[dpark]

> My further implication is that it isn't for the most part because society is keeping them down.

There are many reasons why the poor tend to stay poor. For the most part, society does not actively “keep them down” but we are certainly structured in a way that makes it hard for impoverished individuals to climb up. The notion of saving money is foreign when you can’t even pay all of your bills.

The retreat to lottery tickets is an escape, not an investment strategy. And as already pointed out, while lottery revenues are disproportionately drawn from the poor, this does not mean all poor people are buying lottery tickets. Someone poor buying 2500/year of lottery tickets is not the norm.

> my example was based on real results

Fair. I didn’t realize you were actually using the actual last 10 years of the S&P500.

> My comments about the character traits of the poor only apply to the latter.

And I argue that this is reductionist. No different than someone who insists that the poor are only poor because the man is keeping them down. It is a multifaceted problem.