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The Real American Dream - Winning The Lottery
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Well, the lottery has always been the poor mans business plan.
More like the poor mans dream.
Dream... business plan... what's the difference when the big QE payout never ends up in the poor mans pocket?
Exactly, I can never fault a person for playing the lottery as the odds of winning it are far better than the odds of ever making it with your own business plan, or of having some sort of reasonable pay out of the work hard ethics. No one can fight the Fed, no one.
Mother Nature can fight the Fed and Win!
It would appear China is preparing to fight the Fed and they can win....
Proof the World is Going Insane: China Explores Bond Buying aka QE Chopsticks Style
The only way to win is not to play! A quote from a movie, but true here as well.
Don't use FRNs China, and you win.
wopr has spoken
Hey--You can get a tie in tic-tac-toe. Its better than losing!
I'm unemployed for 4 years and buy lottery thinking at least I don't have to go through the interview.
It might seem as if the odds are better with the lottery if you are someone with scruples.
The lottery is more like investing in one's retirement -at least for me it is.
Then again I don't anticipate retiring.
I always thought it was best described as a tax on the stupid.
It is.
But there's a learning curve involved too. If the poor man hits it and decides to take the lump sum .gov will take half of his winnings.
An expensive lesson to be sure but not one he will ever forget ;-)
They're his winnings.
But, at least he can console himself with the thought that it was all the other idiots that had to pay the lump sum in taxes.
Imagine that, with just one or two dollars in capital you can end up paying millions in taxes.
A government Keynesian's wet ponzi dream.
lol...not exactly like winning the pot at the neighborhood poker table is it?
Actually if you take the lump sum, .gov takes half the pot because...MURICA! Then it TAXES "your" half that's left after the first round of murica.
At this point, even if you were relatively young and felt assured of living the 26-30 years for the full pay out, would you trust the government to stay intact and willing to keep paying out that long? Better to get what you can now and use it to set yourself up for whatever level of survival strategy you deem appropriate. Whether that means being able to maintain comfort in a lengthy failure of utilities or full-on collapse of civilization prepper.
Myself, I don't think I have what it takes to make it in the worst case scenario but I can see having measures in place to handle a disruption of services.
Its always better to take what you can get and stash it.
Always.
There is no telling what form a "wealth tax" the moonbats are pushing for, will take. If anyones sitting around thinking the leftwing statists would never levy the "poor welfare mom's winnings" documented & sitting in a bank for "the good of all society" needs to have their heads examined.
>> Better to get what you can now and use it to set yourself up for whatever level of survival strategy you deem appropriate. Whether that means being able to maintain comfort in a lengthy failure of utilities or full-on collapse of civilization prepper.
You need one of these:
http://ruralretreatdesign.info/
Even if da gubmint is still there and "solvent", what do you think 26-30yrs of double digit inflation and a currency collapse or two would do to your pot.
I'd take my cash and run, before I'd trust the goobermint to pay after a few years, lest 20.
To me, there's no doubt that the government will keep paying; the problem is they'll still be paying in dollars. Lotteries don't pay out in precious metals.
Seriously, would you take the annuity with what you know about the state of the economy, country, and world? You do want to get paid don't you? Half today is better than, "Oh so sorry, we're boosting wealth taxes to 90%." tomorrow.
Au contraire, the lottery is the rich man's business plan. Running it, not winning it.
With an average salary of $10 Million/year CEO-ball is clearly the winner.
Something like 247 times the average wage earner pay.
Clearly a very broken system.
Being rich is so overated. I get really tired of counting all that money. Spending hours in banks depositing cash. Over and Over.. I hate it.
If it will help in the least to assuage your conscience you can hire me to help with the depositing of cash over and over again.
i have considered the hiring of underlings, but it is such a burden I couldnt sleep well knowing I have tasked another human to such misery. But thank you for your concern.
Oh its no bother, seeing as how those cash deposits were going directly into my back pocket.
But, as I suspect, you've deduced my evil intentions.
In future interviews, you might want to go with another name.
But at least you can be a miserable sob in comfort at least.
From dealing with the very,very rich I've found them no happier than j6P ,and often more
miserable whatever toys, and mansions they might have.
Money does cannot buy happiness, is true.
Have you ever seen a sad person on a jetski?
I rest my case.
Money might not buy happiness but it can rent hookers and blow and hookers and blow will make you happy.
