An Interesting Way To Rate You Friends And Enemies

[David Sklansky]

When I was Bob Stupak's advisor, we would sometimes talk about various people in our lives using this admittedly simplistic and perhaps immature rating system. The Sklansky Friends-Enemies Rating System.

To calibrate it, assume you are thirty years old, have a million dollar bankroll, two kids, and an income of 200K. The person who you are "rating" we will assume has 50K and an income of 30K. Even if you know this isn't their actual situation.

The question is how much would you pay to somehow add 50K to their bankroll if they never knew you were responsible and you would never financially benefit from this gift. Forget tax deductions. The answer necessarily must be between zero and 50,OOO since if it was more, you would simply GIVE him the 50K.

How many people would you rate above 10,000? Between 1,000 and 10,000? Between 100 and 1000? Above ten dollars? Above one dollar? Of course your answer relates to not only how many people you really like but also to how financially generous you are.

Now we get to those people who you dislike or hate. Many of you goodytwoshoes might still go for a few cents to give them 50K secretly. But not the nastier among us. For us there is the converse rating system where we pay to DECREASE his or her bankroll. Anonymously of course (unless we choose otherwise). So with the same assumptions about income, how much would you pay to make his 50K disappear? Notice that in this situation the possible answers range from zero all the way up to a million.

Is there anyone you would pay more than 50K to do this to? 10K? 1K? Care to elaborate?

[Zeno]

Too bad you weren't an advisor to Nixon. That aside, I love this post.



-Zeno

[sukmeoff]

you cant think about any thing with out making it about money

can you ?

i would pay 50K to make you money go away

[TerminalOrbit]

Very interesting!

Perhaps I'm fortunate, or overly committed to positive expectation; but, aside from the people I love I don't think I would rate anyone much more than $40K either way.

Now, I probably would pay more to hurt my enemies physically or emotionally; but, not monetarily.

On the other hand, maybe I need to consider this more as the concept is rather novel; but, that's my gut feel on it.

[Matt Williams]

Why is it everytime DS starts a thread, someone posts using a gimmick account? No one cares, yet there is always a "new" memeber that just joined answering his questions. Please. Be a man.

[Matt Williams]

[ QUOTE ]
you cant think about any thing with out making it about money

can you ?

i would pay 50K to make you money go away

[/ QUOTE ]

As if he couldn't figure out which gimmick account this is.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
The answer necessarily must be between zero and 50,OOO since if it was more, you would simply GIVE him the 50K.

[/ QUOTE ] You may give him more just to disguise that you had given him some.

[ QUOTE ]
But not the nastier among us.

[/ QUOTE ] This doesn't make us nasty. Only why we wish for his BR to disappear could make us nasty.

[Shandrax]

Does the answer have something to do with George W. Bush?

This system sounds like a worthy successor to the voodoo doll and it gets especially interesting if you can hire a hitman for less than 50k.

In any case, I wouldn't rate many people above 10k, maybe my mother and a few people whom I know for a long time and whom I can trust. For some reason I would hardly spend any amount between 1k-10k, but I'd donate a few bucks to certain people that I like, respect or admire, but don't know personally.

On the flipside, I wouldn't spend much to hurt people because I don't care about them. Maybe $10 for a few select [censored] and maybe $1 for Phil Hellmuth for the fun of it.

[josh_x]

Are we supposed to evaluate each case idependantly? For example i would give maybe 20k to a random poor african kid in a vacuum, but if i were to do this to everyone i would quickly run out money.

[slimeywater]

this really is a stupid post
to answer your question, david you can have all my money
all you have to do is come to australia and pick it up
and no i wont punch you in the mouth when i see you
but id sure as hell like to