The Nanny Millionaire Copyright 1999 by Robert Kuttner. The Nanny Millionaire By Robert Kuttner M aria J. Grasso, a Boston nanny and immigrant from Chile, is America's newest multimillionaire. What a strange twist on the American dream.
Lotteries are a kind of voluntary tax on the poor, who buy a disproportionate share of tickets.
Economists have long wondered about the allure of lotteries, which are plainly irrational in cost-benefit terms. Maria Grasso beat odds of 52 million to one. If you don't play, your crummy economic destiny is sealed forever. Giving every nanny a decent living would clearly spoil the help. Having one nanny become an instant millionaire is a spectacle, almost a kind of opiate.