed.

The hypothetical is that everyone in 2013 woke up in 1993 retaining their age. That also includes all the children.

Gargantuan population spike with the majority of the population knowing the outcome of certain actions. Pandemonium.

[Owlbread]

It would be really shit because the 90s were horrible, just like the 2000s and the 80s and the 70s and virtually every other decade that we gaze lovingly upon with rose coloured glasses. I'd have to watch the atrocities in the Balkans, Afghanistan, the Rwandan Civil War, the Chechen Wars, the war in Sierra Leone, the chaos in the former Eastern Bloc, I'd have to see the Dunblane shootings, then to top it all off I'd have to experience 9/11, the Iraq war and Tony Blair's lies all over again as soon as we hit the 2000s. The only time I want to live in is the present.

[DJ]

So you don't want to live in the future? That can be arranged

[Scoops Novel]

How about this: the more dangerous the area you appear in, the more prep time you get. You're still in the same location. Holy shit, this could be one of the best games ever made.

[RedKing]

Send an anonymous letter to 1993-me, strongly urging me to go ahead with that application to MIT, and to go ahead and pursue that interest in biomedical engineering. Turns out, in the future, people WILL pay you good money to design and build artificial limbs. Who knew?

Also, to stop being ashamed of being a geek. Because in the future, we will rein triumphant in our robotic exo-skeletons powered by the tears of preppies and jocks. (Okay, I'm lying....but hey, gotta give a teenage kid something to strive towards. Plus, if I went into biomedical engineering thinking the future holds a ruling Geek-borg class, I'm more likely to help create it. Self-fulfilling time anomaly.)

[Scoops Novel]

The geeks of the future wont need robotic exoskeletons. PTSD therapy and (robotic) dueling partners, yes, but that will be purely complementary.

[misko27]

It would be really shit because the 90s were horrible, just like the 2000s and the 80s and the 70s and virtually every other decade that we gaze lovingly upon with rose coloured glasses. I'd have to watch the atrocities in the Balkans, Afghanistan, the Rwandan Civil War, the Chechen Wars, the war in Sierra Leone, the chaos in the former Eastern Bloc, I'd have to see the Dunblane shootings, then to top it all off I'd have to experience 9/11, the Iraq war and Tony Blair's lies all over again as soon as we hit the 2000s. The only time I want to live in is the present.

I wouldn't worry about the Balkans, as I'll be either leading a peace effort or assassinating various individuals.

Also, you say this like terrible things will  never, ever happen again, and the only time they occurred was the 90s. I think it isn't particularly pessimistic to say we won't exactly live in utopia from this point forward.


Anyway, we should probably pool our money to get the best leg up on the markets.

[RedKing]

For seed money, I'd sell survivalist gear to the black helicopter crowd.

Especially given that Sunday is the 20th anniversary of the end of the Waco siege. I still remember seeing that live on television in high school.

[Scoops Novel]

Who could we trust as accomplices, looking back?

[RedWarrior0]

For seed money, I'd sell survivalist gear to the black helicopter crowd.

21st century, survival gear, even.

But yeah, given about a week of prep time and any date I wanted, I'd go to Philadelphia with a laptop, some 100+ terabytes of HDDs, a charger, instructions for building a 110V AC generator, and as much of Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, and the internet in general downloaded as humanly possible, at the start of the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

Printed out, of course, would be every single map of every single battle of the American Revolution that I could find. Because want to curb stomp an enemy? Have his battle plans.