dave said all of this on his own forum:
"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? "