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NEXT TIME YOU ALL sit down to dinner, here are seven lines to try out on your children:
1. That new toy you desperately want? Wait a week, and you’ll be desperate for something else.
2. Folks who appear rich often aren’t.
3. Just because you aren’t paying doesn’t mean it’s free.
4. Mom and Dad might earn lots of money. But financial obligations probably devour 90 cents out of every dollar.
5. If you were paying the electricity bill, you wouldn’t leave the lights on.
6. Those lottery tickets that get folks so excited? They’re a state tax on stupidity.
7. When you leave home and live on your own, you’ll kill for leftovers like these.
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Article: Nerd Gone Wild
Number 6 is the one that stands out. Lotteries guarantee anywhere from a NEGATIVE 30 % to a NEGATIVE 50% return. And, no more comments are required on that subject. Except maybe those triple inverse , leveraged etfs are like – rock solid treasuries ,in comparison. And Cathie Wood looks a bit better, also, compared to lottery results!
Many folks will not invest a single penny in anything other than FDIC insured accounts, because of the fear of (temporarily) losing perhaps as much as 50 % in value, even though losses of that magnitude are rare. If they would be a bit patient, etc., they would almost certainly see their account values return to the previous levels, and then being continually patient and so forth, would clearly be a winning strategy. If they were prudent and added more as the markets dropped more and more, they would be rewarded, over time.
However, they never view scratch tickets, powerball, Keno and the like, as anything but a winning strategy, after all, ” somebody has to win”, ” if you do not play, you cannot win,” ” a lady just won a lump sum of $500 million”, ” I missed the big win by a tiny bit, if I had picked a 13 instead of a 14, I would have won, “, etc.
Please, why are you happy to lose huge amounts with virtually zero chance to recoup the losses,by gambling, but terrified to accept any losses in investing, which are always temporary, and if you were wise and invested more at lower levels, that would be a great way to build wealth?
Also, a paradox which puts other paradoxes to shame, by a landslide, that is, my state of Massachusetts has the highest percentage of college-educated people adults the nation. Something like 54 % have some type higher education, and that is tremendous.
Alas, we also spend the most per capita on lottery tickets , close to 1,000 bucks per year. In a state with institutions like Harvard, MIT, Holy Cross, Clark, Assumption, Boston College and Boston University. Williams , Tufts. WPI, Amherst, etc.
I surmise that here many somehow feel paying both state and federal income taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, death taxes, license and registration fees, trash fees, etc., is not sufficient. They insist on giving more. And the state thanks you,very much. Especially the honchos whom run the lottery. I will guess that they are making far above the minimum wage.