I would take the other side of that bet. I don't even need to work out the exact math: You pay me $722,000 over the next 50 years, then from years 51-??? (70?

I would take the other side of that bet. I don't even need to work out the exact math: You pay me $722,000 over the next 50 years, then from years 51-??? (70? 80?) I pay you the equivalent of $966,000. I would not have to get a very high rate of return to end up better than that. Eyeballing it, the payments from the first 10 years alone, at a return of around 4% or 5%, would cover all of my outlays at the end. That's a sweet deal. It looks like they accounted for inflation somewhat ("...in 2012 dollars"), but even returns modestly beating inflation would turn out a much bigger winner. The bigger problem is that the govt. is not investing that money like I would if I took the bet.