PBS Forum

Quote from: David Pilling on November 08, 2022, 05:09:35 PMAny return over $1 is OK with me.

The Powerball Lottery of November 7th had a grand prize of $2.040 billion.  After all taxes are paid by the Lottery administration, the payee receives a net amount of $997.6 million if he or she chooses the net amount.  The payee also has the option to receive the full $2.040 billion as an annuity which I think is paid out over 30 years.  In addition, 23 other people in various states won a total of $1 million, having matched five numbers. One ticket had a payout of $2 million.  225 tickets nationwide won a $50,000 prize and another 42 tickets won a $100,000 prize. Then there were numerous smaller payments.  The jackpot is the largest ever and the winner is the first person to become a billionaire by winning a lottery.  Amazing! IMO.

Was it mentioned that the owner of the gas station (if that's what it was) that sold the winning ticket gets a reward of $1 million from the Lottery?

Quote from: Bern on November 09, 2022, 11:53:16 AMAmazing! IMO.

Why is gambling amazing? Certainly in the case of the UK lottery, it is redistributing cash (I hesitate to suggest wealth) amongst the poor - it is a tax on the poor as they spend proportinally more on it, and not all stake money is given back as prizes (obviously).

The UK National Lottery has been running for 28 years. Not every winner makes their winnings known, but in that time I have met 2 people who have won more than a few £ - a neighbour won £40,000 and somebody at work won something over £100,000.

Quote from: Judy Glattstein on November 09, 2022, 06:34:27 PMWas it mentioned that the owner of the gas station (if that's what it was) that sold the winning ticket gets a reward of $1 million from the Lottery?

"Joseph "Papa Joe" Chahayed, 75, has been given $1 million of the $2.04 billion jackpot after he sold the winning ticket at Joes Service Station in Altadena, Calif. Per the lottery's rules, the retailer receives 0.5% of the jackpot, which is capped at $1 million." Fortune.com

Quote from: CG100 on November 10, 2022, 12:16:50 AMWhy is gambling amazing?

It's not that gambling is amazing. It's the sheer size of the winning jackpot that I find amazing. And your point about the poor spending proportionally more on it are spot on.

Actually, I do buy lottery tickets as Christmas presents for people who have it all - but from "Aktion Mensch", of whom I'm quite convinced that they do good things with the money. Their focus is inclusion of disabled persons and they also run a very good campaign showing that not the people are the problem, but places which were not designed mindfully. Until now, the returns were not impressive (maximum was 100€), but I don't feel the money was wasted.

Today is the Veteran's Day National Holiday in the USA. It is the only US National Holiday that will never be moved to give people a three day weekend, with the exception of July 4th - Independence Day. 

"On the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month, 1918, fighting in WWI officially stopped after Germany signed an armistice agreement with Allies earlier in the day."  Armistice Day in the UK and France. 

Volkstrauertag (German for "people's day of mourning") is a commemoration day in Germany two Sundays before the first day of Advent. It commemorates members of the armed forces of all nations and civilians who died in armed conflicts, to include victims of violent oppression.

Verdun, the Somme, Meuse–Argonne, Passchendaele, the Marne.........  Gernerals Haig, Foch, Pershing, Ludendorff, et al.

John McCrae has the final words.......

In Flanders Fields

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you, from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."

― John McCrae

I like the British way of honoring those who perished in Wars at their soccer games.  Moment of silence and then a bugle salute. Seems like the entire crowd observes the solemn day

Here's a image on my uncle's book  commemorating the surrender on the USS Missouri.  He was a gunners mate  on the ship.

Us Brits have two days to remember those killed in all conflicts to keep the rest of us free.

The silence is observed twice in most years - on Armistice Day - at 1100 on 11/11, and 1100 on Remembrance Sunday - usually the nearest Sunday to 11/11.

If you live near a garrison town you may hear a gun (howitzer or whatever) to mark the beginning and end of the silence on Sunday - I vividly remember them as I grew up in Colchester - a major UK garrison town and because my parents both lived through WW2, with my father serving in the army, both having lost friends, comrades and aquaintances, as most people did, not that it was ever mentioned as anything but casual and very brief comment.

