Superbowl winner and Bill Gates are examples of people who represents the best at what they do. They EARNED the rewards. A lottery winner is just dumb luck.
Why stop at 400 Gabby? Why not 600 or 1000 or 1 million. See, this is what you don't understand. When you use some arbitrary number like 400, you will get people asking why just 400? This is the problem with all subsidies. For example, during the bailouts in 2008 it was suppose to be just a handful of banks. But in the end, everyone wanted a bailout. You can't just pick an arbitrary number Gabby. It just doesn't work that way. Everyone wants a piece.
Bill Gates and the suerpbowl winner have a lot of luck. Believe you me, sports is full of luck. One injury, one bad call by a ref, weather, etc. And don't even get me started on Bill Gates. The lottery winner is taking a risk. And he is getting paid appropriately for that risk. As someone pointed out earlier, you could buy all the possible combinations and still lose out of dumb luck. I honestly don't see the difference of someone buying a ticket and someone who bought shares of AAPL at $8 a share in 2003.
Everyone needs a couple of breaks now and then but to make $50 billion or to be the best football team that year is an accomplishment that requires an incredible amount of effort and skill. To compare that to picking a bunch of numbers. Cmon dude. Buying AAPL at $8 and then HOLDING it until $600. That takes something very special. And we talking about someone buying a lot of shares. Not 100 shares for sentimental reasons. Most people once they've do 3x, 4x even 10x their money, they sell. But holding until it's 75x, that takes something special.
You are making an argument about labor. I'm talking about risk to reward. Let me ask you something. Would you buy 10k worth of lottery tickets for this Friday? Why not? Scared of losing? Don't want to take "the risk"? Well, people get paid in this world not for their "labor" but for the "risks" they are willing to take.
I get it. Your mind can only work in absolutes. It streamlines the thinking process and minimizes the need for pesky judgment calls from time to time.
Okay, you convinced me with that contextually relevant and persuasive argument. I think you should buy 10k worth of lottery tickets.
I don't know what your point is on this one. $50 million or $450 million is pretty much the same to most Americans (same in the sense that either one is life-changing already). Most Americans buy a handful of tickets, anywhere from 1 to 15 tickets (totally guessing). Only the stat geeks (with money) that think they have an edge go crazy and try to "corner" the lottery.
And just like you in p&R, you never respond to people's questions. You work in absolutes far more then I do. I'm simply explaining to you that your argument has no practicality.