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#1 Jan 15 2016 at 5:56 PM Rating: Good
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Not the Powerball. Put 2 dollars into an office pool. Just because on the no chance that it actually won anything, I didn't want to be the only person left working there.

But, on the Saturday before this Powerball drawing, there was a drawing for a smaller State lottery. And a coworker of mine won 4.1 million dollars.

Monday he didn't come into work (He said it was a "Snow Day"). Then we all laughed and said "Maybe he's the guy that won?"

Tuesday he calls in and tells his boss that he won the Lottery, but doesn't know if he's going to have to work still or not, so he's going to take a vacation day.

Wednesday he comes into work to talk with HR about health insurance and COBRA, and finds out that he can keep his health insurance through COBRA. He then tells his boss that he's quitting.


The office pool won 16 dollars total, so they just rolled it over into some Mega tickets.
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#2 Jan 15 2016 at 6:02 PM Rating: Excellent
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Well, good for him.

I've never been one of those "Oh, I'd just keep working" types regarding the lottery. Eff that, I can keep working without playing the lottery. I play it (on the rare times I do) so I can stop working.
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#3 Jan 15 2016 at 6:07 PM Rating: Good
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His concerns were insurance. He's older. 57 years old. Has a mother that is still alive.

After he figured out he won, he went to his insurance company to look into Health insurance and found out that the cost of him getting insurance would have been huge.

Once he figured out he could use COBRA to keep his insurance long enough to get things worked out, he said "See ya!"
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#4 Jan 15 2016 at 8:04 PM Rating: Decent
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Statistically, he'll be flat broke and looking for a new job inside of 3 years. Just saying.

Oh. Interesting bit of data I ran across whilst engaged in a "is the lottery really a form of regressive tax" conversation with some coworkers: The ratio of money spent (ie: wasted) by black people versus that spent by white people in the US is the same as the ratio of negative police encounters by black people versus those by white people (about 4:1). Not seeing a lot of outrage about this though. Wonder why?
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#5 Jan 15 2016 at 8:21 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Statistically, he'll be flat broke and looking for a new job inside of 3 years. Just saying.


Or you know. Dead. This just gave him the ability to retire a few years early.
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#6 Jan 15 2016 at 8:31 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Statistically, he'll be flat broke and looking for a new job inside of 3 years. Just saying.

Oh. Interesting bit of data I ran across whilst engaged in a "is the lottery really a form of regressive tax" conversation with some coworkers: The ratio of money spent (ie: wasted) by black people versus that spent by white people in the US is the same as the ratio of negative police encounters by black people versus those by white people (about 4:1). Not seeing a lot of outrage about this though. Wonder why?


You expect people to be outraged over wasted lottery winnings? Are you suggesting there should be some kind of legislation over what people do with their own money now?
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#7 Jan 15 2016 at 9:17 PM Rating: Good
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I think it should be noted that some of the usual liberal sources have skewered the State run lottery systems. Daily Show, or Jon Oliver's show, or both, I can't remember which ones did it.
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#8 Jan 15 2016 at 9:29 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
I think it should be noted that some of the usual liberal sources have skewered the State run lottery systems. Daily Show, or Jon Oliver's show, or both, I can't remember which ones did it.


And they mentioned the disparate impact on poor black people? Or just made the usual jokes about it being a 'tax on people who are bad at math"?

I'm talking about the selective nature of when the issue of disparate impact (specifically when racially aligned) is raised. And when it's not.
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#9 Jan 15 2016 at 9:33 PM Rating: Good
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Wow, you mean there might be some kind of correlation between people who likely have no experience handling large amounts of money and bad financial decisions? Shocker.

We should just leave the money to the people who already have it, ammiright?

Edited, Jan 16th 2016 6:36am by Kuwoobie
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#10 Jan 15 2016 at 9:39 PM Rating: Excellent
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If you haven't seen anything on lotteries being disproportionally skewed to poor/minority communities, it's because you haven't been looking. I've seen several articles about it in the past week with the Powerball hoopla.

Interestingly (for certain definitions of "interesting"), Powerball is less skewed than standard lotteries and the tax becomes flatter the larger the jackpot gets since more middle class or upper class players enter the system when it hits the news. The real hit on poor/minority communities is the minor Pick 3/Pick 4 type games and scratch-off tickets.

