Hi, I'm Jim Dennis and with Dennis Informed, and this is the Daily Article for Tuesday, October 23, 2018.

The controversy over the death of Jamal Khashoggi continues to grow.

Hurricane Willa has become a Category 5 storm and will strike Mexico late tonight.

Meanwhile, Americans have also been paying attention to a news item closer to home.

Tonight's mega-million's drawing is worth $1.6 billion, the highest total in U.S. lottery history.

The jackpot could go even higher between now and then, perhaps surpassing $2 billion.

Right now, people across the U.S. are wondering what they would do with $1.6 billion.

The cash payouts actually $904 million they would do with $1.6 billion. The cash payouts actually $904 million.

A stack of $1.6 billion bills would reach more than 100 miles into the atmosphere, three times higher than commercial jetliners.

It will cover 6.4 square miles in area. It's the classic, get something for nearly nothing dilemma.

A mega million's ticket costs only $2. The payouts are so enormous than Americans spent $77.7 billion on lottery sales

in fiscal year 2018, up about $5 billion from the previous year. In 2016, lottery ticket sales

eclipsed what Americans spent on movies,

video games, books, music, and sports tickets combined. However, your odds of winning the jackpot

are 1 in 302,575,350. You are 2,649 times more likely to die from a lightning strike.

The lottery is classic Western existentialism at work.

Most winners spend their money on themselves.

One couple bought their dream home, other properties in a Porsche.

The husband also made a record with his college band.

Six years later, every penny of their fortune was gone. Another winner spent

$5.4 million on gambling in Atlantic City. After losing it all, she's penniless and lives in a trailer

park. Yet another spent all their winnings on luxury goods and has nothing left. Materialism has been

...