Thursday, March 08, 2007

I won the lottery!!!

Ok, well, not really, I missed at least one of the numbers. I watched the news talking about the recent lottery, megamillions, powerball or whatever. Funny, right after the news story, they went to a commercial about the lottery. But not one promoting it, it was one suggestion that too much of playing the lottery was bad for you. How ironic.

The lottery really bothers me. This is a reverse robin-hood thing. The people that play the lottery faithfully are the ones who can afford it the least. The ones who benefit are the upper-middle class who send their kids to college on the Life scholarship. The others that benefit are companies that sell lottery tickets and the ones who promote the lottery. Those lottery machines cost money, the company that manages the lottery makes a good living. So we're taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

What bothers me the most about the lottery is the people that support it. Typically, liberals support the lottery. But liberals are supposed to look out for the little man. Help the poor. Feed the hungry. Conservatives on the other hand are supposed to be pro-business, anti-poor, and "let them eat cake." So why do conservatives oppose the lottery? Seems like it's tailor made for conservatives.

Two of my major problems about the lottery:
1) It promotes false hope. The idea is that someone has to win. Actually, everyone has to loose. In order for one person to win $1million, then 2 million people have to lose $1. Simple math, less than 50% of the lottery money is paid out in winnings. So even if you do win, you're cheating 2 million people out of their money.
2) The promise of something for nothing. There's something morally wrong with this. Work should be involved.

But I still wonder, why I've never won the lottery. Never even won one of the scratch & sniff games. I'm sure it's a conspiracy and it's not fair. I think they should give me a prize anyway. I'm sure the fact that I don't buy lottery tickets is not related to the results.....

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