Posted on 07/10/2015 3:02:37 PM PDT by NRx
...But there is one set of related policy ideas that would dramatically help the poor and should not be ideologically divisive. How about a renewed effort to help the poor by refusing to cheat them?
I am referring to a broad and growing collaboration between government and business to systematically defraud and exploit the poor through state lotteries, payday lending and payday gambling.
The lottery is a particularly awful example of political corruption. Here government is raising revenue by selling the Powerball dream of wealth without work. Studies in a number of states have shown that lottery ticket sales are concentrated in poor communities, that poor people spend a larger portion of their income on tickets and that the poor are more likely to view the lottery as an investment. “This could be your ticket out,” promised one typical billboard in a distressed Chicago neighborhood.
Think on this a moment. In a place where government has utterly failed to provide adequate education and public services, government is using advertising to exploit the desperation of poor people in order to raise revenue that funds other people’s public services. This is often called a “regressive” form of taxation. The word does not adequately capture the cruelty and crookedness of selling a lie to vulnerable people in order to bilk them. Offering the chance of one in a 100 million is the equivalent of a lie. Lotteries depend on the deceptive encouragement of mythical thinking and fantasies of escape.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
So someone is FORCING them to take out loans, play the lottery and so on?
Nope! Just what I was going to say!!!
I gotta come up with a different retirement plan?
The poor are not being swindled. The government and the socially concerned finance sector are coming together to help poor people avoid the kind of oppression that is found when one leaves the protective embrace of government social service programs. By helping these people maintain a qualifying low income they can remain on public assistance and only a mean spirited meanie would want them to have to work for a living.
“So someone is FORCING them to take out loans, play the lottery and so on?”
I *think* what they are trying to say is that “the poor” (liberal for ‘blacks’) are so stupid they are easily manipulated.
Yeah you’re right, it’s them scratch offs, idiot dem voters seem to think they are super fun and waste a lot of money on them. I saw this guy once, he bought more than he could friggin carry! Probably scratched them all off in the parking lot right after he got them. That’s a far cry from a buck or two a week for a tiny chance to win a jackpot.
I say it’s a good thing, let those Obama voters help fund the big government they support, they’d just use the money to buy weed anyway. LOLOLOL
They can board airplanes if this country is taking too much advantage of them.
LOL, this idiot just figured out what government is all about and he still doesn't understand it. There is so much truth in that statement lets go down the list:
1) Government has utterly failed to provide adequate education
2) and public services
3) Advertising to exploit the desperation of poor people
4) Raise revenue that funds other people’s public services
This guy has it exactly right, he nailed it and still gets the conclusion utterly wrong.
Really big boats. Lots of really big boats.
In effect all of these “abuses” are means of recycling unearned welfare payments, often partially funding parasitic welfare programs.
"Here government is raising revenue by selling the Powerball creating intergenerational deadbeats with EBT, Section 8, 0bamaCare, 0bamaPhone, Social Security, Medicaid, TANF, etc. dream of wealth without work"
This is to funny! Friend told me today. Well not for my friends girlfriend! She is as bright as a box of rocks when it comes to math. She did one of those loans for her POS car and got $2600.00. She now owes after 1 year, 5500.00! 110% interest for 1 year. Sad.
I guess I will send him this link! lol
When the lottery began here in California, by law 51% went back to players in the form of prizes, and the pots grew fast. Now the state skims off so much, the jackpot merely inches up a million or so each drawing, no matter how large the jackpot. Nowadays, you rarely see a jackpot over $20 million (although I think it’s over $50 million at the moment). F’n tax-sucking SOBs.
And, no, playing the lottery doesn’t mean you are dumb or innumerate.
Duh. People who have little are more likely to dream of the big win, where those who are relatively well off are focused more on making more. The lottery is not viewed as the way out if you have skills or a profession.
If someone who makes 20,000 a year spends 2 dollars a week on lottery tickets, they have spent five times more, proportionally speaking, than someone who makes a $100,000 a year and who spends the same amount on lottery tickets. At some point the equation is dominated by the amount you make, not the amount you spend.
... and that the poor are more likely to view the lottery as an investment. “This could be your ticket out,” promised one typical billboard in a distressed Chicago neighborhood.
Because the poor, for whatever reason, often lack marketable skills and education. There are other behavioural tendencies found in concentrations of poor people which impede sustained financial success, so the 'big win' is seen as perhaps a more viable means of 'moving up' than hard work at a menial job. (The term 'concentrations' implies urban poor.)
Bad spending habits don't help, and I have noticed the WIC tags on the grocery store shelves did not impress me as being on items that might be the best value. I don't see that part of the problem going away any time soon, but it does explain why many winners of the lottery don't do significantly better over the long run.
No more than racks of candy bars next to the register. They are an impulse buy item, and only exploit a short term desire to give it a try, although you are more likely to get fat buying the candy bars...
How about forcing their bosses, grocers, landlords etc to take more of the poor’s money to pay taxes?
That’s the crueler than the lottery and more deceptively advertised.
Well the gvmnt should not be selling candy.
Those interest rates seem usurious to me (I pay mine off every month, so no interest payments for me).
Other things which can save a tremendous amount of money:
Purchase used vehicles. The depreciation is smaller, and if cheap enough to avoid financing carrying full coverage insurance is optional instead of demanded by the bank. In areas where liability only coverage is available, the savings between no interest and the cheaper insurance may well be enough to buy your next vehicle over the life of the one you drive.
Time for a good old “I Told Ya So!!!”
IIRC...this was a big part of the arguement against Lotteries when they were being debated in the states
They're giving the candy away (EBT). The rest of us have to pay for that through taxes, inflation, higher prices, or (national/State/local) debt.
If governments are cleaning up on it...then it is moral and loving.
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