Hmmm.

[telophase]

So I'm watching "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" because there's absolutely nothing else on TV, and they're "renovating"* a house for a family with a child with cancer. The family had purchased the house as a fixer-upper, but then had to spend the money on medical bills.

...And as the show rebuilds the house and gives them a Disney resort vacation and keeps giving them more and more stuff, the cynical part of me wondering how long it's going to be before the family declares bankruptcy because they can't afford the medical bills and the taxes on this. Somehow I don't think that applying for this show was the best financial decision they ever made.



* Rebuilding. Not renovating. They took it down to the foundations and are starting over.

ETA: Ah-ha-ha: Disney giving winners dubious tax advice. And more articles.

Comments

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Is this the part where I pretend to be surprised? :D

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

I often wonder about taxes on that show. I remember one I saw where the family had eight or so kids, and they built a house with a separate room for all of them. It was huge. The family seemed genuinely thrilled, but I kept thinking of what the house must be worth and worrying that they wouldn't be able to pay the taxes with just the father's salary. (I'm also often skeptical of the quality of the workmanship, but that's a separate rant.)

[madame-manga.livejournal.com]

Just about all those TV extravaganzas -- makeovers, contests, dream houses -- strike me as a bad deal for the "winners". Something like the state lottery. :P All the producers care about is how it looks for the cameras before they pack up and go, and anyone who doesn't realize that isn't thinking very hard. I remember looking at some website full of rants by people disgruntled by how "Trading Spaces" trashed their houses and possessions, and all I could think was, "What the hell did you expect?" As my daddy always said, if it sounds too good to be true, that's exactly what it is. But no one ever went bankrupt overestimating the willingness of most people to give in to irrational greed.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I listened to ... probably This American Life or a similar show on podcast that interviewed a guy who, before the states started offering the lump-sum option, worked for a company that bought lottery winners' annual payments for a lump sum. He said that for some reason, lots of lottery winners opened restaurants despite knowing nothing about the business. And that so many of them were in financial trouble because they didn't understand that the payments only equaled something like 30K a year post-tax, and they started living like they were getting 100K a year.

I always figured that if I won the lottery - and as I don't bother to buy lottery tickets, my chances are only slightly less than of anyone who buys tickets - I'd go to a financial adviser before picking it up, and take the lump sum, because with judicious investing I could probably make more money in the 20 years than I'd make with the annual payments. Well, first I'd pay off my student loans, and then I'd invest most of the rest. XD

[madame-manga.livejournal.com]

I've broken exactly even on the lottery -- many years ago I got a free scratcher ticket from a store, and I won five bucks. I took the five bucks in lottery tickets. Easy come, easy go!

Yeah, foresight, basic math skills and habitual lottery-playing don't usually go together. My father-in-law calls it "the stupidity tax". :D But I hear the best course of action is to A. claim the prize anonymously and tell *no one*, especially not close friends and family, that you've won, and B. do absolutely nothing whatsoever with the money for at least three months, no matter what. Which would take a cold heart and an iron will, which also don't go with a gambler's personality.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I've probably spent slightly more than I've won, but that's because it's a tradition with Mom and I to give each other lottery tickets for Christmas as stocking-stuffers. XD

I don't know if I could restrain myself from paying off my student loans for three months, but I think I could hold off on everything else if I needed to. :D

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Wow, the idea of the tax stuff never occurred to me. But I am a) not a home owner and b) Canadian - we don't pay taxes on lottery winnings.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Icon love!

(From another Canadian, who seems to have misplaced own Canada icon, dangit...)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It came to my attention way back when the game show Wheel of Fortune was still giving away items instead of money as prizes, and I came across an article by a former contestant that explained how much the winners had to pay in taxes on it, and how they'd be better off taking the cash instead of the vacations and cars and home appliances.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Once while flipping through channels I came across an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. They were going on about how the family deserved all new furniture, and they moved ALL their old (possibly outdated but still very functional) furniture out into the middle of the street in a gigantic pile, and ran over it repeatedly with a giant monster truck until it was splinters and rags.

At the time I finally had cable tv because Tav and I were just barely getting past 7 or so years of living below the poverty level on my social assistance and his student loans and four part time jobs, and we'd been scraping what little we had to buy ALL our clothing (except some underwear and socks) and furnishings and housewares from thrift stores that resold donated goods. It made me so angry and depressed I felt physically ill, and full of despair for the world that would take such joy in needless destruction of what was desperately needed by so many other people.

For the good of my health, I avoid that show like the plague. Ugh.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It's a consumer blitz: they advertise the hell out of all the companies that (donate? sell at a ridiculous discount?) stuff to the houses, and give people plasma TVs and stuff. I don't like the idea that because you're going through hard times you somehow deserve plasma TVs and stainless steel appliances and 20-foot ceilings. I'm certainly as materialistic as they come but that is way too much for me.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

That show makes me grind my teeth.
It's so self-congratulatory.
Lookit what WE'RE DOING for these POOR, DESPERATE, DESERVING PEOPLE!
US! Lookit US! OH NOW WE'RE DOING EVEN MORE!
*flashes a montage or heart-wrenching interview designed to make you cry*

Ugh. JUST BLOODY DO IT and stop patting yourselves on the back!

Shows like this are designed to make you think there is hope in the world; which isn't a bad thing, but the money they waste on shows like this could be put into social programs that would help more people than just one family.

Plus, it reinforces the idea that living in a large house with brand-new stuff is something EVERYONE DESERVES DAMMIT! How grossly consumerist.

[celestriad.livejournal.com]

yeah, i wondered about the property tax thing myself. even if they make them nice energy-efficient houses that don't take tons of money to heat and cool (because the houses they make always seem to be huge in that show).

[droiche.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That reminds me of radio station contests and such that offer up a new car as a grand prize. My first thought is always, "How much is the insurance going to cost on that thing?"

When I won $2,500 USD in Mesquite, Nevada, the casino gave me a tax form to give to H&R Block, but the H&R Block consultant said my winnings were too small to be taxed. *Whew*

Nope. People don't stop and think about practical things like taxes, insurance, and legal issues when they buy into big money and fancy toy prizes/offers.


Betcha anything the folks who get helped by these makeover shows have to sign a liability waiver that prevents them from suing the show's studio et al for damages.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I read somewhere that those, and the Win A Dream House contests and stuff legally had to have cash equivalents available, and that most people took the cash instead, which would make way better financial sense. Of course, makeover shows where you end up with thousands of dollars worth of clothes and makeup, or plastic surgery, or a house ... you *can't* take the cash instead.