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The media is all agog about the largest powerball jackpot ever. One person said it was only justice that the winner was in one of the poorest states. Even if it had not gone to one of the richest people in the state, that kind of prize really sickens me.
I will admit that I went through a phase where I played the powerball twice a week, which is as often as possible. Playing that game was my admission that I cannot make it as a worker, that I cannot be happy in this country without enough money to buy my freedom.
It is only partly about the money. Back when I was riding the good job train, my employers promised me a promotion every year for three years. At that point I would be a GS-12, und only get step increases until I could get to the management level. That was supposed to be incentive for me to keep the job instead of going into the more lucrative private sector.
However, since I was saving $800 a month, I really was not motivated by more money. What I wanted was more free time. Logically, the more money I make per hour, the less I need to work to meet my needs.
Only the system does not work that way, und I discovered that after I jumped off the good job train, that it was hard to get back on, even, or perhaps especially, with seven years of university education.
I expect that lots of people would like to win a million dollars, so they could tell their bosses to "take this job und shove it." For some people, I know, a million dollars would not be enough, but for alot of us, it would be more than enough. My current income guaranteed for the next 20 years would be $250,000 so I would be quite happy with half of that.
Which is why I hate the large powerball jackpots. I would rather see 300 people win a million dollars each, instead of one person winning $300 million, or why not 1200 people each making $250,000? Spread the happiness around. But that is not the American way. The American way is for a few people to have much more than they need, while many millions of people have much less than they need.
A few months ago, powerball changed their game, to make the jackpots bigger. That sounds like a good thing, unless you know that they did so by making it harder to win. Back when I was playing it, there were from 4 to 10 people in each drawing who won $100,000. I was hoping to be one of them someday. When powerball changed, they produced fewer winners at all levels - fewer jackpot winners, fewer $100,000 winners, fewer $5,000 winners, even fewer $3 winners. That is the new American way, we create one big winner at the expense of alot of losers.
They sell more tickets when the prize is bigger, which is strange to me. That some people won't buy a ticket to win a mere $18 million, but they will for $180 million. I can't picture people saying "the prize is only $18 million, why bother?" but that is how they act.
They also get more publicity when the prize is bigger. A $300 million winner is a big story. It is harder, if not impossible, to do a story on the people who would have won $5,000 or $100,000 or $25 million if they had not changed the way the game is played. But they still exist, as do the social implications. One person gets to buy a helicopter, while hundreds of people do not get to buy cars, or pay off their houses, or go on vacations, or send their kids to college, etc. One person's win means society's loss.
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