absherwin · HackerTrans

4 năm trướcdiscuss

Increasing payouts should bring more players though it would be offset by eliminating the advertising that currently consumes some of that revenue. Flattening jackpots would have a negative effect but we just need to optimize for being above the point at which there's competition instead of maximizing lottery revenue.

absherwin

4 năm trướcdiscuss

If we assume the main problem with lotteries is that they make some people poorer, we need to solve two things: The payout being less than the cost due to both high overhead and transfers and the payouts tending to concentrate wealth since even in a lifetime of play few win the largest jackpots.

One can't make them too flat because consumers like large jackpots which is why they've grown over time and become harder to win. Presumably there's a level below which consumers would switch to other types of gambling regardless of legality.

absherwin

4 năm trướcdiscuss

There's a simple answer: Offer a lottery with a high payout rate and flatten jackpots to the extent they don't cause a shift into other worse sorts of gambling. The total amount of money transferred to support government programs makes up less than 0.5% of total government revenue; it's trivially replaceable.

absherwin

4 năm trướcdiscuss

These criteria are such a low bar that merely stating them upfront would have changed the discussion last week.

I wonder if these were the original criteria or if this is a partial walk back. The SBA usually defines a small business as having less than 500 employees even if it has significant revenue.

If I had been asked to guess the criteria based on the initial announcement, I would have guessed 500 employees, $100MM in revenue, or $5MM in money raised with some exceptions for top-tier investors or other judgmental criteria.

absherwin

5 năm trướcdiscuss

That’s true for most adjustments. Buffett also suggests investors ignore income statement effects of marking securities to market.

“I must first tell you about a new accounting rule – a generally accepted accounting principle (GAAP) – that in future quarterly and annual reports will severely distort Berkshire’s net income figures and very often mislead commentators and investors. The new rule says that the net change in unrealized investment gains and losses in stocks we hold must be included in all net income figures we report to you. That requirement will produce some truly wild and capricious swings in our GAAP bottom-line.” https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2017ar/2017ar.pdf

absherwin

5 năm trướcdiscuss

The most significant adjustment was excluding a $3.2B writedown of the value of their stake in Didi

comments