Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

BigBen · 10-21-2005, 06:55 AM

The lottery allows us to dream. I buy a ticket every once in a while (just one ticket, since it was proven mathematically that my chances are the same with one ticket or a thousand).

340 Million? Did I read that correctly? Even with federal tax taking half and state tax taking another quarter, that still leaves 85 million dollars in prize money to be claimed by one person? Wow.

In Microeconomics, there is a cool curve called the consumption possibility frontier, and you plot your income against this curve. You maximize your welfare by choosing the point along the budget line that intersects with the highest utility curve...

What would 85 million dollars do to your consumption possibilities? I really believe that I would go insane... but they call those people "eccentric".

I dream about winning 10 million, and occasionally about winning 15; but 85 M AMERICAN? That is too much.

As far as the senator winning, I could care less. I always believed that the lottery is a tax on the mathematically impaired. The thing is, when you look at the proportion of money that this senator spends on lottery tickets (20 dollars divided by 5 million, or however much he is worth on paper) it is considerably smaller than the average lottery player (5 bucks divided by a couple of grand net worth).

The senator can afford to play the lottery, because his amount of relative disposable income is exponentially larger than Johnny and Suzy Powerball Player. I suggest society should be disgusted and upset that a single parent living dangerously close to their means is playing the lottery, not this rich senator.

10-21-2005, 06:55 AM	#9 (permalink)
BigBen Comedian Location: Use the search button	The lottery allows us to dream. I buy a ticket every once in a while (just one ticket, since it was proven mathematically that my chances are the same with one ticket or a thousand). 340 Million? Did I read that correctly? Even with federal tax taking half and state tax taking another quarter, that still leaves 85 million dollars in prize money to be claimed by one person? Wow. In Microeconomics, there is a cool curve called the consumption possibility frontier, and you plot your income against this curve. You maximize your welfare by choosing the point along the budget line that intersects with the highest utility curve... What would 85 million dollars do to your consumption possibilities? I really believe that I would go insane... but they call those people "eccentric". I dream about winning 10 million, and occasionally about winning 15; but 85 M AMERICAN? That is too much. As far as the senator winning, I could care less. I always believed that the lottery is a tax on the mathematically impaired. The thing is, when you look at the proportion of money that this senator spends on lottery tickets (20 dollars divided by 5 million, or however much he is worth on paper) it is considerably smaller than the average lottery player (5 bucks divided by a couple of grand net worth). The senator can afford to play the lottery, because his amount of relative disposable income is exponentially larger than Johnny and Suzy Powerball Player. I suggest society should be disgusted and upset that a single parent living dangerously close to their means is playing the lottery, not this rich senator. __________________ 3.141592654 Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.