Why would a rational person purchase insurance yet also play the lottery?

It's a question that has puzzled Economists (and fake Economists, like 2/3 of the staff at DQYDJ) for a long time. Think about it, a lottery is the exact opposite of insurance. When it comes to insurance, a person purchases coverage to hedge against risks. In a lottery, sums are spent for a long-shot chance at the 'risk' of a payoff. People are risk-seeking when it comes to playing the lottery yet risk-averse when it comes to purchasing insurance. What gives?

Check it out - a year from now will be 12/12/12! That's got to be lucky in a year.

First off, we cracked 200,000 in our Alexa rank. Much thanks goes to the ladies and gents in the Yakezie Network who have been with us on this journey. It would have taken a while without you folks! Here's to 5 digits!

Welcome back friends, readers, and haters to your favorite Personal Finance web site! I hope we pleasantly annoyed you with our balanced take on the unemployment report this week. Nothing was too hard hitting - you know that men are finding themselves unemployed more than women and the 8.6% top-line unemployment rate begs the question, is the unemployment rate an improvement? How much mileage can you get out of a single unemployment report? Plenty, it turns out. We'll stop now until it strikes our fancy again (or I can get Cameron and Bryan to write something!).

One interesting side effect of recessions since the 1980s has been the demographic breakdown in unemployment rates. Yes - recently, unemployment discriminates against men. While recessions in the 60s and 70s saw female unemployment rates increase faster than male rates, the current recession saw age 20+ male unemployment peak at 10.7% (in October 2009, SA) while the female 20+ rate peaked at 8.3% (in November 2009, SA).

One more Weekender!

Back for more? We don't blame you. We enjoy writing it, so please keep reading it!

Click through to see our social stats, a nice review we got, carnivals and links for the week and all of the featured links you've come to love and enjoy!

Been reading DQYDJ for a while? Good. You know that looking at data from a different angle yields very interesting insights.

Here's one interesting thing: the federal income tax code benefits 18 to 35 year olds at the expense of 45 to 65 year olds. How do I figure? The IRS helpfully posted data for 2009 (links are xls files) on both the amount of income made by age group and the amount of Federal income taxes paid after credits. So, should the Silent Generation and Baby Boom Generation be mad at Generations X and Y? Partially! Read on.

Admit it – when you woke up today you asked yourself this very question – “is it better to go to college or to become a truck driver?“. Well, so did we here at DQYDJ. Inspired by a Twitter conversation from our friends JT at MoneyMamba and Matt Allen at Rambling Fever, we had to ask… how much do recently minted college graduates make when compared to their truck driving contemporaries? I think we can fairly classify this as an ‘epic post’ – make sure you fully understand my methodology before complaining… then complain all you want in my comments section!

Ahh, another week, another Weekender! How many of you are getting sick of turkey leftovers already (our spread, with half of the turkey carved is show above!)? Fight through it, read some articles, and react to my stupid musings.

Lost in all of the discussion about the $1 Trillion in student loan debt, there being more student loan debt than credit card debt, Occupiers asking for student loan forgiveness, and even whether certain concentrations should receive loans with higher interest rates is an important question: Is college worth it?

Why not go for the gold?  I already asked you if lower salaried majors should pay higher rates on student loans and if higher salaried majors should pay higher tuition.  Inspired by a recent post on the Freakonomics blog, I present to you another controversial (yet interesting) question for you to ponder.  Should the less attractive receive benefits commensurate with their disadvantages due to their looks?