Money doesn't ensure happiness; it merely subsidizes it.
i would rather buy Gold than Gamble..
you take a 50% haircut on the lump sum PMV then the gov't takes 45% of 50%. You get 27.5 cents in the dollar...The Gov't does better than you did - didn't even cost them a buck.
Is it weird that my only dream if I win the lottery is to have enough money to be left alone by all the fucking stupid artificial machinations of our consumer driven society?
No stable of exotic cars, no mansion, no huge investments, just my current existence without ever having to worry about working to make someone else rich or buying gobs of stupid bullshit.
What would you do if you had a million dollars?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A939QRRSNV4
Play as a group. Theres 20 of us at 30 bucks per shot. Last 2.5 months.
Yeah, I put a $1 in the kitty at work every week for the lottery. Fucking waste of $52/year. The way I look at it is insurance against the extreme unlikelyhood I would be the only idiot left working here. However there are 50 other people who do this as well so the joke would be on all of us if we actually did win. Maybe I could get the carpets cleaned.
Miffed;-)
even if you win the powerball you still won't be as rich as the maggots. looting is lucrative in the extreme.
my name is user2011.... I buy lottos, powerballs, megamillions...
Might want to change that handle to usee2011.
20 years ago I had some kind of premonition of the six numbers for the Pick 6 for that night: 12, 18, 24, 37, 38, 39. I dropped off my son at school and on the way back to my home office, I stopped at the local Chevron station. I filled out the play slip and when I thought about three consecutive numbers coming up, I decided to play something else.
12, 18, 24, 37, 38, 39 came up. Instead of $16 million, I won $80. I have beat myself up over this for a long time. My wife says, 'you just weren't meant to win.' I say, 'Yes, I was meant to win - I am just too stupid to listen to the gifts given to me.' If we had taken the annuity, we would have received our last check for $800,000 this year. True story.
That's a nightmare. Sorry about that.
I personally buy up all my premonitions and even if they print a ticket by mistake, I'll take that too. I don't want to suffer your fate.
I know it's a sucker's bet but I spend discretionary money and someone does ultimately win.
Maybe someday it'll happen but I have no illusions.
Note to the %ages above, .gov takes a % of the money paid in to begin with, 17%???, so in addition to the false advertising, ie $200 million pays ~$70 million (in NY), they are taking a share of the ticket sales before even taking the state and federal share of the jackpot.
Regardless, I will keep playing with the understanding that I essentially have no chance of winning.
Tax on the stoopid :)
The real lotto winners are the Walton heirs. They could buy and sell the biggest powerball winner, they saved the price of the ticket, and they get to feel entitled to every penny like the worst welfare queen.
Damn them to hell, how dare they have a father who saw opportunity and grabbed it by the balls and achieved the American Dream!
I have an issue with royalty. The Walton heirs were born into dynastic wealth they did not earn, and they have more power and influence than almost any American. And Wal-Mart is now the American nightmare. It exists by selling goods manufactured under slave labor conditions and sold primarily to welfare receipients, it hires huge numbers of part-time workers and literally encourages them to go on the public dole to supplement their income, and it has put countless small businesses out of business. Funny that you think that's all a good thing. I guess that's why we're in this mess. Keep cheerleading for the sons and daughters and their spouses who haven't worked a day in their lives as being the poster children for the American Dream. They appreciate the irony.
At least something can be done about Wal-Mart, if one is so inclined: stop shopping there, or organize a boycott. Pretty simple. Or even open a business that competes with them on your own terms. I'm not saying it's easy, but people do it all the time.
I live in a small county of ~20,000 souls, a few miles from the county seat (a small town of ~3,000), and even out here in between major metro areas there exists multiple alternatives to every product and service the local Wal-Mart offers, e.g., local grocery stores and a farmers market, local hardware and country stores, nurseries and garden supply stores, appliance and electronics stores. You name it. That is even exponentially moreso the case once you get inside the major urban areas.
Place the blame where it ultimately belongs: people who continue buying cheap shit from Wal-Mart, and continue voting in politicians and supporting governments that put policies in place that favor the Wal-Marts of the world over small businesses.
What a useless, leftoid whiner you are. Your posts drip with envy and an impotent, emasculated rage. Power-lusting world-improver demagogues like you need to be kept as far away from public office as possible.
