Wager Anyone?

[sheepdog 10]

The news carried a story last night about a recent lottery winner. A young woman one a million dollars in her state lottery. Of course, the government takes a great big bite of her winnings, nearly half, but she still ended up with something like 550,000. Not exactly chump change for sure. Just one problem. She was living on food stamps when she won the money. And she sort of "forgot" to report the income and continued to recieve food stamps. Ended up getting her dumb butt arrested. She claimed she had a lot of bills to pay, and apparently said she owned 2 houses. Not sure how you qualify for food stamps if you own 2 houses, but anyway, now she is in deep doo doo. Knowing she has all that money, any lawyer she hires is going to really lay the screws to her in what he charges to defend her on her failure to report charges. Personally, if it was me I'd not even get an attourney, they pretty much have an iron clad case against her. So, by the time she pays her supposed bills and the lawyer fees, and what ever else she ends up loosing because she will probably end up doing some jail time, I'm betting she ends up broke and back on food stamps. I give her one, or maybe 2 years and she will be right back collecting food stamps. Anybody want to make a wager on it? If she wasn't smart enough to know to report the income, you can pretty well bet she won't have the smarts to invest anything that might be left over in some way to make a better life for herself in the future.

[Okara KAmi 0]

This seems like a remarkably morbid wager...I'm assuming you're talking about Amanda Clayton. I'd heard about her a while ago. I think she will get much smarter with her money, given that she does not get any DHS aid anymore. If she's willing to keep her lottery money in tact while she uses food stamps to feed herself, then she has the right type of menality (and perhaps even the right type of morality?) to stay rich longer than the average lottery winner.So for the sake of sport (I'm going to hell for this), I say she doesn't need food stamps for 3-5 years. With what cut a lawyer will take out of her wallet (assuming she's crazy enough to get one and not use a state commissioned one), I think this whole ordeal will scare her straight. I hope she doesn't bail herself out... Jail food/housing is free

[k_nitin_r 8]

There are lots of people out there with questionable ethics, but I assumed that the kind of thing is more common in the third world. In India, a large portion of the population is poor and the folks here go as far as trying to claim a benefit twice by raising duplicate claims. There are information systems in place that keep such activity in check, but that does not keep people from trying. There is an agency that was appointed by the state for collecting payment on electricity bills and they get nothing from people who pay on time. When somebody pays a couple of days before the last day through another state appointed agency, they go around claiming that the bill has not been paid. In the rare case that one does not have a copy of the paid receipt, the folks take away electrical wiring, fuses, light bulbs, and whatever they can get their hands on to salvage in the name of bill collection. They do not really put the proceeds of the sale into the bill payment but instead fill their own pockets and claim that they had no part in the missing electrical equipment.Beyond the bill collection, there are individuals who are appointed by the state to replace burnt electrical meters and these folk demand a higher amount than what is due for the electrical meter. They pocket the different and never provide receipts so they manage to get away with it.If you spend about a month in India, you will have a diary filled with such instances of crossing paths with folks with questionable morals. The three-wheeled taxi (autorickshaw) drivers are no less in their less-than-ideal behavior. They have their meters tampered with so the meter displays a higher fare than what is actually due. The government decided to implement electronic meters and has the meter itself sealed to prevent the drivers from messing with the mechanical contraption by replacing it with an electrical contraption, but that does not stop them from resorting to other practices for filling their pockets. If there is any way for these folks to dupe customers out of cash, they will resort to it.I am not sure of how income tax is reported in India but typically people working for firms have the firms make the income tax payments for them. It takes the burden off the individual and is perhaps how it should be in the rest of the world where income is taxed. Ideally, things should be the way that they are in the United Arab Emirates - they have absolutely no income taxes and most people find it hard to believe their ears when I first tell them about it, so I have to tell them again, "There are absolutely no income taxes in the United Arab Emirates". It is what makes Dubai such an attractive place for most, or at least that is what attracted them to the place in the past. Then, the economic recession struck and things took a downward spiral. It still is a good place to live but harder to find employment if you have nothing out of the ordinary to offer to the firms, which seems fair.

[sheepdog 10]

This seems like a remarkably morbid wager...

 

True, it probably is. But it's been so bloody slow around here I was just trying to come up with something to get a conversation going. Whatever works eh? Anyway, I hope your right, that she is scared strait, but I'll bet if she can get out of jail, with all that money burning a hole in her pocket, she will do what ever it takes to keep out or get out of jail.

 

And to k_nitin_r, Funny, I guess cab drivers the world over have a real nasty reputation. I know here in the USA they get accused of taking the long way around to everywhere, padding the fares, rigging meters, and just about everything else. I can't think of any group of people in an occupation that are less trusted, except Carnies. Which I guess really sucks, when a cab driver might beat you out of a dollar on a fare, but a politician or laywer can screw you out of your life savings or all that money you have paid into Social Security a lot quicker than a cab driver can make that one dollar.

[k_nitin_r 8]

When you mentioned that cab drivers are the least trusted all across the world, I kept thinking lawyers ought to at least come a close second. Politicians are not people who are untrustworthy - people trust them to act against all of their pre-election promises and favor their home state over other states. When you know somebody is going to dupe you just as a calculator would add two and two and print the result as four, it's less of a matter of trust of whether somebody would act in your interest and more of a matter of confidence that he or she would act against your interests.I sometimes wonder what the local politicians are plotting and if I would be affected in any way. There's always the politicians' motorcade that results in blocked traffic in India. In the UAE, the royal family drives around just like everybody else and the concept of having to block traffic for the important folk to go around simply does not exist... except for the time when George Bush was visiting the city and they had to keep the details of his visit a secret for his own safety. They blocked traffic, announced a mandatory public holiday at all business establishments, and had the areas he was visiting shut down.

[sheepdog 10]

Ha Ha! I do believe that you are exactly right. We have come to expect every politician we elect to screw us over, so I gues your right, it should not come as a suprise to us anymore.