Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Lotteries, payday lending, and the swindling of America’s poor
WaPo ^ | 07-09-2015 | Michael Gerson

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: economy
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-55 next last
To: 2ndDivisionVet

So someone is FORCING them to take out loans, play the lottery and so on?

Nope! Just what I was going to say!!!


21 posted on 07/10/2015 3:36:01 PM PDT by tallyhoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: NRx

I gotta come up with a different retirement plan?


22 posted on 07/10/2015 3:36:22 PM PDT by Graybeard58
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NRx

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.


23 posted on 07/10/2015 3:38:23 PM PDT by MeganC (The Republic of The United States of America: 7/4/1776 to 6/26/2015 R.I.P.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

“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.


24 posted on 07/10/2015 3:41:13 PM PDT by CodeToad (If it weren't for physics and law enforcement I'd be unstoppable!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: bkepley; sickoflibs; GOPsterinMA

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


25 posted on 07/10/2015 3:41:25 PM PDT by Impy (They pull a knife, you pull a gun. That's the CHICAGO WAY, and that's how you beat the rats!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: CodeToad

They can board airplanes if this country is taking too much advantage of them.


26 posted on 07/10/2015 3:43:45 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You can help: https://donate.tedcruz.org/c/FBTX0095/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Extremely Extreme Extremist
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.

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.

27 posted on 07/10/2015 3:43:50 PM PDT by usurper (Liberals GET OFF MY LAWN)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Really big boats. Lots of really big boats.


28 posted on 07/10/2015 3:44:20 PM PDT by CodeToad (If it weren't for physics and law enforcement I'd be unstoppable!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: NRx

In effect all of these “abuses” are means of recycling unearned welfare payments, often partially funding parasitic welfare programs.


29 posted on 07/10/2015 3:46:55 PM PDT by libstripper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NRx
Correction:

"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"

30 posted on 07/10/2015 3:51:21 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie ( A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NRx

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


31 posted on 07/10/2015 3:51:35 PM PDT by US_MilitaryRules (The last suit you wear has no pockets!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NRx

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.


32 posted on 07/10/2015 3:53:43 PM PDT by LibWhacker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NRx
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...

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.

33 posted on 07/10/2015 3:54:30 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bkepley
I think the instant lotto tickets are much more exploitative.

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...

34 posted on 07/10/2015 3:57:14 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: NRx

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.


35 posted on 07/10/2015 3:58:37 PM PDT by mrsmith (Dumb sluts: Lifeblood of the Media, Backbone of the Democrat/RINO Party!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Smokin' Joe

Well the gvmnt should not be selling candy.


36 posted on 07/10/2015 4:01:22 PM PDT by bkepley
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: agrarianlady
I wonder how many who decry the payday loan operations carry a balance on their credit cards from month to month?

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.

37 posted on 07/10/2015 4:01:56 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: NRx

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


38 posted on 07/10/2015 4:02:24 PM PDT by digger48
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bkepley
Well the gvmnt should not be selling candy.

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.

39 posted on 07/10/2015 4:08:58 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: NRx

If governments are cleaning up on it...then it is moral and loving.


40 posted on 07/10/2015 4:13:18 PM PDT by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-55 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson