Guy wins lottery, buys 3 vipers, gambling addiction... sad stuff

[Epro]

Long time no post...

I was reading the newspaper this morning and found an article that made me sick. The guy wins the lottery and buys a brand new Viper. In Canada Vipers near new cost about 110,000 dollars, He buys 3 of them (All SRTs I think, It said he bought a silver, red, and a black one.) He buys a Plymouth Prowler, Cadillac Eldorado, Buick "something". This'd be ok if the guy wasn't an impulse buyer and a gambler and constantly giving money away to friends. Guess what happenend? He lost all of it over time, and got in over his head in debt... So what's he drive now? A mountain bike...He blames himself, and the VLTs... I don't know how much he won, but in 6 years, he blew it all...

Point of this post... None really.

 

[AllBlack]

I think that was in Alberta, I read it too. hahahaha

 

[InjectTheVenom]

I think that was in Alberta, I read it too. hahahaha

If that is so I saw a silver SRT-10 during my summer holiday spent with my aunt in Calgary... I wonder if that was one of those Vipers ... it was driving into the sunset heading out of Calgary towards Banff, that was such a beautiful sight *drools again because of remembrance *

 

[Epro]

It says it was in Moosejaw. I think that's in Nova Scotia?

 

[Epro]

Found this

July 29, 2002.
A story in the weekend National Post about a Saskatchewan man who won the lottery, only to fritter it away as quickly as he won it, is a nearly perfect metaphor for Saskatchewan itself. "Jeff Clark won two lotteries in 30 months worth a total of $3 million. Now, after six years of gambling and bad luck, there's not much left."
He bought himself a black Dodge Viper in January of 1996 for $105,000 (then later, red and silver ones), "which is pretty much all he has got to show now from his big win. In 1996, Jeff Clark was catapulted into celebrity status in Moose Jaw when he nailed the 6/49 lottery and then, 30 months later, did it again--$3 million in total." He reasoned at the time that by simple virtue of the number of tickets that he bought, his gambling "had to pay off." One could draw the parallel between Saskatchewan farmers and inveterate gamblers, too; eventually, it has to rain and a bumper crop will be had by all. But I won't make that comparison.
Like many other lottery winners--such as political hangers on whose candidate finally ascends to elected office, from where patronage can be doled out to the faithful, or like unionized public sector unions who finally can 'bargain' for higher wages and less work with a more sympathetic 'management' team--Mr. Clark "quit his job. He gave a bundle (about $300,000 he says) to members of his family. He went by the Bun and Bottle store and gave a cheque for $3,500 to 'Lucky Mira,' the girl who sold him his ticket. He piled 11 of his closest friends into his van and took them to Saskatoon for an AC/DC concert, providing spending money and picking up the tab, to the tune of $23,000. He bought the first of his three Vipers and took off to Edmonton with a friend to see a hockey game." The only difference is that at least Clark was using his own money, unlike government officials who go on spending sprees with the taxpayer's money.
"He bought a house in one of the snazzy neighbourhoods. Businessmen, doctors and lawyers who wouldn't have given him the time of day six months earlier were happy to be seen playing golf with him." Or in Saskatchewan's case, people who didn't even vote for the Progressive Conservative Party under Grant Devine in 1982 were soon lining up to be Devine's friend--thanks to his handing out low interest rate loans to farmers (when he wasn't giving them outright handouts that he arranged through an infamous phone call to Prime Minister Mulroney), 'home improvement' and hot tub grants to homeowners (which attracted friends like the construction workers from other parts of Canada who rushed to do the work that was being paid for by the government), and hospitals in ridings held by the PC party of else being closely contested by the PC party.
Despite his good fortune, however, Clark said that "I felt good for about a year and a half, but it didn't hold, because I didn't achieve it in the way I wanted to, which would have been through professional sports."
Or in Saskatchewan's case, the perpetual depression that afflicts this province stems from the fact that it has been unable to realize its goal of creating a socialist utopia. Instead of being able to do it its own way, Saskatchewan has had to depend upon a capitalist system--which most people here view as being akin to a lottery--for the wealth it wants redistributed. But at least Clark had a hint of ambition, wanting to be a professional ball player; the majority of Saskatchewan people's ambition is to get a job with the government.
The story continues, "and now he had the time and the means to pursue his gambling more vigorously than ever before. He kept buying lottery tickets, although he now treated it as if it were an investment portfolio."
Or in Saskatchewan's case, once Tommy Douglas won the election in 1944, once he had the power he vigorously pursued his dream of socialized medicine. Or when Premier Alan Blakeney nationalized the potash industry in the 1970s--he saw the rising price of wheat and land and figured that by having the source of the world's fertilizer beneath his feet, he could pursue his goal of governmental control of the means of production via the "Family of Crown Corporations" and the Land Bank.
Like Clark, whose "wealth" was the result of a fluke, so was the wealth of Saskatchewan under the NDP a fluke. Rising commodity prices were a fluke of the inflation of the 1970s, and the money coming into Saskatchewan was not the result of people suddenly developing an affection for socialism, it was the result of the devaluation of paper currencies--having to pay 2 for what 1 used to buy. Like Clark, who 'invested' in fancy cars, the NDP invested in an unsustainable expansion of government (and the bureaucratic class who would undoubtedly vote to keep their jobs).
Eager to keep up the appearance that he was doing well, Clark "sold his house, told people he might move west to the mountains. What he told hardly anybody was that for the next few months he curled up many a night to sleep in the back of his old van."
Or in the case of the Saskatchewan NDP, who wanted to keep up the appearance of fiscal responsibility, they sold their shares in Cameco in order to raise the money to achieve a "balanced budget." And to this very day, they insist that their Information Services Corporation--charged with computerizing the land titles for the province--is in good shape, even though the government had to just hand over $8 million so that ISC could turn around and hand it back as a 'royalty' to the government.
"I'm not broke," Clark insists. Neither is Saskatchewan, who continued to gamble on the promise of eventual socialist utopia but now finds itself with a measly $48,000 surplus in the government books.
Despite the similarities noted above, the nail is hit squarely on the head towards the end of the report, when the Post reporter writes, "the public's attitude toward lottery winners is ambivalent. Perhaps its envy. We don't think they've earned it and begrudge the matter of luck."
This is precisely the argument put forth by the NDP when comparisons to Alberta's economic performance are brought up as an argument against Big Government. Whether it is Tommy Douglas or Alan Blakeney or Roy Romanow or Lorne Calvert, they attribute any success Alberta has to the fact that Alberta got "lucky" by having rich oil deposits. Never mind that the oil would have remained in the ground had it not been for successive Alberta governments inviting foreign investment into the province to develop the resource. Never mind that, until the early 1940s, Saskatchewan had been the destination for immigrants and investment--the election of Tommy Douglas ended that. Never mind the fact that Alberta took the initiative to diversify its economy so that it isn't completely dependent upon the weather or world commodity prices.
Of course you have a better chance of winning the lottery than of convincing Saskatchewan residents of this.

http://members.shaw.ca/supplysider/lottery.htm

 

[InjectTheVenom]

Yeah, Saskatchewan is very close to where my aunt lives.