Edited, Jan 15th 2016 9:40pm by Jophiel
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#11 Jan 15 2016 at 9:41 PM Rating: Good
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Pretty sure it went on about how it targeted poorer, lower classes, and States spend money on misleading advertising it to target them, not being as useful for schools as they say, etc.

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#12 Jan 15 2016 at 9:46 PM Rating: Decent
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Kuwoobie wrote:
You expect people to be outraged over wasted lottery winnings? Are you suggesting there should be some kind of legislation over what people do with their own money now?


Nope. Just as I don't suggest there should be special legislation designed to make it easier for darker skinned people to go to college because they are less represented among the college educated. Or that police should be required to take special training for dealing with darker skinned people, because the stats show that they are more likely to be on the receiving end of police actions. Or any of a number of proposals aimed at balancing out the disparate impact of systems that are otherwise equally applied.

My point is that while conservatives are consistent in our position on applying rules equally and letting the outcomes be determined by the actions of those involved, and not the statistical effect on groups of people based on their skin colors, liberals seem to be very inconsistent on this same issue. If the factor that creates disparate impact is the police, or religion, or free market employment, they fight to create laws designed to fix it. But if the factor is something run by the government, they do not. I've often argued that the Left cares more about building and maintaining systems they believe will help <insert minority group here> than they actually care about those groups themselves.

I've made this point about associative logic on the Left many times in the past. How "supporting workers" becomes "supporting unions", and "helping the hungry" becomes "funding food stamp programs", and "helping minority people own homes" becomes "defend sub prime lending by Fanny and Freddie no matter what". It's what leads Democrats to praise the fact that welfare spending has increased, since by their logic, that means they are helping more people. To us conservatives, it means that more people are in need of help and is therefore a bad thing.

It's just interesting to me how consistently liberals will choose the institutions they have been told are there to help people over the actual people themselves. This is just one more random example of it that jumped out at me this week. And yeah, maybe I'm just tilting at windmills here, but I mention stuff like this on the off chance that someone might just read it and have a light bulb go off in their heads, and perhaps start judging things based on what they are, and not what they assume the must be. Probably just wishful thinking on my part though.
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#13 Jan 15 2016 at 9:51 PM Rating: Good
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I find it sad how gbaji continually plays this "conservatives never do anything wrong, are all super smart and thoughtful people that think about everything all the time" card.

I would think it must be hard to ignore that much stuff and continue to post. But we know gbaji just doesn't actually read or listen to anything other than what he agrees with. He's like the byproduct of the current generation social media conservative. He's exactly what he seems to hate about the "liberals" but on the other end of the political spectrum. Modern interactions are geared to show you only what you agree with. You forget anything else exists outside the scope of your beliefs.
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#14 Jan 15 2016 at 9:54 PM Rating: Decent
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Kuwoobie wrote:
Wow, you mean there might be some kind of correlation between people who likely have no experience handling large amounts of money and bad financial decisions? Shocker.


Yes. Just as there's a correlation between people growing up in a poor high crime neighborhood and making bad decisions that get them shot by cops.

What I'm trying to point out is that you see the logic of "let people make their own decisions and be responsible for the outcomes that result" when it's one case, but not when it's the other. And secondarily, I'm trying to get you to engage in a little self examination as to *why* you do this. And then, on the crazy off chance that those two things actually happen, maybe you might even decide to change how you view these things, and realize that at their core they are the same and should be treated the same.

Edited, Jan 15th 2016 7:55pm by gbaji
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#15 Jan 15 2016 at 9:55 PM Rating: Excellent
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TirithRR wrote:
I find it sad how gbaji continually plays this "conservatives never do anything wrong, are all super smart and thoughtful people that think about everything all the time" card.

I find it more sad that it almost always relies on Gbaji's own lack of knowledge. "How come liberals never talk about THIS, huh? HUH?" "You mean like the people are talking here?" "No way! I tricked you all into using conservative principles and stuff!"
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#16 Jan 15 2016 at 10:01 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
I find it sad how gbaji continually plays this "conservatives never do anything wrong, are all super smart and thoughtful people that think about everything all the time" card.


It's not about "conservatives". It's about "conservative positions". Ours are consistent. Liberal positions are not. Well. That's not true. Liberal positions are consistent if you assume that their objective is to create a large central government that controls all the goods and services in the country and doles them out as it sees fit. Because that is the one thing they consistently side with. Making people's lives better? A distant second. Or maybe third.

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I would think it must be hard to ignore that much stuff and continue to post. But we know gbaji just doesn't actually read or listen to anything other than what he agrees with. He's like the byproduct of the current generation social media conservative. He's exactly what he seems to hate about the "liberals" but on the other end of the political spectrum. Modern interactions are geared to show you only what you agree with. You forget anything else exists outside the scope of your beliefs.


If that were true, then how do I know what things I disagree with? Very few of my posts are about what I think we should be doing, but what I think we should *not* be doing. And often, as in this case, I discuss why I think those who support those things are wrong. Which is kinda hard to do if you don't ever expose yourself to their actions and ideas.

The guy who blindly waves a sign in support of his cause and seems suspiciously incapable of engaging in argument with anyone who questions what he's doing, is the guy who fits your assumption. And guess what? That's far more likely to be someone supporting a liberal position than a conservative one.
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#17 Jan 15 2016 at 10:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Very few of my posts are about what I think we should be doing, but what I think we should *not* be doing.

No argument that Gbaji is a conservative. Great at pitching a fit and whining, shit at offering solutions and alternatives.
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#18 Jan 15 2016 at 10:05 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
If that were true, then how do I know what things I disagree with?


Because the people and organizations that you do agree with and listen to (or read) tell you what to. Simple as that.

It's not like you watched a bunch of liberal leaning news shows and thought "Wow, they never talked about Y subject? How come?" No, instead you saw something and just assumed the side you did not agree with wasn't noticing or discussing the issue.

Edited, Jan 15th 2016 11:06pm by TirithRR
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#19 Jan 15 2016 at 10:09 PM Rating: Excellent
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I dunno... he might. He's literally the only person to bring up Rachel Maddow or whoever around here. I mean, someone has to be watching her, right?
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#20 Jan 15 2016 at 10:18 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
I dunno... he might. He's literally the only person to bring up Rachel Maddow or whoever around here. I mean, someone has to be watching her, right?


Maybe he's got a crush? I dunno.

But the the point's there. Seeing as the lottery system has been criticized for the classes it targets often, just obviously by sources he does not pay attention to.

The real reason it's ignored is because the people making the laws like the money. All of them.

Edited, Jan 15th 2016 11:22pm by TirithRR
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#21 Jan 15 2016 at 10:27 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
TirithRR wrote:
I find it sad how gbaji continually plays this "conservatives never do anything wrong, are all super smart and thoughtful people that think about everything all the time" card.

I find it more sad that it almost always relies on Gbaji's own lack of knowledge. "How come liberals never talk about THIS, huh? HUH?" "You mean like the people are talking here?" "No way! I tricked you all into using conservative principles and stuff!"


I can't see the video he linked, but I spent a good portion of the last couple days reading online articles talking about the issue. And, by and large, while they were critical of the process, two things leaped out at me:

1. They were usually the sort of academic articles and sources that don't get a lot of traffic.

2. They rarely ever proposed any solution to the problem.

They were more about intellectually discussing the issue, and not so much on the kind of appeal to emotion to promote change that we typically see when dealing with other disparate impact issues. How something is discussed and presented to the audience is more important than the fact that it was raised. Tone matters. Where's the NAACP demanding this be fixed? Where's Al Sharpton? Broad public criticism of this is relegated to an occasional comment, often made as a joke, and never with any effort to do anything about it and promptly forgotten after the current big lottery jackpot is awarded.

My argument isn't so much about whether the subject is raised, but the reaction raising the subject generates. Some of this certainly is about the "tone" I spoke of earlier. But some of it's also the recipients weighing the fact that state lotteries hurt poor people against the perceived good that the revenues from those lotteries are assumed to provide. Rank and file liberals are much more likely to respond as Kuwoobie has. By basically saying it's their money and they can choose to spend it stupidly if they want. Which, given the sheer volume of liberal attempts to mandate people's behavior "for their own good", seems like a startling exception.
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#22 Jan 15 2016 at 10:38 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
It's not like you watched a bunch of liberal leaning news shows and thought "Wow, they never talked about Y subject? How come?"


Um... That's exactly what I have done (and still do). About 12 years ago, after getting annoyed at being accused of parroting conservative's I'd never heard of (and having not watched a single minute of Fox news or any other cable news channel), I decided that instead of just looking at what was written about something, and then arriving at my own conclusions (which apparently looked identical to just parroting what some other conservatives were saying), I'd spend some time actually listening/watching political talk to figure out what everyone was talking about.

