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From the Dept of Treasury :
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115714468338152...
The top 0.1% of taxpayers by income pay 17.4% of all federal taxes (earning 9.1% of the income),
The top 1% pay 36.9% (earning 19%), the top 5% pay 57.1% (earning 33.4%)
The bottom 50% pay 3.3% (earning 13.4%).
Considering that the bottom 50% only pay 3.3% of taxes are you really worried about how the poor are getting a raw deal in America? The numbers say you're wrong. Or do you argue that these numbers are fabricated?
The idea of the article goes like this: My chances of being finantially suscesfull with my work is high. So lottery's cost/benefice is very low for me.
BUT this is the case for me. If I have no chance of success in my work, then the cost/benefice of lottery is much better.
So, in this case poor people are not bad at math. Their reality is different.
You can't purchase cigarettes or cooked meat with food stamps.
Underprivileged is a vague/relative definition in this country. You want to see underprivileged, join the military and go to Southwest Asia or Northern Africa. In this country, if you're underprivileged, you "entitled" to free food, free rent support, free medical, free education (most don't want it), and free money. Crappy as it all may be, it's still a heck of a lot better than what most of the planet gets.
If you're feeling guilty, give them your money and let them sleep at your house. Please don't take any more of mine (33% of my income goes to income taxes, before I pay property tax, school tax, luxury tax, and sales tax). Yeah, I paid a bit extra for my home but the price included a reasonable assurance that guns don't go off on a regular basis and my neighbor isn't selling the drug de jour at the corner.
I've bought that lottery ticket you whine about. In that same line at the convenience store, I've seen a 20-something guy (who was able to walk on his own and was obviously able to lift 40 pounds) purchase 2 liters of soda, a whole fried chicken, and a carton of cigarettes with food stamps. Given that his whole purchase could have been much cheaper if he walked an extra block to the local supermarket, it was obvious that he was treating his food stamps as a luxury. Yeah, he was poor. But to call him "disadvantaged" would have been a poor label.
If you want to help the poor, donate your own resources (time and money). Please don't insist that I help you. I dragged my own tail off of a dirt poor dairy farm. I'm not in any mood to carry anyone that's able to walk on their own.
I think you are wrong about most liberals. They think most people in the US are not capable of deciding what they want, poor, middle class, or rich. That is why they want huge bloated governments to make decisions for you.
I think you are wrong about most conservatives. They do care. But they want those people to pick themselves up by their boot straps, not give them a hand out. And I believe I have seen that conservatives generally give more in charity that liberals, but that could be wrong. I don't have the time to look up the statistic.
I doubt most poor people are unaware of what the world is like outside their sphere. You can be dirt poor in the US and still have a TV. All you have to do is watch TV or listen to a radio to get an idea of what the "privileged" people live like. They may not have the skills or education to get out of their circumstances, but I don't think they are ignorant of it.
And whether you like it or not, some people CHOOSE to stay in those circumstances and play the lottery hoping they will get rich without having to work for it.
Having grown up here, where ~25% of the population receives food stamps (including my family at the time), I can tell you that you're mistaken. You can purchase almost anything with food stamps. What I suspect you meant to say was that you're not supposed to be able to.
Worse, that's inside the store. Outside, you can buy literally anything. Drugs, guns, blowjobs, whatever, at roughly 50 cents on the dollar.
It's a funny thing rules, only the "haves" follow them. The "have not's" could give a fuck.
Looking back at my post, I think you have good points. I also agree with your models for liberals and conservatives, in many cases. And since your models are the opposite of mine, which I also agree with, I guess my problem is generalization.
Arik would be angry with me. :)
I need to work on being more precise with my language somehow. I don't disagree with what I wrote, but so many took it wrong that it's pretty obvious that the essay itself sucked. Multiple interpretations in some types of writing might be ok, but not in the type I'm trying to do.
Meh...much learning to do.
1) Intellectually incapable of perceiving the overwhelming odds against ANY long-term benefit (let alone the near-implausibility of winning the jackpot) and/or...
2) So ignorantly superstitious that they just "know" they'll be "the one" to win (ignorance tax), and/or...
3) Simply so desperate that they attempt such tenuous means (dreaming/praying!) to improve their circumstances (desperation tax)...
...ought not be exploited wontonly by those elected to serve them. People in any of the above categories are more likely to be of modest means, and their dispostions will probably keep them so. The problem is that in a referendum, even THEY would likely vote keep lotteries in favor of, for example, taxing corporations adequately. I know even middle-class people who are suckered into buying in to the same dream (admittedly, I don't feel so bad about them being exploited; they really ought to know better). How could this ever be fixed?