Unpopular Opinions You Hold

[The Bear]

7 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

The national lottery is not much different to corruption. It's a bad thing that does as much damage as the good it does for charity.

 

Essentially taking small amounts of money from millions to give it to one person (or group of people).

 

This week's lottery jackpot is £444m. How is giving all that money to one person a good thing, especially if they're someone with no financial nous.

 

Every week there will be families below the poverty line spending their last pounds, instead of buying a loaf of bread or a bit extra on decent meals. It could be them of course, but it almost certainly won't be.

 

Don't get me started on the people who run charities and make a very, very nice living.

 

NB, this isn't sour grapes, I've never played the lottery in my life.

I've said for years they should make a limit to each win and just make multiple winners. £10m is plenty for any person or couple to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. You could have 40 different winners of that this week. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

3 hours ago, The Bear said:

I've said for years they should make a limit to each win and just make multiple winners. £10m is plenty for any person or couple to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. You could have 40 different winners of that this week. 

Most people aren't going to earn £2 in their lifetime (if you're 40+ now, probably £1m), though having that much money up front means you could for instance buy a £500,000 house without spending the £750k that you'd likely pay in total from a mortgage.

 

There would be many other things that you could buy straight up that are often bought with finance: cars, a new kitchen, bedrooms and furniture, lavish tech.

 

It's ridiculous, but rich people in many ways pay less (tax is the obvious difference, though they also have greater means to avoid that (avoid, not evade)).

 

Because of the upfront money effect, I'd say £5m. Someone building themselves from nothing might well need to spend £10m to attain the same lifestyle.

 

Unless they wanted to live in London or similar of course. Having added that caveat, there are still places in the world that a few hundred k will buy you a very comfortable life.

Edited 7 August by Trav Le Bleu

[DJW1]

8 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

The national lottery is not much different to corruption. It's a bad thing that does as much damage as the good it does for charity.

 

Essentially taking small amounts of money from millions to give it to one person (or group of people).

 

This week's lottery jackpot is £444m. How is giving all that money to one person a good thing, especially if they're someone with no financial nous.

 

Every week there will be families below the poverty line spending their last pounds, instead of buying a loaf of bread or a bit extra on decent meals. It could be them of course, but it almost certainly won't be.

 

Don't get me started on the people who run charities and make a very, very nice living.

 

NB, this isn't sour grapes, I've never played the lottery in my life.

In one of his books, John O´Farrell likens the lottery to the Romans very occasionally granting freedom to a slave, in that both give the downtrodden masses a glimmer of hope that their lives might drastically improve (thereby reducing the chances of them rising up and killing their masters!).

 

Yes, it´s interesting what charities do with their money. The Charity Commission web site has interesting financial information on registered charities. For example, the Cats Protection charity has 6 employees who are paid more than 100 grand per year (although it receives nearly 100 million per year!)

[CornwallFox]

40 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Most people aren't going to earn £2 in their lifetime (if you're 40+ now, probably £1m), though having that much money up front means you could for instance buy a £500,000 house without spending the £750k that you'd likely pay in total from a mortgage.

 

There would be many other things that you could buy straight up that are often bought with finance: cars, a new kitchen, bedrooms and furniture, lavish tech.

 

It's ridiculous, but rich people in many ways pay less (tax is the obvious difference, though they also have greater means to avoid that (avoid, not evade)).

 

Because of the upfront money effect, I'd say £5. Someone building themselves from nothing might well need to spend £10m to attain the same lifestyle.

 

Unless the wanted to live in London or similar of course. Having added that caveat, there are still places in the world that a few hundred k will buy you a very comfortable life.

Rich people don't 'in many ways' pay less tax. They pay a lot less tax. The very very rich.

[Parafox]

8 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

The national lottery is not much different to corruption. It's a bad thing that does as much damage as the good it does for charity.

 

Essentially taking small amounts of money from millions to give it to one person (or group of people).

 

This week's lottery jackpot is £444m. How is giving all that money to one person a good thing, especially if they're someone with no financial nous.

 

Every week there will be families below the poverty line spending their last pounds, instead of buying a loaf of bread or a bit extra on decent meals. It could be them of course, but it almost certainly won't be.

 

Don't get me started on the people who run charities and make a very, very nice living.

 

NB, this isn't sour grapes, I've never played the lottery in my life.

The UK air ambulance charity, in all it's forms currently makes around 150 to 200 million pounds per year. There's no shareholders as such but there are beneficiaries in terms of board of directors, heads of fundraising etc who get well paid.

 

Worldwide charities like Unicef, Red Cross etc make vast fortunes and yes, that money does get spent on the causes they support but all charities have some kind of executive board members across all the areas the operate in and they do get paid well.

I imagine that, without such people who are often quite prominent in many organisations and very experienced in what they do, the charities, like any other large organisation, would be less successful.

Edited 7 August by Parafox

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, CornwallFox said:

Rich people don't 'in many ways' pay less tax. They pay a lot less tax. The very very rich.

Did you notice the open bracket between less and tax?