Give me a W! Give me an A! Give me an L!
This is the sort of thing I'm referring to, squidly:
Industrial Country Market
http://icm71.com/
Instead of useless whining about Wal-Mart, these two teachers opened up a place that competes with Wal-Mart in a number of respects, but does so on their own terms.
For one the place is 100% "off-the-grid" as far as power and water goes. For power they are using solar, and for water they collect up to 80,000 gallons of rainwater. They have water gardens, and greenhouses where plants are grown hydroponically. They offer classes on solar and hydroponics. The grounds are decorated with recycled/repurposed objects/junk in keeping with the whole sustainability theme of the place. Many of the items for sale are custom made and unique, with an emphasis on local sources.
I visited the place today as a matter of fact. I bought some succulents and ceramic planters to put them in; items I could have easily picked up at the local Wal-Mart, which would have been a lot closer for me. I went miles out of my way because this is the type of local establishment I prefer to patronize and that deserves support.
Last week I visited the local farmers market. Again: Wal-Mart was closer, along with HEB and another chain grocer.
I prefer to focus on things I can change, within my own locus of control.
... because voting with your feet and conscience are so effective. You should call it TARP.
Here comes LTER's wealth confiscation tax schemes again.. Have we not cut this crap to shreds enough times for you? Concentrate on making America a place where all can get ahead instead of leaving the conditions of oligarchy in place while raping your victim of choice.
Looting is easier and so is creatinve accounting. Amerika is moving in the right direction while the sheeples continue to follow the so called dreams, buy a house, education with no future and 401K's to show Corporations care. Yeah right
If I ever win the Lottery, the Dollar will likely collapse the next day. I keep telling myself to get that $20 ticket but my instincts take over and I walk to the LCS to stack another 1 oz. bar.
Wealth requires "great restraint" to manage properly. I wonder how many "penniless" lottery winners there are?
or sports superstars, or celebrities, etc.. Yeah, it's easy to point and laugh but it is really easy to go broke no matter how much money one has if you have bad spending habits or horrible investment ideas. Everyone here jokes about treasurys but it's better to have something with a shitty reuturn than have nothing in this society.
Excellent observation, as always Buzz.
Mike Tyson & Michael Jackson come to mind, if anyone wants some "bookends" for the study.
KCMLO's comment above is really pertinent to this discussion. Several big celebrities were in the news last week after fighting foreclosure on their houses. People always ask: "how did this happen", but's so easy like the song Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover. Just an above average middle class lifestyle can burn through a million dollars in less than a decade. Throw in medical bills, drug or alcohol habits, a penchant for shiny things or travel, or whatever and poof! Unless a person is a bazillionaire it is best to put yourself on a strict budget.
Hell, I just read that Burt Reynolds faces foreclosure on his home in Florida.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/17/real_estate/burt_reynolds_foreclosure/
Spending money can become as addictive as gambling.
That's weird, it's back in the 'news' and that story is dated August 17, 2011.
Foreclosure. The gift that keeps on giving...
Who needs the lottery when there is a guaranteed payout with Bitcoin!!!! Currently at $648 as I am typing this:-) MOOOOOAAAARRRRR Bitcoin!!!!!
Something wrong with me. I've been hoping for a meteor impact.
and will it fall on America or Europe?
weird that in the movies, those are the only places where meteors fall... that's why when i saw that meteor fall in Russia, I just knew it was a hoax...
"Nidstyles"...I think you are on to something there.
This is class warfare stuff. But the governments write their "laws", enforce selectively, protect favourites and attack free markets.
The only way this inequality occurs in real life is because of state favouritism, so why are the masses so loathe to BLAME GOVERNMENT????
They haven't made the jump yet from blaming "the evil rich" and "the 1%" etc. to realizing that the governments are responsible.
I do loathe the government that is corrupted by the oligarchs. Why are people so loathe to BLAME THE OLIGARCHS who bribed the elected government and bought the media that de facto selects the candidates for office? By definition, a corrupted policitian needed a corrupter. And why would any sane person believe that the oligarchs would behave themselves if we cut out the middle man of elected government rather than behave as all oligarchs have throughout history and simply rule by direct force?
Cartels, monopolies, bailouts, subsidies, resource giveaways, "minimum wages", wasteful entitlements and protection from competition can't exist without government.
