Despite Offering The Worst Odds and Value on the Planet, Powerball Officials Increase the Price of a Lottery Ticket 100%

The stupid tax.

I admit, I have played Powerball but only when the jackpot exceeds 80 million. Somehow that allows my ego and conscience enough dignity to play.

The reality is- is that these types of lotteries are absolutely the worst gamble on the planet. It amounts to little more than surrendering your hard earned money. The only sure winner is the states' and the Federal government who without ever so much as purchasing one measly ticket- manage to steal half of every lottery winner's treasure.

Small wonder that gambling and lotteries were illegal up to the point that government saw an opportunity to steal even more money from the citizenry. Suddenly, that horrible vice of gambling became palatable and acceptable to governments everywhere. They love the lottery.

So last Saturday night, with the jackpot cracking 100 million, I bought a five dollar quick pick which in fact became a ten dollar quick pick- the cashier informed me. It seems that the Powerball people, not satisfied with simply stealing everyone's money, decided to double down and steal twice as much.

When you offer such a good deal at odds of 100 million to one- apparently this gives you pricing power and marketability. Fantasy and hope sells. 

I opted out of the cigarette tax last year. This year I am opting out of the stupid tax.

Maybe The Media Is Just As Baffled As The Rest Of Us

It's absolutely fascinating- the quality of crap written by the mainstream media. Sometimes, I honestly don't think corporate writers have a brain in their head. Or at the very least, writers may simply be gullible since they are mostly statists and government worshippers to begin with. Quite often it appears that writers simply do not attempt to fact check anything our government excretes or at the very least- cite which massaging agency is the source of  the numbers they are using. They simply accept some BS number from some undisclosed agency and write a story.

Remember, this is the government which delivers the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports each month. Some of the most superb science fiction since Jules Verne and Kurt Vonnegut first put ink on paper.

This is an ABC news story I stumbled onto. I snipped the following quote directly from the article. "The US Treasury Department is seeking to borrow $444 billion in the current quarter. The latest estimate of borrowing plans for the January-March period would make this quarter the fifth highest for government borrowing. That's because of the very large budget deficit." Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/irs-delays-refunds-morning-business-memo-121816654--abc-news.html

Now here's a first paragraph snippet from Andrew Taylor of the Associated Press in a different story on the very same day. WASHINGTON (AP) — A new budget report released Tuesday predicts the U.S. government will run a $1.1 trillion deficit in the fiscal year that ends in September, a slight dip from last year but still very high by any measure.
Here is the original piece. http://news.yahoo.com/us-budget-deficit-dip-1-1t-152358458.html

So I scratched my head because a 444 billion loan translates into something more like a 1.8 trillion dollar annual deficit if extrapolated out.

Yet here is the AP piece telling us that this year's deficit for 2012 (I am assuming this is a Congressional Budget Office sourced article although most bloggers do a better job of quoting sources than Taylor does) is only going to be 1.1 trillion.

So which story numbers are bullshit? Hey wait! Didn't the government borrow money in the first quarter of the 2012 budget? How much was that? Well I'm glad you asked. From Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/12/federal-deficit-hits-322b-in-first-quarter-fiscal-2012-lower-than-previous-year/

So the gov borrowed 322 billion. Ok, let's see here. A paltry 322 billion + a slightly less paltry 444 billion this quarter equals 766 billion borrowed so far for the 2012 budget year. So the truth lies somewhere in between the extrapolated 1.8 trillion and Taylor's 1.1 trillion but it certainly appears that the deficit cannot be either of those two numbers.

Taylor will be correct if in fact the government- quite suddenly- only borrows 167 billion in each of the two remaining quarters of 2012. Or if bond yields stay low.

The interest on last year's (2011) debt alone was 463 billion. http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm

So people are confused by big numbers. They don't stop to think that a trillion is a thousand billion. Most folks probably think that a trillion is about how much Mitt Romney paid for one of his castles and a Range Rover. Or more accurately- they simply don't give a shit. When I see an article claiming that this year's 1.1 trillion dollar deficit is less than last year's- I get miffed. Not only is it presented like it is good news-  it is patent bullshit. You can't even get to the truth because writers don't cite specific sources and gawd knows Washington has about five different agencies spewing propaganda wildly differing numbers and projections. Then you have to try and figure out if borrowing is somehow offset by revenue or whether figures are actual or projected.

