Originally Posted By: philipp10
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Few thoughts:
1. I heard once (from someone who'd know) that getting rich amplifies all your personality traits. If you're really a good person, you'll end up doing a lot more good. If you're not, you'll do a lot worse. Seems accurate.
2. This case is a perfect example of why lotteries exist in the first place. The vast majority of people who play them either have no idea how badly they're wasting their money, or are too impulsive to care. So, on the extremely rare occasion when someone does win, they're probably the type to blow everything in a hurry, which sends the post-tax proceeds right back into the economy (and, in this case, governments). It's basically a tax on shortsightedness.
3. Obviously there's no excuse for these people's (or anyone's) behavior. At the same time, before we look down our noses at them, I think we'd all do well to remember that a windfall worth tens of millions of dollars is enough to make your whole world come unglued. You just have no idea how you'll act when that kind of thing happens, until it happens.
Sorry but I cannot agree with #3. The biggest issue facing most lottery winners is all the "friends" and "family" that suddenly show up with hands out. For me, if I won, I would purchase the recently closed gardening store near me and make it great again. Hopefully it would not bankrupt me though...lol
No, that's not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that habits perpetuate themselves.
If you took someone who's never turned a wrench and gave them a garage full of tools, would you expect them to be a competent mechanic? Hopefully not. Likewise, if you take someone who's spent decades living paycheck-to-paycheck and inundate them with money, you can't expect them to be a competent wealth manager. People who live paycheck-to-paycheck tend to spend everything they have, either out of necessity or because they never know what tomorrow will bring. That habit becomes ingrained and they just don't know how to be any other way. Much less do they have the slightest idea what it means to have millions of dollars. No surprise that they blow everything when they get a windfall.
As for "what you'd do..." yeah, everyone has a story like that. Including the people who win. Again, until it happens to you, you have no idea.