It serms incredible to me to give over a billion dollars to a random person.
It’s grotesque for ANYONE to have a billion dollars. Arguably the lottery winner is the only one to achieve that wealth by even sort-of ethical means.
there are people who have over a billion dollars worth of positive impact on the world.
That’s not grotesque and that’s not wealth. But still a nice thought to keep in mind.
I wish these people were as famous as the loud-ass billionaires we have.
There certainly have been such people. But none were ever billionaires. Such people do something which creates great value. Billionaires are parasites who do nothing but siphon value away from society.
Albert Einstein, Nikolai Vavilov, Marie Curie, Martin Luther King Jr, Alan Turing, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Faraday, Nelson Mandela, Isaac Newton, Edward Jenner, Harriet Tubman, Louis Pasteur, etc.
If someone inherits a billion dollar, how is that not just given to a random person?
If their family is that rich, they usually have gotten some money of it before the other died.
Chances are the person who inherits a billion dollars is already used to dealing with large amounts of money, and likely has the support structure of accountants and advisors that will help them deal with it.
A lottery winner is usually middle-class or lower, the type of person whose life would be changed by a few thousand dollars, and likely has no idea how to manage wealth of that size.
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It’s because most people who win don’t have good habits with money, and they don’t know how to keep their mouth shut. They tell people, and they spend it frivolously.
You find out fast if your friends or family love you or not.
I mean the very fact that they are spending money on the lottery tells me that chances are they have bad spending habits.
And please, you, yes you, the person that buys lottery tickets and feels the need to explain to me how it’s ok, we get it you’re built different and aren’t addicted or whatever, but there are still so many better things you could be spending it on.
“voluntary tax on the poor”
You sound like a recent Econ grad wielding little fun facts you learned to throw in peoples faces. Unnecessarily judgmental. People waste money on all kinds of things every day. It’s not a problem if it isn’t being done to inappropriate levels.
Hurr durr tax on the poor.
Spending money on something that is less likey to return a profit than it is to get hit by lightning isn’t exactly an indicator of financial literacy, tbf.
No but see he made personal attacks, which proves their point…somehow.
But an insignificant amount of money for an insignificant change of being rich isn’t a big deal either.
How much return do you get for a Starbucks? Some things are just for enjoyment and people enjoy the existence of that chance, however slim.
Not me personally, but I totally get it.
The problem is if you spend an insignificant amount of money every day the total amount doesn’t stay insignificant for long.
Absolutely, but that’s a very different point to the one I was responding to. The only point I was making is that plenty of people responsibly waste money on things every day, for some people it’s the lottery, for others it’s Starbucks.
Buying a lottery ticket doesn’t instantly mean you’re bad with money.
What is $1 x 100? 1,000?
Why is that relevant to people who responsibly play the lottery?
The lottery is literally a regressive tax both in concept and practice and I’m not really sure how you can view it any other way.
Ok but you sound like an asshole trying to belittle someone for the most basic facts. I love how you talk down and try and frame me as a youth, guessing you’re either pretty young yourself or need to stop with pathetic ageism personal attacks instead of debating the subject.
Also I guarantee you buy lottery tickets and are mad at the second paragraph, stay mad salty kid, spend your retirement fund on little pieces of paper.
I love how you talk down and try and frame me as a youth, guessing you’re either pretty young yourself
You chastise me for implying you are young, and then immediately call me young.
You then attack the use of ageism and proceed to do it to me after.
Wow what inconsistent stupidity.
I’m sure there are 100 things you spend money on that we could say the same for.
Jesus, people act like it’s impossible to play the lottery without ruining your life.
It’s possible to do hard drugs and not ruin your life too, but I wouldn’t suggest it.
But you can appreciate that some do it without ruining their life right?
It doesn’t make them good by any means. But people have done drugs and had good lives afterwards, just like playing the lottery.
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You can stop any time and prove them wrong
I don’t play the lottery at all.
I just don’t also think that everyone who does is financially irresponsible.
I may act different if I actually saw half a billion dollars in my account but I would I’d buy a house and car for each family member, save 20mil to live off the interest, and then donate the rest towards projects like spine repair medicine or desalination or something. Or maybe buy a shitload of solar panels for homes.
How about lending your old pal kryllic a couple of bucks?
And that’s why it sucks.
it is weird how people say that getting a lot of money, the thing whole world is based on, all humans work every day to get, is the worst thing that happened to them.
Shakespeare - shot by someone who was trying to get his money
David Lee Edwards - was a convict, spent a lot in several years, lost all his money and died.
Jeffree Dampier: was sleeping with his wife’s sister, shot and killed by her and her husband.
Urooj Khan: coughs blood and dies the next day of getting his check. Cyanide poisoning.
Michael Karoll: “parties, coke, hookers, cars”
Harrell Jr: spent too much, lent too much, killed himself after his wife left him.
Stories go on and on. Almost all of them can be linked to already unstable, unwell people, their inability to manage the money properly or them not shutting up about the huge cash pile they recently sat on, to the trashy, money crazed people around them.
They should split it up into $100,000 increments. Yeah, that’s not a billion, but that could still be life-changing for thousands of families.