But I didn't go to conservative sources. I spent like 6 months to a year listening to nothing but Air America in my car. I then tuned into MSNBC and CNN (basically every source *except* conservative ones). I did this precisely because I wanted to see what the liberal positions were, and what their arguments were. And yes, the entire time I was thinking "but what about this point or that point?". I formed my conservative arguments by listening to liberal arguments exclusively and seeing how they were flawed and why. And along the way, btw, I realized that all those liberals on this site accusing me of blindly parroting whatever was said on Fox news earlier that day, were suspiciously consistent at raising exactly the issues and points that were discussed on various liberal media sources that day. It was a pretty amusing example of projection really.

It was only after doing this for quite some time that I first tuned into a single conservative radio station, or watched a Fox news show. And what I discovered was that while I certainly did not agree with everything they said, or the conclusions they arrived at, or the proposals they made, their opinions were based on the same observations that I had made that formed mine. I do not parrot conservative viewpoints. Conservative viewpoints happen to be the viewpoints people like myself arrive at after listening intently to the liberal viewpoint, realizing how nutjob crazy it is, and seeing the obviously better alternative.

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No, instead you saw something and just assumed the side you did not agree with wasn't noticing or discussing the issue.


And yet, I don't recall any one else raising the issue here. Again, it's not just about whether something is mentioned, but whether it's given any weight or any effort is actually made to do anything about it. Do you think the average liberal, after watching some segment on this, was moved to care about it? Or just rejected it as "well, it's their choice, so I guess that's just their own fault" and moved on? I'm just observing the pattern of what constitutes something liberals feel they should fight for, and what does not.


Edited, Jan 15th 2016 9:19pm by gbaji
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#23 Jan 15 2016 at 10:53 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Very few of my posts are about what I think we should be doing, but what I think we should *not* be doing.

No argument that Gbaji is a conservative. Great at pitching a fit and whining, shit at offering solutions and alternatives.


It's a perception issue though. Liberals don't tend to view any solution or alternative that doesn't involve the government "doing something" as a solution/alternative at all. I'm pretty sure I've pointed this out several times on this forum in the past.
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#24 Jan 15 2016 at 11:33 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
TirithRR wrote:
I find it sad how gbaji continually plays this "conservatives never do anything wrong, are all super smart and thoughtful people that think about everything all the time" card.

I find it more sad that it almost always relies on Gbaji's own lack of knowledge. "How come liberals never talk about THIS, huh? HUH?" "You mean like the people are talking here?" "No way! I tricked you all into using conservative principles and stuff!"
I can't see the video he linked, but I spent a good portion of the last couple days reading online articles talking about the issue. And, by and large, while they were critical of the process, two things leaped out at me:

1. They were usually the sort of academic articles and sources that don't get a lot of traffic.

2. They rarely ever proposed any solution to the problem.

So now we get to the No True Scotsman part of the show where Gbaji leaps from "No liberals talk about THIS!" to "But none of THOSE articles or videos count!"

Smiley: rolleyes
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#25 Jan 15 2016 at 11:34 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Very few of my posts are about what I think we should be doing, but what I think we should *not* be doing.

No argument that Gbaji is a conservative. Great at pitching a fit and whining, shit at offering solutions and alternatives.
It's a perception issue though.

Yeah, when you just admitted that you don't propose solutions, it's not a "perception issue" to say that you don't propose solutions.
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#26 Jan 16 2016 at 12:45 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
I've never been one of those "Oh, I'd just keep working" types regarding the lottery. Eff that, I can keep working without playing the lottery. I play it (on the rare times I do) so I can stop working.
I think I'd give a two weeks notice without telling anyone why until the day I left.

But yeah, why keep working if you're independently wealthy? Unless you're working somewhere you truly love. For instance, maybe I wouldn't quit if I were an astronaut or something. But beyond that? Never understood. Edit: Also, I've never understood how people go broke after winning the lottery. I mean, the very first thing I'd do is figure out how much I'd need to put in a trust fund(or whatevs) so that I could have it give me something like 3x what I'm making now per year(probably in monthly payments) for the length of my remaining life. For instance, if I'm gonna live 60 more years in estimate and say I make 33k a year, toss 6 mil in my "never gonna work again" fund(ultra simplistic math and doesn't involve interest, but you get the point).


Edit2: I haven't watched the vid yet, but this seems like it might be relevant to the other conversation y'all are having.


Edited, Jan 16th 2016 12:28am by Poldaran
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