Category: Money Matters
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The Demise of the Dollar
An important article by Robert Fisk in the The Independent. (HT: Seldom Seen Slim) Frugal bastards like me, who live according to the old virtues, play by the rules, are totally debt-free, save and invest, exercise 'due diligence' across the board — we are now going to get the shaft through no fault of our…
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I Must Not be a Serious Blogger
On the Typepad start-up page, there is the following come-on: Are You a Serious Blogger? Prove it. Put ads on your blog to get paid for your hard work and give it a more professional look. The underlying assumption is curious: an activity is serious if it makes make money and because it makes money;…
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The Fiscal Irresponsibility of Liberals in the United States of Ponzi
Paul Krugman as case in point, here: There’s been some hysteria about the administration’s new estimate that the cumulative deficit will be $9 trillion over the next decade. Don’t get me wrong: this is bad. But it’s being treated as an inconceivable sum, far beyond anything that could possibly be handled. And it isn’t. What…
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Advertising and the Lure of the Lucre
I received an e-mail from a fellow who offered me $35 to run an ad on the alcohol, tobacco, and firearms page of this site for a alcoholism/drug addiction resource. I declined the offer for the same reason I don't display any money-making gimmicks such as 'tip jars.' The work I do on this site…
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Work, Money, Living and Livelihood
Prevalent attitudes toward work and money are curious. People tend to value work in terms of money: an occupation has value if and only if it makes money, and the measure of its value is how much money it makes. If what you do makes money, then it has value regardless of what it is…
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A Further Thought on State-Run Lotteries: The Morality of Accepting a Payout
In Good Societies and Good Lives I argued against the morality of state-run lotteries. Now let's consider the morality of accepting a payout. Suppose you win big, in the millions. Chances are excellent that this will ruin you for the rest of your life, but that is not my present point. Suppose you can handle…
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The Irrationality of Playing the Lottery
I have posted several times over the years on the irrationality of playing the lottery and on the immorality of state sponsorship and promotion (via deceptive advertising) of lotteries. The following e-mail, however, raises an interesting question that gives me pause: As I was reading this story of an impoverished young rancher who won $88 million net…
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Good Societies and Good Lives: On State-Run Lotteries
Good societies are those that make it easy to live good lives. A society that erects numerous obstacles to good living, however, cannot count as a good society. By this criterion, present day American society cannot be considered good. It has too many institutionalized features that impede human flourishing. Here I discuss just one such…
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On Tipping
Here, in no particular order, are my maxims concerning the practice of tipping. 1. He who is too cheap to leave a tip in a restaurant should cook for himself. That being said, there is no legal obligation to tip, nor should there be. Is there a moral obligation? Perhaps. Rather than argue that there…
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Taxation and Liberty
On 17 April I wrote: Taxation, then, is a liberty issue before it is a 'green eyeshade' issue: the more the government takes, the less concrete liberty you have. Without money you can't get your kids out of a shitty public school system that liberals have destroyed with their tolerate-anything mentality; without money you cannot…
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Their Name Says it All
Checkmate Payday Loans. Avail yourself of this 'service' and you are well on your way to financial checkmate.
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The Lottery Player
The lottery player, unable to think clearly about money, both overvalues and undervalues it. He overvalues it inasmuch as he thinks that a big win would be a wonderful thing even though it would probably not be, and won't occur in any case for the vast majority of players. There are plenty of examples, some…