3 ms·
This sounds like a typical power law distribution. Nothing really unusual or unexpected about that.
by paul_f 13y ago
This sounds like a typical power law distribution. Nothing really unusual or unexpected about that.
- cowsandmilk 13y agothe time series shows that the distribution has changed over time. It is this change in distribution that people are opposed to.
- lotharbot 13y agoA lot of people are opposed to there being a distribution more extreme than their emotions tell them is reasonable. Consider what most Americans say the "ideal" level of wealth inequality would be: http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealth-inequality/ http://danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealth-inequality/ and http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2010/09/theoretical_egalitarians.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201... Now consider how much wealth inequality there would be in an excessively fair society: http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-10-inequality-in-equalland.html http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-10-inequality-in-equ... Clearly, people are determining their "ideal" without doing the math. This makes it hard to take their opposition to "this change in distribution" seriously as well.
- jsun 13y agoWhat this really shows is an increase in the frequency of 1-time events such as IPOs or sales. There is no value, one way or the other, in using cross-sectional data (this article) to describe longitudinal shifts (the rich get richer). It's just irrelevant.
- sp332 13y agoIt's not a power law. The problem here is that the top fraction are the only ones increasing their wealth. Everyone else is stuck.