Thanks to the recession kindly engineered by financial whiz-kids, I find myself jobless with large debts and a house that is worth less than the mortgage. I have some redundancy money. What am I supposed to do with it? It's not enough to pay off my debts. Financial disaster seems very likely, so why shouldn't I just spend the windfall on lottery tickets?
J.P., via e-mail
Dear J.P.,
I'm not going to argue with you about the expected returns on lottery tickets; you'll know that your chances of winning anything worthwhile are near zero. Let me make a more striking claim: even if you won, it would be unlikely to save you from financial trouble.