Actually, it’s been buzzing around my head like a coked-up bee…
As for that greatest hits cover: I think that I’ve played at least two-thirds of all those songs — that I can remember.
Latest Posts
Strategy Change
Well, why not?
A majority of idiots in Gen Z have moved money out of investments and into a sports betting account. Twenty-six percent of Gen Z say “they treat sports betting as a deliberate, ongoing component of their financial plans,” according to a Bloomberg report.
Nothing like “fair and balanced reporting”, is there? (I know, it’s Breitbart and not Fox News, but you get my drift.)
That 26 percent compares to 14 percent of Millennials, just six percent of Generation X, and one percent of Boomers.
“Sports betting is increasingly competing with traditional investing for younger Americans’ attention,” adds Bloomberg, “with more than a quarter of Gen Z investors saying they see gambling on sports as part of their long-term financial strategy.”
Gambling as a “long-term strategy.” The stupid; it hurts.
But let’s look at this whole thing from another angle.
The thing about sports betting is that if you take it seriously and look at the stats (as opposed to picking a horse because its name reminds you of yer Mum), there’s little difference between that and, say, playing the stock market. Oh wait, those are serious investment vehicles. [eyecross]
And let’s be honest: how many times have you seen one of those silly games where darts thrown into a random chart of stocks have yielded better results than those picked by analysts? (I would love to see some kind of comparison of long-term results from the darts vs. the analysts, played each day, week or month over a twenty-five year period.)
Pro tip: it’s all gambling. Whether it’s a horse crossing the line first (at 27-1 odds) or GlobalMegaCorp Inc.’s share price doubling over the next six months, who can say? Even better: who’s not going to make money over the result of the next Dallas Cowboys game by picking the other team?
The only way people are going to consistently lose money on sports betting is when they start playing the minutiae: points spreads, yardages, number of times Caitlin Clark is going to draw a flagrant foul for the rest of the WNBA season, etc. (In the stock market, those kinds of bets I mean investments are called “puts”, and while the rewards can be astonishing, mostly it’s just the old “dropping dollars down a drain” situation.)
Rule of thumb: the more complex the bet, the more likely you’re going to lose.
But I digress. I have no problem with a small segment of Da Yoot trying a different way to increase their moolah. I’m more interested in why they’re doing it, but not that interested, any more than I’m interested in why people still go to casinos, or why they bet on which raindrop reaches the bottom of the windowpane first.
Or whether Whizzbang Technologies’ IPO will yield 45% growth of stock value on the first day’s call.
I should point out that in my own yoot, I once got suckered into a golf game called “Yardbucks”, in which each yard of the golf course was worth a yard: lose a 375-yard hole, and you’re down $375. (There are typically more than 6,000 yards in an average golf course.)
I ended up losing only $15, and I only managed to lose that little because I won the last hole, a par-five 568-yard monster by fluking a 15-yard putt.
More to the point, I think I sweated out well over a gallon in those four hours, and I’m pretty sure I did lasting damage to my heart. I’ve never gambled on golf, or any other sport since.
This Week’s Wallpaper
From the brush of Alan Fearnley:
…and I can’t help but think that when they get up to leave, that little MG Roadster isn’t going to start and they’ll be stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Every picture tells a story. What’s yours?
Caption Competition #457
Your suggestions in Comments.
Defining Marxism
…wherein two of my favorite commenters on the planet (Mike Rowe and Bill Whittle) talk about this issue. What amuses me is that Rowe plays a little devil’s advocate up front, and Bill of course does his usual incisive rapier job.
Get yourself a cuppa, and settle back.
And a couple of the articles below this one will make a great deal of sense.
Theft
Of course, the foundation policy of all Marxist policymakers and politicians is to punish the rich. So nobody should be surprised that Hizzoner Comrade Mamdani of NYfC has a plan to tax residences in Manhattan that are adjudged to be non-primary — i.e. the so-called pied-à-terre dwellings of those people who need a place to doss down during the week before fleeing to their houses in Lawn Guyland or Scawsdale for the weekend.
To my surprise, this little smash ‘n grab tax thievery has had its peepee severely whacked by a judge:
Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Wayne Ozzi issued a temporary restraining order effectively prohibiting any action on the luxury second home tax until an August 31 hearing on a lawsuit filed by three disgruntled homeowners.
Ozzi also hit out at Mamdani’s decision to release a list of the homeowners who could potentially be hit by the tax, many of whom were sent notices warning they would be liable unless they filed an exemption.
‘No law permitted or required the City to publish such a list of the names, addresses and property values of more than 900,000 New York City homeowners, or to publicize that list through an irregular, mid-year publication,’ Ozzi wrote in his decision.
‘[The judgment] annuls and vacates [the] city’s mailed notices, and any determination that such mailed notices constitute proper notice under tax law.’
He added that city officials should have conducted an ‘individualized statutorily-required initial determination’ before issuing the notices to homeowners, so as to not place the burden on the property owners.
The judge then barred city officials from taking any further action on the 17,000 notices sent by the Department of Finance, which warned they would face a five-figure tax bill unless they requested an exemption.
Hubba hubba. For once, a New York judge got it right.
Sadly, it’s not going to end there, because the Marxists’ ravenous appetite to punish the wealthy and successful knows no bounds — even legal ones like this one — and at some point in the future, sure as sugar, those taxes will be imposed.
While I hate Marxists with a passion, especially when they engage in theft of this nature, I have to suspect that among those 900,000 unfortunate people are an awful lot — 50%? 60%? — who can be reliably counted on to vote Democrat in their elections, because New York. So in this case, they’re getting what they voted for, good and hard.
And I’m not sympathetic.