The Conservative Cave
Current Events => General Discussion => Topic started by: FiddlingAnt on May 21, 2013, 02:12:36 PM
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One of the big stories this week is about the latest Powerball lottery winner. We don't know who it is yet, but the winner won more than $590 million. That may sound like a great thing, but in reality there is a lot of Stupid going around when it comes to lotteries.
Stupid Fact One - You're Odds of Winning Are Less Than in Vegas
In Vegas you will see casinos advertise that they payout 97 percent on slots, meaning for every dollar bet by the public, the casino keeps 3 cents and returns 97 cents in prizes to winners. With government lotteries you are most likely only seeing 50 percent used for prizes. The government keeps the rest, plus it taxes your winnings.
Stupid Fact Two - Lotteries Don't Provide More Revenue to State Projects
Some people who won't gamble in Vegas are okay with spending money on lottery tickets because the money goes to a good cause. Not really. Whether lottery revenue is used for schools or parks or some other popular government program, state legislatures have long figured out that if their state lottery is a source of revenue, they can cut funding from regular tax sources. So lotteries don't really bring in more money for these favorite programs.
Stupid Fact Three - Lotteries Are A Lousy Investment
Except for social security payments that workers are forced to pay, most Americans set nothing aside for retirement, and yet millions of Americans spend $30 or more each month on lottery tickets. If they win big they are set for retirement. Remember, the government is only giving back 50 percent in prizes so in order to have any chance of winning you have to play a lot, but even if you win, you don't win much. Walter Hickey with The Business Insider reports that to have a 99 percent chance of winning the lotto you have to buy 145 $2 tickets. The most common prize is $4. Do the math, who wants to spend $290 to win $4? Stupid. Plus, even if you win a big prize, guess what? The government could take up to 50% in taxes.
What would happen if you took that same $30 per month wasted on lottery tickets and invested it in a Roth IRA mutual fund from age 18 to age 67. That's a total of $18,000 invested over 50 years. Based on past stock market history, it is very possible that your investment could grow at an average 8% per year and you would have around $250,000, tax free. If you managed to earn an average 10%, you would have around $500,000, tax free. And if you managed to earn an average 12%, you would have around $1,000,000, tax free.
Weigh the difference -- the potential winnings from 9,000 $2 lottery tickets or $250,000 to $1,000,000?
Stupid Fact Four - Lottery Winners Lose it All
You may or may not be surprised to learn that over 70% of big lottery prize winners go bankrupt. The type of people that think lotteries are a smart investment are not likely to all of a sudden smarten up when they become millionaires. The lives of many past lottery winners read like a tabloid -- divorces, affairs, scandals, court fights, even murders. It turns out the same skills it takes to Get Rich Quick are the ones to Get Poor Quick.
Repeat after me -- Lotteries are for losers.
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"Stupid Fact 1" contains a false dichotomy. Can you find your error?
"Stupid Fact 2" contains a straw man argument, and a conclusion not supported by the information you provided. Can you find your errors?
"Stupid Fact 3" contains bad math. Can you find your math errors?
"Stupid Fact 4": contains a statistic without a citation. You know what Abraham Lincoln said about statistics on the Internet. Where did you come up with that number?
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"Stupid Fact 1" contains a false dichotomy. Can you find your error?
"Stupid Fact 2" contains a straw man argument, and a conclusion not supported by the information you provided. Can you find your errors?
"Stupid Fact 3" contains bad math. Can you find your math errors?
"Stupid Fact 4": contains a statistic without a citation. You know what Abraham Lincoln said about statistics on the Internet. Where did you come up with that number?
I think ALL n00bs should open with insulting nonsense and stupid stuff when they join a board.
That is how you make friends and ingratiate yourself, right?
;)
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I think ALL n00bs should open with insulting nonsense and stupid stuff when they join a board.
That is how you make friends and ingratiate yourself, right?
;)
I make friends the old fashioned way, I don't rely on the Internet to make new "friends"; and I'm not in the habit of ingratiating myself.
If your butt hurts, get a pillow.
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I make friends the old fashioned way, I don't rely on the Internet to make new "friends"; and I'm not in the habit of ingratiating myself.
If your butt hurts, get a pillow.
I was agreeing with you and pointing out how dumb the OP was.
You may retract your horns and claws....
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I see no problem with spending a few dollars on the lottery now and then if a person can afford to do so. Sure it's a self-imposed tax, but so what. Choosing to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or for that matter buying anything is a self imposed tax.
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I was agreeing with you and pointing out how dumb the OP was.
You may retract your horns and claws....
I misread you.
Mea culpa.
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I see no problem with spending a few dollars on the lottery now and then if a person can afford to do so. Sure it's a self-imposed tax, but so what. Choosing to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or for that matter buying anything is a self imposed tax.
I can spend $2 on a lottery ticket, or I can spend $2 on a cheap cigar.
Most of the time, the cigar wins.
:-)
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I misread you.
Mea culpa.
Freedumb2003's post count may suggest that he's just another n00b, but that callsign is one of the "Ancient Ones" in the 'Cave. He's good people, just been away for a while. :II:
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I'll buy 5 lotto/powerball tickets 3 or 4 times per year. If I ever win, I want to rub it in the faces of those that dump lots of money on it all of the time by saying, "I only play ever now and then." :-)
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I'll buy 5 lotto/powerball tickets 3 or 4 times per year. If I ever win, I want to rub it in the faces of those that dump lots of money on it all of the time by saying, "I only play ever now and then." :-)
If I won that much money, I would celebrate by buying DemocraticUnderground.com and set fire to their servers.
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Mea culpa.
Sounds like a youtube video.
2 girls, 1 mea culpa
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If I won that much money, I would celebrate by buying DemocraticUnderground.com and set fire to their servers.
Only after stepping in as SuperConservativeMod and bringing lots of Conservatives to join in their discussions. Hopefully, many moles will reveal themselves too. About three months of this will cause lots of Liberals heads to explode. They have never been exposed to other viewpoints.
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Sounds like a youtube video.
2 girls, 1 mea culpa
If I had 2 girls and one mea culpa, I'd definitely make a video!
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Freedumb2003's post count may suggest that he's just another n00b, but that callsign is one of the "Ancient Ones" in the 'Cave. He's good people, just been away for a while. :II:
I should have read for comprehension. It makes much more sense that way!
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If I won that much money, I would celebrate by buying DemocraticUnderground.com and set fire to their servers.
But only after celebrating with the long night of the 'unbanned'. Torment is an overlooked art form. :whistling: Think of it, bringing back all the insanity of the master nemesis's. :lmao:
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Freedumb2003's post count may suggest that he's just another n00b, but that callsign is one of the "Ancient Ones" in the 'Cave. He's good people, just been away for a while. :II:
Somehow my email address got zapped and I couldn't recover my prior one -- I just gave up and started from scratch.
Thanks for the kind words :)
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Playing lotteries is throwing good money after bad.
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Playing lotteries is throwing good money after bad.
It is sort of fun, if you can blow a buck or 2 (not everyone can or should). That is 2 minutes' income for me. I can certainly enjoy a few minutes of pointless dreaming (Mrs. FD and I want to set up a charitable foundation if we ever win).
But I do know of people whose retirement plan is the lotto. Those people are truly nuts.
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But I do know of people whose retirement plan is the lotto. Those people are truly nuts
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I completely agree. And then they go bananas when they don't win.
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If I won that much money, I would celebrate by buying DemocraticUnderground.com and set fire to their servers.
I have the same plans too... :rotf:
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I have the same plans too... :rotf:
:fuelfire:
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Anything to create a mass Dummy head explosion.
