tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post5001378458846580090..comments2024-01-02T09:45:52.570-05:00Comments on Lost in Transcription Has Moved!!: What power laws actually tell you about wealth and the 1%Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04284995441818864226noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-27443033817059814502011-11-25T01:26:52.069-05:002011-11-25T01:26:52.069-05:00The way that I view the problem(s), either way of ...The way that I view the problem(s), either way of framing and approaching things should actually help, rather than <a href="http://www.elusivesilence.com/" rel="nofollow">part</a> a site it hurt, startups and other small companies.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-82296626292684270732011-11-13T16:03:42.018-05:002011-11-13T16:03:42.018-05:00Alejandro,
I'm with you 100% on that. I guess...Alejandro,<br /><br />I'm with you 100% on that. I guess one of the points that I was trying to make is that when you see extreme wealth inequality, it is suggestive of a self-perpetuating, corrupt positive-feedback mechanism.<br /><br />Eliminating the corruption is the preferable route, but an alternative (or, rather, a supplement) is to acknowledge that there is a degree of positive feedback involved in our system, and to use tools like a progressive tax structure to help re-level the playing field. <br /><br />The way that I view the problem(s), either way of framing and approaching things should actually help, rather than hurt, startups and other small companies.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04284995441818864226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-81678900764284598762011-11-13T11:46:39.656-05:002011-11-13T11:46:39.656-05:00I have the impression that focusing on inequality ...I have the impression that focusing on inequality is the wrong approach. This Paul Graham's essay capture the idea:<br /><br />http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html<br /><br />This is an excerpt:<br /><br />"I realize startups are not the main target of those who want to eliminate economic inequality. What they really dislike is the sort of wealth that becomes self-perpetuating through an alliance with power. For example, construction firms that fund politicians' campaigns in return for government contracts, or rich parents who get their children into good colleges by sending them to expensive schools designed for that purpose. But if you try to attack this type of wealth through economic policy, it's hard to hit without destroying startups as collateral damage.<br /><br />The problem here is not wealth, but corruption. So why not go after corruption?"Alejandrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00007744731161719193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-2215567661163856112011-11-13T11:00:10.274-05:002011-11-13T11:00:10.274-05:00Nice article - I was irritated by Alok's impli...Nice article - I was irritated by Alok's implicit assumption that Benford's law was a Law not just an empirical regularity.<br /><br />BTW, talk of long tails always reminds me of George Box's figure <a href="http://jeff560.tripod.com/k.html" rel="nofollow">at the bottom of this page</a>.Bob O'Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15666738696003108444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-5986109732450977372011-11-13T09:15:09.615-05:002011-11-13T09:15:09.615-05:00Cool. I've added updates to the text on both p...Cool. I've added updates to the text on both points.<br /><br />Thanks, Cosma!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04284995441818864226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180769075610486242.post-29126490083399521232011-11-13T09:03:12.798-05:002011-11-13T09:03:12.798-05:00Thanks for the plug. Two small comments/correctio...Thanks for the plug. Two small comments/corrections:<br /><br />1. The conventional wisdom for a long time was that income distributions (at least in developed capitalist democracies where we actually have data, etc.) tend to have a body which looks pretty log-normal, but with a Pareto-style right or upper tail. (Meaning that the truly rich are vastly wealthier than one would expect from a mere log-normal fit to the bulk of the population.) This may have changed recently, for all I know.<br /><br />2. The free version of our paper is <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.1062" rel="nofollow">arxiv:0706.1062</a>.Cosma Shalizihttp://bactra.org/weblog/noreply@blogger.com