You know what? Maybe I'm too hard on writers like Taylor. Maybe he is just as confused as the rest of us. I think the government likes it that way. They'd probably hire Verne or Vonnegut and call them technical writers.

How The Elite Finance The Elite

Ever wonder why Congress and the President never change tax laws designed to enrich the elite at the expense of the middle class?

This is why. If you want Super Pac support you better not screw with them. The millionaires and billionaires behind Obama, Romney, and Gingrich. http://news.yahoo.com/super-pacs-set-disclose-big-donors-tuesday-065005955.html

It's a big club and you ain't in it.

Election Results Leaked...Too Funny Not To Repost

How Does The World Banking Oligarchy Blow Smoke Up Everyones' Ass and Get Away With It?

The answer, circa 1974.

The Secret of Success

I love the Bard of Murdock. A must read for me every day. More funny stuff here: http://www.thebardofmurdock.com/

Stimulating Stocks

Article link: Another Green Energy Stimulus Recipient Hits the Skids

I like investment services

And helping clients find

Investments that will grow their wealth,

And give them peace of mind.

I analyze stock dividends

And annual reports,

To find the perfect companies

To play with longs and shorts.

I then review their P&Ls

And comb their balance sheets,

To find a magic formula

Or pattern that repeats.

I’ve found the perfect indicant

That helps me to finesse

The shares of stock to buy and sell

With startling success.

A wise investor finds returns

By following the trail

Of grants and loans by government:

Those companies will fail.

So leverage every cent at hand

And short their common stock,

For if they’ve taken stimulus

Their failure is a lock.

Would Somebody, Somewhere, Please Write a Deus Ex Machina Ending for the Debt Crisis and Make It Go Away?

Day after day, week after week, month after miserable month...it's the European Debt Crisis. It simply won't go away and the people involved with trying to save the euro simply cannot accept that killing the euro and putting it out of it's misery is the only thing that makes any kind of sense.

Sometimes experiments just don't go well. Thomas Edison knew that. Thomas, like all great inventors, quit trying to force the things that did not work into working. Ultimately he tried new things until he either found something that worked- or he simply accepted that nothing would work. The problem went unsolved.  

The Europeans don't think like that. They keep trying to make something that doesn't work- work. And of course, like some macabre play- it just keeps getting worse and worse. It would be isolated and infinitely more comical if the implications for the U.S. weren't so dire.

People just don't realize it's one giant worldwide central banking scheme- and it's insolvent. Most people that is. There are those of us who do know that the greatest Ponzi scheme ever invented is almost over and we are busy hoarding precious metals and other essentials. Being called kooks.

So here's today's version of yesterday's, yesterweek's, yestermonth's, and yesteryear's news. http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/29/markets/eu_summit/index.htm

Here is my Deus Ex Machina solution for Europe. It goes like this. You are tucking in your child, 20 years from now. He has asked for a bedtime story. You are in a pissy mood so you grab a children's book and read him this.

Once upon a time, there were a bunch of different countries that used a bunch of different currencies. They thought it would be a swell idea to all use the same currency. Unfortunately, all of the countries had different cultures, different values, different governments, different economies, and different politicians. Many of the countries had serious debt concerns that they lied about and then later asked other countries to bail them out or they would be forced to abandon their shared currency. The countries with money starting demanding that the insolvent countries start living differently or they weren't getting any money. The broke countries told the rich countries to go pound sand.

Think about what happens when you loan relatives money and tell them what to do. 

This went on week after week, month after month, and year after year and then one day...the people of each of the bankrupt and insolvent countries found one thousand metric tons of gold on pallets which had been delivered to each of their capitol cities. Attached to the gold was a note from God. It said, "I am tired of you ding a lings trying to save this stupid currency. Every prayer, day after day, week after week, month after month. How much do you expect me to take? So here's some left over gold I had laying around. Please sell it to China and India. Save your stupid currency. I am running out of patience." Your truly, God.

And they all lived happily ever after.