People couldn't have been completely crazy. Anyone taking part would understand that not winning would be hugely burdensome, and winning would mean you have money but a huge number of mouths to feed.
Germany, in the 1930s, also had a rewards program, where you would get additional rewards for every child you had, plus a special reward every 4 childs.
(Obviously, to create a larger army. One could argue, though, that such a program would be necessary today again, in the time of 2 million more jobs than people, and birth rates of 1.2)
Or one could argue why the duck (sic), do we have "2 million more jobs than people", when we have all this automation opportunities plus unemployment.
And the answer would be because those jobs are usually highly skilled technical, and we don't give easy (money wise) access to the university to the large masses that could do them.
The German issue has been going from several million jobs to almost being solved in the past 10 years.
At the same time the amount of first-generation university students (people whose parents never graduated) went up, and the amount of female students in engineering rose to almost exactly 50%. Also, many universities which had required tuition went back to tuition-free teaching in 2011.
Obviously, this doesn’t solve all issues yet (and there are still many jobs that don’t require education, and can’t be automated, like nurses), and it doesn’t even solve all high-requirement jobs (as the birth rate is still too low), but it helps.
It’s seriously not hard.
Historical inflation = 3% Historical stock market returns=11%
11-3=8
8 percent real return (inflation adjusted) on average per year.
Let's say he plays it a little safe, let's call it 5% real return.
That's $360K/year forever ... and ever.
Sounds pretty easy to me finance wise.
People get raised in big families on a lot less and do just fine.
"In addition to his work as a lawyer, Millar amassed a net worth of more than $10 million (in today’s Canadian dollars)..."
Each winner received $125,000, which is a little over $2 million in today's Canadian dollars.