Why aluminum prices are up; copper to follow

No one forces one to buy a ticket. Never forget that.

If one has "surplus" cash they want to shit down a rat hole...thats their choice.

As for me...my "surplus" cash goes to other things...food, gasoline, taxes etc etc.

Reply to
Gunner Asch
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RE: "No one forces one to buy a ticket. Never forget that."

Indeed, but be reminded this is the thickness of one EZ wider rolling paper from the ancient rationale "If god didn't want them sheared, s/he wouldn't have made them sheep."

It is also a fine point, given the pervasive and increasingly effective propaganda/advertising, if the less educated/intelegent/critical thinkers among us can form the requisite intent to legally purchase lottery tickets [or derivatives]. Although laxely enforced, most states have prohibitions against minors, persons of diminished mental capacity, etc. from purchasing lottery tickets, and if they do win, the state will generally not pay (thus victimized them twice).

Operationally, lotteries are Ponzi schemes in their most elemental form, without the fig leaf of an asymmetry in international postal reply coupon valuation [Ponzi], or the magic of split-strike conversions in the stock markets [Madoff].

Even the winners are hosed in that the big bucks pay offs aren't what they seem. These are generally paid in installments over 20 years or so, and if the winner elects to take the money and run (having noted the state bond ratings), the prize is calculated on a NPV [net present value basis at some fantastical rate of interest] and the winner gets less than half of the advertized prize, out of which s/he must then pay income taxes.

Much of the lottery money is syphoned off in sales/G&A expenses, and very little is left to support "education," or what ever it was that the pols promised it would support when the lotteries were introduced.

It is an interesting thought experiment to consider, at the macro/holistic economic level, what would happen if all state lotteries were abolished.

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Generally a Ponzi scheme pays out to the early investors using money from the later investors.

A lottery only pays who ever wins regardless of whether they were an early or late buyer of a chance.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

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