the insidious chipping away at the possibility of the American Dream has been replaced by an IPO-chasing, zero-interest-income-earning, yield-reaching, insider-trading, 'dance-while-the-music-is-playing', beggars can be choosers, get-rich-quick-scheme nation of takers (and entitled-ers)...

“The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory.” - George Orwell, 1984