Kings and Queens exist by force, and they have existed throughout history to rule the sheep absent an elected government of the people. They don't have much need for labor laws, cartels, or anything else on your list, and how did that work out for our ancestors and how does it work out now for those in the world still ruled by despots? Our system is broken and needs fixing. But it came into existence because people were fed up with true class warfare of Kings, Queens, Lords, etc. You are angry at a corrupted system but you are unable to see who is corrupting it.
The murder couldn't have been committed without the weapon, so focus on blaming the weapon rather than the murderer, right?
Government is a tool, nothing more.
NOT true. Government has a monopoly on violence. They have armies, cops, judges, courts, "laws", jails, and extorted tax revenues. They are armed to the teeth.
Unlike Walmart. Or Monsanto. Or even the banks.
Why give government a pass? THEY, not "the corporations", are in control.
Really? Do you feel like your vote counts? Where would the U.S. military, homeland security, or any of it be without banker funding? You are entirely immersed in the matrix of normalcy bias. Our policiticans are hand-picked by oligarchs. They are put on the tee vee owned by oligarchs. MSNBC, Fox, NYT, etc all dictate who is a "real" candidate and who is a fringe. They are elected by a mostly sleeping population that is hard-wired into a team mentality which is the result of ceaseless propaganda by the same oligarchs. Bush II, McCain and Obama all supported the banker bailouts. They know who butters their bread. America was born fighting against dynastic wealth and power owned by the descendants of ruthless tyrants. Your brilliant idea is to trash it and let the few thousand families who control more wealth than all of us combined rule outright. Nice plan.
That was a little more coherent than your usual blather but it leaves the beast intact with or without banker funding they will print.
The Corporations are the Government
The Government regulate Private corporations
Private Corporations Lobby Governmennts
The Government are Corporations
It's benign Fascism, look it up on the Wiki before your corporate sponsored Goverenment suggest to corporate advertisers that a new definition (Fascism is Good for Busines and Jobs) is more appropriate for internet searchers
You have no Idea about the forces that are arrange against you
You cannot fight them in the streets
You cannot defeat them using conventional means
"Why give government a pass? THEY, not "the corporations", are in control."
I strongly agree, but this is still fatally incomplete.
I would say "Why give the people a pass". I would also say that corruption only continues because the people are willing to put up with this out of ignorance, indolence, and fear. Any measures to correct these problems will have to attack the cultural institutions and centers of disinformation as a primary target. What if enough people were willing to challenge the government's monopoly on violence?
For example, and regardless of what you think about abortion as a right or an immoral tragedy, consider why there so few abortionists (and still shrinking with closing abortion facilities) in the US, even before mifepristone. There are many factors, but medical students asked about it say that they don't want the stigma, and they are afraid of being killed or endangering their family. Challenge the government's monopoly on violence, discriminately. :)
Course, I'm not actually espousing violence, just presenting a philosophical hypothetical.
A tool cannot act by itself, government can and does act without consequence for its actions.
Government has become a tool operated by the stupid.
What came first; government or oligarch?
"Agstacker" & others,
Can't be any worse than paying those tax dollars you never benefit from!...Right?
The trick to the lottery is picking the right numbers. Most people do stupid shit like use their kids' birthdays when the smart lotto player knows what you gotta do is read the tea leaves.
The Romans used to slaughter chickens before battle to read the entrails.
CEOs come in all flavors, some benevolent and humble, others a larger than life ego. Overwhelmingly, the CEOs I have worked with and for were pretty good people. Balanced, focused, multi-faceted. When I occupied that top chair I had no idea if I was perceived as a tyrant, an egoist, or a money hungry asshole, nor did I care much about the negative characterizations from deep down in the org chart. Was I paid too much? Or did I leave something on the table? People fall on both sides of that equation and no fucks were given in the end. Wealth was created...for every single employee and shareholder. The BoD compensation committee was a good bunch, certainly not my friends or chummy buddies. As I said, there are assholes at all levels, some of them tolerable, most unnecessary to the corporate culture. But, whatever the culture at a company, it all comes from the top. I didn't climb the ladder to take arrows for free, kids. Most do not, and at the very least the value was a good exchange for the company and the shareholders. Pay me $XXM to herd the cats to make $XXXM+ for the company? That's what a good CEO does. And an exceptional CEO creates wealth for everyone in a positive working environment. When everyone sees a bottom line net positive impact, no one gives a shit how much you reasonably make. The overreach is what is not tolerated and CEOs need to know how to walk a fine line. Sit in the hotseat for a few years and you can see what it means. Seriously. Aspire to be a CEO and take that ride. Nothing else like it, and you will have perspective beyond this fucking lottery ticket nonsense. But hey, it is more true for those asshole egoist CEOs you and I know are out there. Problem is, there just aren't that many of them.
