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Once Every Twenty Thousand Years

This is how the lottery works:

Let us suppose that 1,000,000 of us put in a dollar each every week.
Then, every week, one of us wins the lottery and gets a million dollars.
If we do that long enough, the odds are that every one of us will win
the lottery once every 20,000 years.  With a little good luck, you might
win more often, and with a little bad luck, you might never win, but
if we play long enough, it will even out:  once every 20,000 years!

We won't actually win the whole million.  Someone will figure
the present value, and the future value, and make us an offer,
and keep the rest for overhead and expenses:  that sort of thing.
But let us not quibble.  Fifty of us will win every year.  Nine hundred
and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty will not.
We will be a buck poorer every week, but with a little luck, the odds are
that we will have our turn to win:  once every 20,000 years.

It is a marvelous system!  It gives us hope!  If we win, we will quit
our jobs immediately, without even going in to work, and we will
pay off our home mortgage and credit card balances and retire.
In about 20,000 years, unless it happens sooner, or later.

Lotteries require a lot of losers, and very few winners.

Well, what are the alternatives?  I suppose we could take
a million dollars a week and build some schools, or clinics.
Maybe clean up the lake and make a park.  Build a road.
Dig a well.  Start a ferry service over to the island, or find a way
to deliver the mail.  Start a retirement fund for the elderly.

We could call the buck a week, "a tax".  Everybody has to
chip in.  Pay their share, Do their part.  Share in the benefits.
Maybe a dollar a week would not do it.  We could talk about
that and maybe each chip in . . . oh, on the average, let us say . . .
about what we leave in tips at the restaurant:  maybe 18%.
Lordy!  With--let us say--seventy-five or a hundred dollars
a week, a million people could do a lot of good things.
A hundred million a week could fix up this place pretty good!
For almost everyone.

Someone should look into this "taxes" idea.  You know,
a fair tax.  People with a lot could pay more than most;
people just getting by could get a break.  It surely would be better
than hoping to win the lottery once every 20,000 years.

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