Jophiel wrote:
I believe the state strongly advises you get a financial planner and has several lined up to assist you but obviously they can't force you to take advantage or listen to them. But it's in the state's best interests that the lottery winner roster isn't a tale of broken dreams and new poverty so they'll at least go through the efforts of trying to hook you up. I'm speaking generally of course and your mileage may vary by state.
On the other hand, the high percentage of broken dreams hasn't really put a dent in the millions of people who spend money they could better spend elsewhere every week on the lotto anyway. So I'm not sure if the state really has a need to do anything to fix the problem (and presumably a whole lot of vested interest in keeping the stupid money rolling into their hands as long as it continues to do so on its own). Kinda banking on stupid, but I suppose in a cynical way you could say that about a lot of things.
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I don't have any strong opinions on the lottery itself and I'm another "play when the payout is huge and mainly just for the daydreams" player. Granted, I could daydream for free but playing maybe six times a year (if that) isn't enough of a financial hit for me to care if it's "smart" or not. I suppose it does condone some forms of gambling but that's only an issue if you don't condone the same. Personally, I don't care much about state regulated gaming either way.
I'm more or less the same. I only spend money on the super-duper lotto, and only when it's got a big jackpot (cause regularly spending money on a lottery that has zero chance of being sufficient to retire on is equivalent to just lighting your cash on fire). I also don't really have a position with regard to "OMG! It's gambling!". I don't normally have an issue with people's poor decisions costing them. I do just kinda wish that people would not be just so absolutely stupid with it. But that's more of a "losing faith in humanity" kind of thing, and not really worth tilting at (cause the world always seems to create new/better idiots).
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Aethien wrote:
I'm failing to find any concrete data except that winning lots of money makes people lean further to the right politically
"I'm a millionaire! Suddenly I have an opinion on the capital gains tax." - Leela, Futurama
It shouldn't be that surprising that people suddenly start caring about how we deal with personal wealth, once they have some of it. More correctly, people are far more willing to support a political agenda that takes money from those who have it and gives it in some form to those who don't, when they're in the latter group. I'm not sure if that's just a broad tale of personal greed all the way around *or* a sad statement on the degree to which people have given up on the American Dream(tm) though. Maybe just people not thinking things all the way through?