I'm assuming the $5000 is the winnings before taxes. After taxes, I'd imagine the winner would take home about $2700.

I'm also assuming that the $5000 is pre-tax, and that when taxes are finally paid, the person will walk away with considerably less. Lottery winnings are unearned income and are taxed at the higher levels. I'd expect a person winning $5000 would walk away with about $2700 in cash.

Anecdotal evidence at best. The notion of the "welfare queen" was popularized by Ronald Reagan, and now there will be a confirmation bias. Even if the parking lot were filled with people drawing welfare checks, it would still pale in comparison to the total number of people who need welfare checks. I'm not sure h...more

For one thing: freedom of speech means she can't face criminal charges by the government for what she says.   Secondly, a venue is free to cancel a tour as they see fit.

In the interest of full disclosure: I am an online media consumer. I subscribe to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu Plus. And I love all of them. Netflix has the better interface. It is easy & simple to find a movie on my Xbox 360 and call it up on my TV. Amazon Prime videos are harder to queue up, so I use it namely to ...more

Here's what I find strange: Republicans (typically) want driver's licenses to prove that people can vote, which to me is weird. Voting is a right (sorry, GOP, but there are several different amendments that expand the right to vote: for former slaves, for women, for people over 18...ergo, there is a right to vote); dri...more

The post office is in trouble because Congress requires that they must pre-fund 75 years' worth of pension. This was enacted by Congress in 2006 as part of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA) in a 10 year period of 2007 to 2016. So, in 10 years, the post office has to have 75 years of retiremen...more

In my opinion, banks are the same regardless whether they are local or national. Smaller, local banks may offer better packages when they first get started, but eventually they go away. Even local banks have shareholders. I got burned by a local bank when my "free" checking account ended. I could no longer park the ...more

I opened a savings account with NationsBank many, many years ago. I stuck with NationsBank and Bank of America for a long time. I even stuck with them when they changed the minimum amount needed for waiving fees from a monthly average to the average of the last 5 days of the ledger period (or something like that). B...more