Illinois isn't paying $s to lottery winners.

[Bartelby]

I always thought you were an old, white dude in need of sunscreen as well.

You're rambling, now. Nobody called you a Democrat - but your Pavlovian response to their criticism is telling. You do a good job of painting yourself as a racist ageist, prone to spewing inaccurate generalities though, so, congratulations.

 

[Sander001]

It reduces temptation.

Outside of that you need honest people.

My state doesn't have a lot of corruption problems because it has a fairly small budget so there isn't that much to steal.

There are other forms of corruption that don't involve directly stealing of course but it's overall harder if the pie is smaller to begin with.

Update: really harsh punishment can help too - that's what they do in Singapore. Of course if you're willing to pass laws against chewing gum and have a death penalty for selling marijuana, I guess you can scare people hard enough to not be corrupt.

Yep, you can have a big budget and mostly avoid corruption. I can't even think of any countries which are corrupt free and have low taxes. Monaco has no income tax but more than make up for it with property tax.

 

[movdqa]

Yep, you can have a big budget and mostly avoid corruption. I can't even think of any countries which are corrupt free and have low taxes. Monaco has no income tax but more than make up for it with property tax.

Singapore tax rates are low. 20% maximum individual rates and foreign income is exempt. Corporate rate is 17%. Certainly lower than the US.

The government sometimes has negative taxes where they give money out to residents, sometimes in Superannuation (retirement) accounts and sometimes as a stimulus program.

 

[Bartelby]

SIngapore is run like one giant corporation with many arms and many partners so naturally it is quite strict about internal corruption.

 

[dParis]

Not enough money however can be spent on 'black sites', pun intended:

Police “disappeared” more than 7,000 people at an off-the-books interrogation warehouse in Chicago, nearly twice as many detentions aspreviously disclosed, the Guardian can now reveal.

From August 2004 to June 2015, nearly 6,000 of those held at the facility were black, which represents more than twice the proportion of the city’s population. But only 68 of those held were allowed access to attorneys or a public notice of their whereabouts, internal police records show.

Not surprising. That's what you get for generations of exclusive Democrat rule.

I always thought you were an old, white dude in need of sunscreen as well.

You'd be shocked.

 

[Deleted member 23235]

The lottery has always been a tax on people who not are good at math (in particular probability)

lol, i'm good at math, and only buy a lottery ticket if the jackpot is >$300M...
but then I succumb to buying momentum,... so instead of buying 1 ticket, I buy 20....
my math is good, but imagination is better

 

[Deleted member 23235]

Each week suppose that's brings them $100 million. They pay out $20 million, and get to keep $80 million. Then they decide, "No, let's keep the whole $100 ", how much will come in the following week once word gets out that they're not paying? It's not only sleazy, it's stupid.

Probably a good thing if this had the impact of folks not buying lottery tickets.
It's a tax on the... well you know...

 

[movdqa]

lol, i'm good at math, and only buy a lottery ticket if the jackpot is >$300M...
but then I succumb to buying momentum,... so instead of buying 1 ticket, I buy 20....
my math is good, but imagination is better

It's like Newton and the South Seas.

 

[Deleted member 23235]

It's like Newton and the South Seas.

http://www.sovereignman.com/finance/how-isaac-newton-went-flat-broke-chasing-a-stock-bubble-13268/
Had to look up that reference... fortunately I'm only investing $20, which in 1720's dollars... is pennies ;P
And fortunately the lottery hits >$300M,... not very often...

 

[movdqa]

http://www.sovereignman.com/finance/how-isaac-newton-went-flat-broke-chasing-a-stock-bubble-13268/
Had to look up that reference... fortunately I'm only investing $20, which in 1720's dollars... is pennies ;P
And fortunately the lottery hits >$300M,... not very often...

Kudos for looking it up. It was a relatively obscure reference but most math folks would look it up, particularly with Newton in it.

I recall that he supported himself for a while calculating probabilities for games of chance.

 

[Shbeals]

www.thefiscaltimes.com/.../Outrageous-Public-Pensions-Could-Bankrupt-T...

Public Pensions anyone?

 

[Deleted member 688153]

You're rambling, now. Nobody called you a Democrat - but your Pavlovian response to their criticism is telling. You do a good job of painting yourself as a racist ageist, prone to spewing inaccurate generalities though, so, congratulations.

"Ageism" lol.
The "O" in GOP has to come from somewhere I guess.

Enjoy your indeviduarl freeduhms or whatever.
As a racist ageist (hell, I'm practically Lenin himself) who am I to judge?

 

[Deleted member 688153]

Not surprising. That's what you get for generations of exclusive Democrat rule.

There we go.
Thought so.

So please, do enlighten me as to how the only alternative (Grand Aged Party) would be any better.

 

[Bartelby]

So you are a twelve year old with Ayn Rand under your pillow rather than Hugh Hefner? You can see now what's causing the premature ageing - the wrong variety of libertarianism.

You'd be shocked.

 

[mikeler]

There we go.
Thought so.

So please, do enlighten me as to how the only alternative (Grand Aged Party) would be any better.

The irony is that Biden, Bernie, Hillary, Kerry, Al and Bill are no spring chickens.

Our 2 party system is so gridlocked now that unless we get another veto proof Senate with the same party in charge of the White House and House of Reps, it won't matter who gets elected all that much. The minority party will just grind things to a halt.

 

[Bartelby]

Obama was a spring chicken who turned into an old boiler like the rest of them rather quickly.

I've said it before, but the idea of checks and balances was invented in and for an era of Kings and popular assemblies.

Real checks and balances is not about splitting the executive from the legislative and creating a King-like figure.

It's making the executive responsible to the people through the legislature.

The problem with this approach is that the legislature loses some power over time, but that's better than stasis.

 

[mikeler]

Obama was a spring chicken who turned into an old boiler like the rest of them rather quickly.

I've said it before, but the idea of checks and balances was invented in and for an era of Kings and popular assemblies.

Real checks and balances is not about splitting the executive from the legislative and creating a King-like figure.

It's making the executive responsible to the people through the legislature.

The problem with this approach is that the legislature loses some power over time, but that's better than stasis.

The first line is pretty funny. The rest of the post I actually agree with. What I don't like is the legislative branch freely giving away the authority to legislate to an executive branch that keeps getting larger and more powerful. So basically Congress writes the framework of a law and hands it over to some large bureaucratic executive department where unelected officials do the detailed rule making.

 

[ollinger]

Hey, things are tough all over. Ohio announced it's delaying execution of death row prisoners until 2017 because it can't get enough of the drugs to do the job.

 

[dParis]

So you are a twelve year old with Ayn Rand under your pillow rather than Hugh Hefner?

"Who is Bartelby?"

I try not to have ideas.

- From Chrischris Shrugged.

 

[Dedans Penthouse]

You're rambling, now. Nobody called you a Democrat - but your Pavlovian response to their criticism is telling. You do a good job of painting yourself as a racist ageist, prone to spewing inaccurate generalities though, so, congratulations.

+ 1, as in:

I would like boilerplate rhetoric for $500, Alex?​

I am perfectly aware of the politics of Illinois and that the Dems have been there for ages.

I was suggesting that by your talk of IL being run by a "single party", you were proposing that the GOP would be any better. :lol:

....so said the strawman....​