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c226/bfam1/th_qrhn46.gif) (http://s28.photobucket.com/user/bfam1/media/qrhn46.gif.html)
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My rule of thumb is that I don't play the Powerball until it hits at least $350 million--or IOW, greater than the odds of winning times the investment. Otherwise, it's a loser before I break the dollar bills out of my wallet with a crowbar.
And IIRC, the most I've ever won on it was $7.
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I've never won anything from a national lottery. The most I've won was playing scratch-off cards in the state lottery.
If you live in a state with a lotto and they start advertising a new game, I think they front-load the vending machines with winning cards to get folks to play. The worst I've done at this point is break even.
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Repeat after me -- Lotteries are for losers.
I guess the 9 people at where I work who went in on a pool at $10 each for the PowerBall lotto are losers then...losers that are $700 richer each due to hitting 4 out of 6 numbers on the recent drawing on last Saturday, winning almost $9000....and they were just 3 numbers off for the 5th number which would have given the group $2.2 mil before taxes if they hit it.
If that's what you call a loser then count me in.
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I think ALL n00bs should open with insulting nonsense and stupid stuff when they join a board.
That is how you make friends and ingratiate yourself, right?
;)
:-)
Well said! The OP, not so much. Lotteries are simply a thing with a very low chance of a very high return, a minimal entry cost, and a large potential for entertainment in the fantasy department. Playing them is just an economic choice that people with freedom have, they can play the game or not, but either way it doesn't give them any kind of moral superiority over people who make the opposite choice.
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:-)
Well said! The OP, not so much. Lotteries are simply a thing with a very low chance of a very high return, a minimal entry cost, and a large potential for entertainment in the fantasy department. Playing them is just an economic choice that people with freedom have, they can play the game or not, but either way it doesn't give them any kind of moral superiority over people who make the opposite choice.
Looking over his post history, I think he's blog/commentary-pimping.
I'm curious if there is a religious anti-gambling bias as well.
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If I won that much money, I would celebrate by buying DemocraticUnderground.com and set fire to their servers.
Why do you hate me so much that you would kill my entertainment? :(
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If I won that much money, I would celebrate by buying DemocraticUnderground.com and set fire to their servers.
But not before you made Frank the admin, I hope...
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But not before you made Frank the admin, I hope...
And gave nads the granite cookie.
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And gave nads the granite cookie.
Even better would be to make nads the admin.
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Even better would be to make nads the admin.
How could she admin a damned thing when 2/3 of the inmates are on the 'Iggy list'?
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Freedumb2003's post count may suggest that he's just another n00b, but that callsign is one of the "Ancient Ones" in the 'Cave. He's good people, just been away for a while. :II:
Yup. Good to have him darken the doorway once in awhile.
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Before I buy DU (and maybe Kos and LGF), I'd let them in on this little deal, and they'll run around in a hate-filled conniption panic for days, much like what's going on with the LA Times now. Then for laughs, I'd sell them all to the Koch Bros. as well.
You'd be able to hear their heads a sploding from the moon.
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Before I buy DU (and maybe Kos and LGF), I'd let them in on this little deal, and they'll run around in a hate-filled conniption panic for days, much like what's going on with the LA Times now. Then for laughs, I'd sell them all to the Koch Bros. as well.
You'd be able to hear their heads a sploding from the moon.
Well, after the drubbing Apple has been taking over its 'tax situation' recently plus all the Foxconn suicides, I suspect several of the best, brightest, most technologically astute DUmmies, the artists, writers, the dreamer Tantrums, have pounded there "Big" Macs and Ifrauds into Android Ice Cream sandwiches. And just who supplies the bandwidth, power, and servers to run the dump? Big Hint Dummies, it ain't green and it ain't clean. :lol: It's the man. You are supporting "Big Business" oh, the horror. :rotf:
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Yup. Good to have him darken the doorway once in awhile.
Luv you too xoxoxoxo
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Luv you too xoxoxoxo
No tongue, asshole. You know I don't do tongue.
:-)