Remembrance Sunday (not sure about weekday 11/11) is the only time that you will hear silence intentionally broadcast over UK radio/TV. EVERYTHING, everywhere, used to fall silent on the Sunday in past years, less so now.

Ah a classic date to describe the German schizophrenic nature, since 11:11 AM on November 11th also is the traditional start of Carneval.

And so close to the other German Schizophrenia Day on November 9th...

Sidenote: Most Forums develop such a meandering topic from time to time to host all side discussions, and are often establishing a name for it - I once had a Forum where it was plainly called "GüaM" -Gespräche über alles Mögliche -> Talk about anything possible. That older Forum software got sloppy after about 1000 posts in a topic, so that's when we started a new one - we ended up at GüaM Nr 101 after about 10 years when that forum was active....if we ever decide to put this one aside, I vote for an institutionalized version of it - and we should call it "The heated Greenhouse"

Quote from: Martin Bohnet on November 11, 2022, 11:20:09 PMI vote for an institutionalized version of it - and we should call it "The heated Greenhouse"

LLLOL
Vote 2 here.

Quote from: Martin Bohnet on November 11, 2022, 11:20:09 PMI vote for an institutionalized version of it - and we should call it "The heated Greenhouse"

How about "The Heated Greenhouse, Etc."?

Are you able to pay your utility bills with crypto currencies?  Can you pay to heat your greenhouse this winter with bitcoin?  I've seen that in the US there are some locations that will allow you to pay for gasoline for your auto with bitcoin. 

The collapse of the crypto exchange FTX Trading Ltd. and the evaporation of $16 billion of Sam Bankman-Fried's net worth happened with extraordinary rapidity.  Is crypto the ultimate in "financial" bubbles?  All of the other financial bubbles had some form of tangible assets to back them up - the stock market bubble, the bond bubble, the housing bubble, etc.  Heck, even the tulip bubble in the 1630s had actual tulip bulbs as assets.  Crypto to me is nothing but bits and bytes in computer memory.  Will the crypto implosion be known as the "nothing" bubble?

It was reported that Sam Bankman-Fried was going to flee to Argentina in his private jet to escape the criminal justice system and the civil lawsuits that will bedevil him now. Presumably, he must have some real assets in Argentina if he plans to live there.  Will he also have to change his name to an alias?  If so, I propose Sam Bankrupt-Fraud......

With a background in maths I have avoided crypto - because if you want to buy numbers I have lots to sell - integers, irrationals, transcendentals, numbers that have never been used before.

Watching football this season there have been adverts for crypto around the pitch, and it seems too sophisticated for a mass audience. I can't remember which crypto company it was - FTX maybe. In 1929 Joe Kennedy said he knew there was going to be trouble when his shoeshine boy gave him stock tips.

I can see that crypto is useful for payments - but as an investment for exponential capital gains I think not. The rapid fluctuations would make one avoid bitcoin for transactions. A huge amount of energy has been burnt generating bitcoins - hope they can do something useful with the numbers they have created.

I liked the line that "Bankman-Fried" was a name Dickens would have given a character. Last I heard he was selling his house in the Bahamas. The person now in charge of FTX was also responsible for clearing up the Enron disaster - name from the past. Financial disasters come and go (Madoff?).

I was interested to hear there are stable-crypto currencies pegged to the dollar etc. sounds more sensible.

You could definitely heat your greenhouse with a bitcoin miner. But unlike paper currency you can't burn them to stay warm.

Seems FTX is not anything to do with crypto, just an old fashioned fraud, except crypto does not have the level of regulation traditional banks have - because of 100s of years of problems with traditional banks.

Rarely I have seen bitcoin as a payment option, but only on exotic websites, not in real life like petrol stations or utilities.

Warren Buffet said crypto was "probably rat poison squared" - better to invest in a railroad.

There was at least one shop (now closed), that offered the opportunity to pay in bit-coin, in Ashby-de-la-Zouch - I believe that C19 saw it off, and I obviously have no idea how many bit-coins they accepted while trading.

Is a picture still worth a thousand words?