Another Brick in the Wall

Brian Kolfage launched a crowdfunding campaign to build Trump’s border wall.

Is there a better way to privately fund a wall? Should Brian explore ways to get more attention for his campaign? More importantly, is there a better way to convince supporters to actually pull out their check books?

The thrust of this article is not to pick a fight with anyone.

I am not trying to persuade you that people who don’t support the border wall are bad. I’m not interested in how you vote or who you hate. I am interested in ideas. It’s a question of scarcity really. There are plenty of places for “debate”, hate, and smearing. I want to get people thinking about and talking about ideas. There just aren’t a lot of places to talk about ideas.

CNN tells us that 62,984,825people voted for Donald Trump.

Ostensibly, these folks wanted a wall. So if Brian Kolfage were a true wall whisperer and convinced every Trump voter to donate, how much would the average voter need to donate to pay for a wall? Let’s round it to $250 per voter. Not likely, we all have bills to pay.

Let’s look at it another way.

Rasmussen polled Americans in December of last year and found that 21% of them would privately contribute to building a wall. If there are 126.22 million households in the US, then 21% amounts to about 26 and a half million donors. That would cost a little under $ 570 per wall donor. Again, we all have bills to pay

Here is an idea…, what if we allowed wall supporters to finance the wall.

As I write this, the 30 year treasury bill is paying 3.062% annually. What if an entity offered 30 year funding of a wall and offered to pay a four percent premium above the rate the 30 year treasury pays? First and foremost, what would the payments be?

For all Trump voters, the monthly payment would be about $ 1.60 per person per month.

For all willing donors, it would be a whopping $3.80 per month. The problem will be selling those bonds, the investment banking fees may cost 12.5% which would increase the cost of the capital for the wall to about $ 18.2 billion or $ 1.95 per Trump Voter and $4.60 per Willing Donor.

Here is an interesting question: if we could figure out away to legally reach the bond buyers who would be buying bonds worth $ 250 and $ 700 per instrument, would the advertising for those bonds increase the support for the wall?

Does advertising change minds and more importantly do people change their political views because something benefits them personally?

As far as the idea exchange part of this discussion, what would the Youtube or Facebook ad targeted at people who don’t support the wall say? Would you focus on the benefits of the wall to America?

Would you focus on a way to get great returns?

Would you talk about the importance of private infrastructure bonds being proven for other projects?

I am interested in your opinions… hit me up in the comments.