The lottery is a tax on the stupid.
Agreed.
The fact so many STEM people falls for it is depresing.
I think a lot of it is social presure only. It is very
typical in Spain for people in the workplace to pool money
in and buy a lottery ticket for the whole office every now
and then. If everybody is doing it and you don't
participate, you come across as the weird sociopathic guy.
I am the weird sociopathic guy, but not because I don't
play the lottery (because I don't).
Agreed.
The fact so many STEM people falls for it is depresing.
I think it's hit and miss for many people. I might buy one
from time to time, but I don't play regularly. However, I do
see many people checking their "scratch" tickets though; I
don't buy those.
Here, they play it up ad additional money for the public
education system (which in reality is just flushing it down
the toilet).
A lot of poor people spend a good chunk of
their government money on lottery tickets.
August Abolins wrote to Digimaus <=-
Similar play-it-up here (Canada) too. The lottery corp claims
that the majority of the unclaimed prizes goes to charities and
public programmes.
I am not sure how she navigated that.
would take her off disability and disqualify her for low-income
housing.
I am not sure how she navigated that.
August Abolins wrote to Arelor <=-
I don't even remember the last time I bought a lottery ticket.
I think it was over 8 months ago.
In college, during one of my club meetings, one of the members asked
everyone for a dollar, no questions asked. He collected around 10
dollars. The next meeting, he brought 10 scratchers, and we won around
30 dollars. The meeting after that, he brought 30 scratchers. We ended
I don't think there is much "pressure" in workplaces here in
NA. However, I left the typical workplace back in 1996, so
maybe I'm wrong. But there wasn't any pressure to participate
in a lottery pool in my engineering wokplaces back then.
I know someone who was/is living on disability and in low-
income housing, and won a lottery prize in the low 6-digits.
She opted NOT to claim the winnings. If she did, the gov't
would take her off disability and disqualify her for low-income
housing.
I know someone who was/is living on disability and in low-
income housing, and won a lottery prize in the low 6-digits.
She opted NOT to claim the winnings. If she did, the gov't
would take her off disability and disqualify her for low-income
housing.
This begs the question: why do you play if you don't plan to claim the prize?
If I got a low 6-digit prize I would invest it. ┬┐If you
put 100 grand in the proper companies you will have a base
salary of 400 bucks per month on dividends alone. That does
not make a living, but makes for a log of dog and horse
food.
So.. you got ANY $s in such investments? They say even a low
$100 every now and then is enough to get started.
Basically, I am buying: [...]
* Stocks from established companies with no bullshit
business plans. A company with no meaningful growth
prospects that has a good payout and healthy accounting is
a better buy for me than a company that grows taking money
from investors in exchange of developing vaporware
products. I have enough friends in IT to know most
vaporware products won't materialize and the ones who do
won't pay their money back to investors.
Does that include NVIDIA? Its stock seems to have doubled since
January 1, and almost went 500% since 12 months ago.
NVIDIA is an overheated value.
Its Price to Earnings stat isn't great - ie. each stock
does not represent enough productive power from the company
to be considered a great deal for the buck.
NVIDIA has a low dividend, to the point of being non-
existent.
Generally, I regard hyped-tech companies as gambling
investments. Sure, they can spike high and fix your day,
but since most of them lack productive power enough to
sustain their absurd prices, you can find yourself in the
other end of the spectrum.
Compare NVIDIA to an average Spanish utility company. Sure,
they won't spike and make you rich, but they are cheap to
buy and will pay a very good dividend for their entry price
for decades to come. Consider that Spanish companies tend
to pay higher dividends than American ones, by miles.
But for the last year it has produced pretty good value. a
simple $1000 investment a year ago would be $6000 now. That's
pretty good in my book.
But NVIDIA is supposed to be different. It's their tech that is
behind all that is driving the AI boom.
Ah.. and you are remaining domestic. That's probably a prudent
approach.
The stock price multiplying itself by 6 does not mean the
company is producing value. Obviously, if you pick such a
raise, that's great, because you can pump and dump and be
done with it.
What often happens is investors start overrating or
underrating mediatic stocks based on speculation regarding
[...]
Most tech companies would take half a century or more to
pay their investors back from their benefits because so
many people is investing in hope rather than productive
value. These investors are banking on the fact the firm
will multiply its productivity so wildly and in such a
short term that I think they are either bonkers or
willingly playing Tulipmania.
I don't remain domestic in my investments. I have purchased
all the Spanish stock I wanted for my portfolio and now I
am investing outside, because Spain sucks.
"Spain sucks" seems to be your mantra. Noted. Hope you find
some suitable foreign stock.
"Spain sucks" seems to be your mantra. Noted. Hope you find
some suitable foreign stock.
But NVIDIA is supposed to be different. [...]
First things first:
The stock price multiplying itself by 6 does not mean the company is producing value. Obviously, if you pick such a raise, that's great,
because you can pump and dump and be done with it.
What's your stake on cryptos? Bitcoin seems to be on another
nice climb right now.
Jas Hud wrote to August Abolins <=-
To: August Abolins
Re: the lottery is a tax
By: August Abolins to Arelor on Mon Mar 04 2024 07:36 am
What's your stake on cryptos? Bitcoin seems to be on another
nice climb right now.
i wouldn't really call it 'nice'. it's not total shit.
I invested money 3 years ago and it tanked. now it's finally
done a little more than break even.
What's your stake on cryptos? Bitcoin seems to be on another
nice climb right now.
I like Cryptocurrencies as a concept. Money that is not controlled by the government is a great idea.
As an investment, I am not a fan. I don't like storing my savings as "money", which includes both regular and non-regular versions of money.
it's not really money. it's pseudo money. it's the same as
if we started using leaves as money. it's money because
some people treat it like money.
i'm going to wait until it goes up a bit more and then
cash it out into my govt's fake money.
i'm going to wait until it goes up a bit more and then
cash it out into my govt's fake money.
Excellent. Sounds like you will have a nice chunk of change
after that.
I've been leary of the exchanges. Many have been hacked and
people's holdings have gone missing or are nolonger accessible.
The key would be to keep ones crypto in ones own wallet. I
could never settle with a particular wallet program - even that
could go tits-up if the device it's used on breaks down.
i used coinbase and that's the first time my creditcard number was
stolen. someone bought sports equipment from all over the country.
Arelor wrote to August Abolins <=-
I like Cryptocurrencies as a concept. Money that is not controlled by
the government is a great idea.
As an investment, I am not a fan. I don't like storing my savings as "money", which includes both regular and non-regular versions of money.
I take it you're using another exchange and not coinbase now? I
fear the period of uncertainty when transferring crypto to the
esxchange and waiting for the conversion to happen.
What's your stake on cryptos? Bitcoin seems to be on another
nice climb right now.
i wouldn't really call it 'nice'. it's not total shit.
I invested money 3 years ago and it tanked. now it's finally done a little more than break even.
I invested money 3 years ago and it tanked. now it's finally done
a
little more than break even.
Break even? That means you bought in around Nov '21 when it was
listing around 65K$? I kinda tanked after that point and only
started to rebound in Jan '23.
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