First, a comment on last week's column, in which I urged you to hug an expat for Christmas. A number of readers wrote to say that a letter to the same effect had appeared in the Gazette a week or two earlier. Some asked if I had written the letter.

I didn't see the letter, and in fact still haven't. As a Gazette employee, I'm not allowed to write letters to the Editor, except to tell him what an excellent and good-looking fellow he is.

This was simply one of those occasions where great minds think alike. Perhaps it had something to do with the additional abuse expatriates took during the election process.

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The fact that the Bermuda economy expanded at 10 percent last year is not good news. It's too much, too fast, and structural damage often follows such a performance.

At the very least, people tend to assume that the future will be like the past, and are disappointed if things return to "only" a more sustainable level. Luckily for Bermuda, a recession is coming in the States and that might have the effect of slowing things down around here.

It will mean that some construction plans will go up in smoke, but that would be a bad thing. Rome wasn't built in a day, and Bermuda shouldn't be rebuilt in three weeks.

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People often ask where my ideas come from. The facetious answer is "the dark side of the moon". The actual answer, which is the best advice I can give you in the financial or any other field, is: from reading. No better pastime exists for broadening the mind, except, I suppose, reading while travelling.

From time to time, I like to reiterate my utter opposition to lotteries.

I do this partly to keep the politicians on the right track, because without supervision they can get way out of line.

I know that there is a movement among some unenlightened souls here in Bermuda to have a public lottery, since such activities raise money for good works. The problem is that they raise the money from the wrong people.

I've always known this in my gut (which is odd, because my brains are elsewhere), but a spot of reading over the festive season confirmed this in some detail. The New York Times has been running an extended series of articles on the subject of lotteries, and I happened to read one such article while I was waiting for everyone to go back to work. (People having time off is a massive inconvenience for those of us who work outside Hamilton; they just clog the place up.)

Apparently, Texas and other States have come up with a $50 lottery ticket, as a way of cheating their citizens out of a lot more money in a hurry. That is a super-sized bad idea.

Along with the article, the Times ran some statistics garnered from the State of Texas. They prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that lotteries act as a tax on the very people it would be best not to tax, as follows:

* Unemployed people spent an average of $40 a month on lotteries in Texas that year; employed people spent $26.

* People aged 18 to 24 spent an average of $50 a month; the 55 to 64-year-olds spent $24.

* Those who didn't finish high school spent an average of $33 a month; university graduates spent $12.

See what's happening? The people who shouldn't go near a lottery because they have the least money and the worst outlook, spend the most. Those with money and prospects spend the least.

You stand a better chance of being hit twice by lightning than you do of winning a lottery. People over 50, who, if single, have almost no chance whatsoever of marrying, have an even smaller chance of winning the lottery. (Make your own joke here.)

Plus, as I have repeatedly said, most people who win the lottery find that it is the worst thing that could possibly happen to them. Their friends become jealous, start begging for loans, and soon become ex-friends.

The winners' old way of life becomes insufferable, and their new way of life brings no joy. And, worst of all, for the average big-time lottery winner, the money takes just 18 months to evaporate.

I know that people need hope, but false hope, surely, is more cruel than no hope at all.

On top of that, lottery commissions have a habit of staffing up like government departments - after all, it's not their money - reducing the yield from the lottery for the good causes they propose to aid. All in all, then, lotteries are a catastrophe, a blight on the culture.

If you must give your money away, give it to one of Bermuda's many worthwhile charities. That way, you'll be doing some good and will feel better about yourself than when you lose the lottery and can't afford to feed the kids.

Oh and by the way, blacks spent an average of $70 a month on Texas lotteries; whites $20. Blacks are economically disadvantaged in Texas. The more money they spend on lotteries, the less likely that situation is to change.

If a lottery is what Bermuda wants, fair enough - people seem hooked on making a fast buck for little or no effort - but I am absolutely certain that it isn't what Bermuda needs.

(Lottery fans: please send all hate mail to the Bermuda Sun.)