Yes lads and lasses we're going to discuss the depths of human stupidity again, instead of politics.
It starts with a Mr. Ray Otero, an unassuming chap from Puerto Rico who supports 2 kids and a wife on a $40k a year Superintendents job in NYC. Mr Otero is a bit perturbed because a doorman down the street he knows plays the lotto off an on, only spending a couple hundred a year and won on a scratch off called Set For Life, which if it works like the one here in Texas...you get a set amount..say..$150,000 a year for 20yrs.
[there have been tickets with more and tickets that give you MUCH more...just depends on the game and the price of the ticket]
Why is Mr Otero upset about this? Why because last year Mr Otero spent $30,000 of his $40,000/per year salary...on lottery tickets.
I know, I know. You are thinking to yourselves "What the Fuck?!" Wait for it...
"Winning is, of course, the essence of the lottery, though it might be said that losing is its natural state. And Mr. Otero is certainly a natural — at losing. For the last three years, he has utterly failed to recoup a rather staggering investment: $500 to $700 on the lottery a week. "
Yes my friends you have met one of the many people whose picture belongs in the dictionary next to the words Moron, stupid, idiot etc. So lets get this straight. The man makes $40,000 a year, lives in a rent free apartment, has a wife and 2 kids to support and he spends $5-700 a WEEK on lottery tickets? I'd really love to ask this guy ...So what do you feed your kids? The losing lottery tickets? Kids must have a really fiber rich diet then...I wonder if they'll get some sort of poisoning from the ink?
"Mr. Otero, 52, came to New York City from Puerto Rico nearly 30 years ago and worked as a mechanic in the Bronx. He has held his current job for about 10 years and supports his wife and two children on a yearly take-home pay of $40,000, he says, which does not include the free apartment, odd jobs or the typical Christmas tips."
I don't care if you work odd jobs and get huge christmas tips. You've got a family to support. You do not need to be spending $30k a year on lotto tickets and then WHINING like a little bitch when someone else who is not as stupid as you are, and is a little...a little hell, a LOT more frugal with their money; wins.
You know...my parents, more specifically my mom, spends around $1,000/year just on actual lotto tickets, not scratch offs. That's for the state lotto and the multi state Mega Millions. When one or the other lotto pot gets to around $150 million, they have me buy $5 extra in tickets for that particular lotto. Mom treats herself and the rest of the family at christmas with scratch offs for our stockings. She gets the smaller $1-$3 scratch offs. This year she sent me, her dutiful son to do it for her. I spent a whopping $30 to put scratch off tickets into the stockings of 4 people. Mom I think when she does it spends closer to $50. At any rate...yeah my parents want to win, and I've made the picking up of the tickets a bi weekly duty. 1. because my parents are getting on in years and the more I do the less they have to worry about and 2. because mom told me a long time ago..they win..I get half..so there is some self interest involved as well as love. I personally won't bother to play until the pot gets nearer $200 million, then I'll pop in 10-15 bucks.
One of my cousins calls lottery 'a stupidity tax for otherwise supposedly intelligent people' or something to that effect..because people spend all that money for exactly NO or very damned little return. For my mom it's a hobby, not an obsession; it makes her happy, and she's not being stupid about it so I don't care.
Mr. Otero believes working for a living is for suckers.....
"But working is for poor uneducated men — a sucker’s game, he said, where one must run increasingly fast to keep one’s place in line. “You’re making money on the one side and spending it on the other,” he said. “If all you’re doing is working, you’re never going to win.”
Really Mr. Otero? How do you suppose Donald Trump, or the men who created the railroads, or the guy who came up with the Pony Express, or the man who built Kentucky Fried Chicken, or any other number of people and families I could name, got where they are. The originators of those fortunes didn't have that money handed to them for free. They didn't say "work is for suckers". Nope those people worked their asses off, to make that money. Someone needs a cluex4 upside the head.. Hey Ray...look at my thumb...*sound of a thunk as Mr Otero is hit solidly in the back of a head with a cluex4 and then a resounding *thud* as Mr. Otero's unconscious form hits the floor* DAMN your dumb. Note to Mr. Otero...Really? Get some help boy..find a shrink who specializes in addictive behaviors and more specifically gambling
Here's the entire article by the way
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/nyregion/22super.html
I now return you to your regularly scheduled inanity and insanity.
Neal Boortz (talk show host out of Atlanta) also calls it a tax on the stupid, but what the hell,it's a fun game as long as it doesn't get out of control. Of course that's true for almost anything, it's OK as long as it doesn't get out of control.
ReplyDeleteOh I agree it can be and is fun so long as it doesn't get out of control. Bright boy from the article however is a textbook case of 'out of control' if I've ever seen one.
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