That’s not how lotteries work.
In the UK, you can take a lump sum or instalments just like this . Infact your get more if you take the instalments.
It is a deep and philosophical question that must be looked at from all sides. But after much debate and consideration among our greatest scholars the universal truth is a question in of itself. Am I the random person?
Then you’ll feel better knowing that in the US that whomever wins that Powerball will end up with less than half the amount they won. Taxes will eat up about 60% of the winnings .
And of course the US government only does cool and awesome things with that money that everybody in the country benefits from.
I think it’s somewhat charming tbh. Everyone gets a tiny, miniscule chance of never having to work again. I rarely buy a ticket, but when I do I spend all week imagining all the fun things I’d do with the money.
As the other poster said, though, it’s sad when folks get addicted to it.
Considering how many of their lives go off the rails, yes.
It’s not as grotesque as the mundane realities that we accept as normal under capitalism
Far better than the shitheads that add nothing to the world and become billionaires through financial manipulation and employee exploitation.
I can’t think of a single person who became a billionaire, yet added nothing of a value to the world. Sure they may have manipulated and exploited while at it, but there’s still usually a product of some sort in the end, and the fact that they became wealthy indicates there was demand for said product.
If someone adds value to the world, but does so through exploitation of the workforce, scamming their customers, or tax evasion. They didn’t actually add anything to the world. They are net negative.
Net negative matters.
I could, for example, kill every animal in the forest then claim how good it is that the plants grew so much that year without so many things eating them. In the long run, it’s very negative however.
Same for billionaires. You could say how great it is that we have electric cars, but who gets hurt and could it have been done without harm to people or society?
That’s an argument for the product, but the system still promotes shitheads to the heads of the companies that deliver said products.
And that still means shitheads are shitheads, regardless of the amount of money they have.
Not really.
The lottery is paid for by those who all have an equal chance of winning that prize. Also, the profits from lotteries are usually spent on social funds etc.
I feel more conflicted about thr fact that it preys on addiction and those who buy the most lottery tickets are often those who can least afford them. I find that much more grotesque than a random person getting very lucky, but to each their own.
Half would go to the government no?
In the US, close to half of the winnings do go to the lottery, plus a portion of each lottery ticket usually goes to fund some government agency. Schools, programs for the impoverished and disenfranchised, etc.
The real question, in my opinion, is if you are willing to spend that much money on a ticket, why aren’t you willing to spend that much money on just outright funding government programs? Imagine if 100% of what someone paid for a ticket went to programs for the disenfranchised? That could make real difference.
I spend about $10 per year on lottery tickets. I pay upwards of $40k in taxes, much of which is funneled to “disenfranchised”. I’m good, thanks.
Ok, but if you had a guarantee that your $10 would go directly to the disenfranchised with no chances of returning millions to you, how would that change things?
Handing money out to the “disenfranchised” solves nothing, thus it never ends. I am for real solutions, like education and a strong family unit. But, you know, having that opinion means I am racist/classist/whatever “ist”.
Love the quote marks around disenfranchised. Real classy.
Let’s see… cursory glance at post history indicates… Yep, right wing, anti union and against a living wage. That all tracks.
Quote marks because “disenfranchised” is subjective. And wow, you have mad skills to look at someone’s post history. Aren’t you quite the haxxor?
I consider myself moderate. Lefty tools such as yourself label anyone that disagrees with them as right wing racist maga nazis. Fuck you.
I am anti union. Unions served a great purpose 100 years ago. Now they are corrupt shake down organizations that contribute to inflation and drive jobs out of the country. But if someone wants to join one, I don’t care, it’s none of my business. Just don’t use my tax dollars to fund any of it.
Living wage. There is this idiotic entitlement mentality that people somehow deserve a “living wage” simply for consuming oxygen. Here is the truth: people are paid what they are worth. If you are providing real value to an employer, they will pay you enough to retain you. If they don’t, find another employer. Rinse and repeat.
But nah, it’s easier to blame shortcomings on billionaires/Trump/“the man”/“disenfranchisement” and hope some politician will send you money for your vote.
There should be a cap on maximum wealth / revenu
San Francisco spends $700 million a year dealing with their roughly 7,000 unhoused people. They could just give every one of them $100,000 a year and spend less, and probably have better results.
Pretty sure that if they didn’t spend 700 million, there would be quite a lot more than 7000 unhoused people.
No they couldn’t. If being homeless paid six figures there would suddenly be a lot more homeless people.
The public opinions on Lemmy are fucking daffy. So on top of everything else, yall are cool with predatory gambling system that randomly ruins one person’s life?
By saying you’re not “cool” with the lottery, does that mean you want it abolished? I don’t like the lottery. I don’t think it should be outlawed. Would you classify me as either cool with it or daffy?
Certainly less daffy than the people playing it or praising it. I don’t know your reason why you think a state function that harms people for money should be allowed to exist, but I’m guessing it’s not a very rational one.
Help me out, who’s life is being ruined?
check out the mortality rate of lottery winners, or other outcomes
Just did and got a bunch of conflicting information. Do you have a source?
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