[Nalis]

Just Giving. 

 

They charge people collecting money and guilt trip people donating in giving money to them as well as the original donation.

 

Always change the suggested donation to the Just Giving platform to zero.The CEO of the parent company earned $10.2 million last year.

Edited 7 August by Nalis

[CornwallFox]

39 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Did you notice the open bracket between less and tax?

I did. I was adding to, not arguing.

[Sampson]

4 hours ago, The Bear said:

I've said for years they should make a limit to each win and just make multiple winners. £10m is plenty for any person or couple to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. You could have 40 different winners of that this week. 

Wasn't that the point of the Thunderball back in the day? It was slightly less unlikely to win and would be around £700k jackpot instead, which is still lifechanging money for anyone.

[The Bear]

45 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Wasn't that the point of the Thunderball back in the day? It was slightly less unlikely to win and would be around £700k jackpot instead, which is still lifechanging money for anyone.

Lifechanging is probably overdoing it. It's a massive sum of money for most people but you can't exactly retire at 30 with it.

 

Plus if you want to buy a good sized house nowadays you're looking at the thick end of that entire amount. 

 

£750k for me would instantly be put into investments that paid dividends and compounded itself. That would quickly snowball into a retirable amount. 

[Doozer]

The eclipse was a bit underwhelming...

[FoyleFox]

1 hour ago, Doozer said:

The eclipse was underwhelming...

Edited.

[bovril]

3 hours ago, Doozer said:

The eclipse was a bit underwhelming...

Was having an early dinner about 7 ish, felt like the sun had set quicker than usual, wandered into the living room after eating and it just looked the same as usual 

[Voll Blau]

The government alert wasn't that scary.

[Muzzy_no7]

8 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

The government alert wasn't that scary.

I thought it was my Fridge Freezer telling me off again at first 😂

[when_you're_smiling]

17 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

The government alert wasn't that scary.

I was driving on the motorway. About shat myself.

[Voll Blau]

8 hours ago, when_you're_smiling said:

I was driving on the motorway. About shat myself.

Yeah, that wouldn't be ideal.

[ozleicester]

bloody communists  

[Grebfromgrebland]

12 hours ago, Voll Blau said:

The government alert wasn't that scary.

No but really annoying when you're watching a show at the Curve! 

[foxy tiler]

All superhero movies are unoriginal and lazy film making.

[leicsmac]

Florence Griffith-Joyner, when she set the 100m WR that stands to this day, was a drugs cheat who was smart and/or well-connected not to get caught.

 

That others have barely come close in the nearly 40 years since and the amount of other athletes busted for PED use around that time makes it obvious, but not proven, IMO.

[Otis]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

Florence Griffith-Joyner, when she set the 100m WR that stands to this day, was a drugs cheat who was smart and/or well-connected not to get caught.

 

That others have barely come close in the nearly 40 years since and the amount of other athletes busted for PED use around that time makes it obvious, but not proven, IMO.

Possible, Wikipedia has the following note regarding the WR:

 

It is widely believed that the anemometer was faulty for the race in which Griffith Joyner set this record.^[72] A 1995 report commissioned by the IAAF estimated the true wind speed was between +5.0 m/s and +7.0 m/s, rather than the ±0.0 m/s recorded.^[72] If this time, recorded in the quarter-final of the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials, were excluded, the world record (until the 10.54 recorded by Elaine Thompson-Herah on August 21, 2021) would have been 10.61 s, also by Griffith Joyner, recorded the next day at the same venue in the final.^[72][73] 

 

[leicsmac]

8 minutes ago, Otis said:

Possible, Wikipedia has the following note regarding the WR:

 

It is widely believed that the anemometer was faulty for the race in which Griffith Joyner set this record.^[72] A 1995 report commissioned by the IAAF estimated the true wind speed was between +5.0 m/s and +7.0 m/s, rather than the ±0.0 m/s recorded.^[72] If this time, recorded in the quarter-final of the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials, were excluded, the world record (until the 10.54 recorded by Elaine Thompson-Herah on August 21, 2021) would have been 10.61 s, also by Griffith Joyner, recorded the next day at the same venue in the final.^[72][73] 

 

Appreciate the extra info. 

 

I guess because they can't prove the anemometer was faulty they can't invalidate the record for that reason, either. 

 

It'll likely never be proven any way or the other, but for me her performance records in the year she broke the WR, as well as her abrupt retirement, tells its own story.

[Sampson]

I'd be very surprised if all semi-professional and professional athletes didn't use PEDs to some extent - maybe not outright banned stuff, but I'd very surprised if they didn't all use loopholes, grey area stuff and push the boundaries of what is within the rules to its very limits and I can't imagine there's *that* much difference in using them compared to banned stuff, Other people would be using them so it makes sense you have to use them to keep up.

[DEMANN]

I think you should only be classed as a comedian if you tell jokes - proper joke jokes - the type of jokes someone like Tim Vine tells (although I don’t like him because his delivery is crap imo). The ones that just tell anecdotes should be called something else.

Edited 27 August by DEMANN