I think what gives CEO's a bad name are watching those that drive companies into the ground, whether they did it on purpose or they were incompetent, were then fired and given golden parachutes while the single employee and shareholder were requried to fall on the sword.
Or you watch board of directors hand out sweetheart deals to top brass while the company or stock is tanking, like Enron, WorldCom, etc.
Or you read about companies firing thousands of Americans and bringing in foreign labor on visas or outright outsourcing the jobs to Mexico, India, China, or places unknown.
And, then you've got real vermin like Jamie Dimon, Blainfein and the rest of the Wall Street vampires.
So, CEO's have earned their bad reputations.
I agreed with everything you said until you overeached with:
"So, CEO's have earned their bad reputations."
Should read "some CEO'" or "many CEO's"...have earned bad reputations for most of the lot.
Any blanket assertion as to the lot of them is just a Marxist class warfare circle jerk.
Yes, the words some and few, many and the majority are underused or extinct in the diatribes everywhere.
Like Nardelli at Home Depot??
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/home-unimprovement-was-narde...
what a bunch of crap
As CEO my bene's include only having to empty the garbage a couple of times a week and sweep up maybe once a week. (Depending on vacation schedules)
The American Dream is to be able to own a home no matter what your financial situation is and the gov't will help you live beyond your means!
My brother in law is a CPA. He tells me my chances of winning the lottery are about the same whether I buy a ticket or not.
The odds are terrible but to some hope is eternal.
A lot of life depends on 'hope'.
I like the joke about the Jewish fellow Moshe who won lotto and staged a big party. As his Jewish friends arrived they were confronted by a big poster of Hitler in the entrance foyer.
When Moshe was giving hsi thankyou speech, someone called out "what's with the poster of Hitler? This is terrible."
Moshe sighed and admitted that it was due to Hitler that he had won Lotto.
Everyone gasped and the same fellow called out, "what do you mean.?"
Moshe rolled up his sleeve and showed his tottoed forearm saying, "he gave me the winning numbers."
You are All Stupid People.
Let me reiterate that, 'You are All Stupid People.'
You are All Going To Die
As are you. What of it?
I must be stupid.
Don't get the correlation between "being stupid" and "dying".
The most brilliant person to have ever lived, or will live, will also die.
We all know the lottery is a fool's play, but we are all fools sometimes.
I do like to imagine the trouble I would cause with such a windfall.
Mervyn King, when he was CEO of the bank of England, one day decided to print Three Hundred and Seveny Five Thousand Million UK Pounds.
Ben Bernanke printed EightyFive Thousand Million Dollars every month.
A lottery win of 10M will buy you a bag of M&Ms if you are lucky
And still you chase The American Dream in a rigged market.
#F'KinIdiots
Lotto or stocks - not much different when the dailies are slammed by algos.
I play on occassion. The pieces of paper allow me to daydram for a few days. I would take a million after taxes. Would get myself and my wifes shackles removed, get a nice car or two, and have money away.
Even Lotteries make the Rich Richer and the Poor Poorer.
And half your Winnings is going to end up back in the Rothchilds Pocket.
No matter what you do, how you do it, the Rothchilds will always make more money from the deal than you do.
The "Lotto Madness" that has swept across America reveals something about our culture. While this might not reach the level of needing a post event "debriefing" a closer look at how these large lotteries effect our culture may be important.
A close inspection of how people react to the idea of winning large sums of money exposes more then a few flaws in our values and the way we think. It seems that we reached the point where the road to riches is not through the valley of hard work and savings and that we by-pass the important area known as sacrifice.More on this subject below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2012/12/lotto-madness.html
Not mine.
My dream is to concoct some kind of genuinely wealth-getting (for me) scheme that Soros did in his paying off the Chancellor of Britain, and therefore having possession of inside information when he bet against the Pound and made a billion in 24 hours.
And getting off scot free.