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Politics : New FADG. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (1590)	6/10/2007 7:24:41 PM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4152

No, we're not. That's an liberal urban myth. You might check out Mortimer Zuckerman's editorial in this weeks US News. I would not call either the magazine or the man liberal. To believe that, you have to believe that the population of the various quintile of wealth in this country are fixed - that nobody is allowed to move up or down. Nothing could be further from the truth. This part I don't understand at all. I'm not claiming that we are making a genetic royalty. It does not appear particularly relevant to me if a country has large wealth inequality as to whether that is related to genetics or achievement. I know that many people will claim that if it is achievement, all is well, but if it is genetics, it must be bad. Cast this in terms of the 2'nd son syndrome. Does it change the outcome if the 1'st son achieves his exalted status by 1) birth order, or 2) competition with his brother? Not that I can see. Once one has "won" the position, the other is still redundant. Sure, the dynamics prior to the "win" are much different, but if position, honor, etc, are set once the "win" occurs, from then on, we have similar dynamics. I agree that standards of living advance, but one also needs to consider that desires do as well, and the concept of normalization creeps in. The poor are still poor, because it is relative to the rich. Failure to normalize is not good. All I find interesting is that our economic system, which seems founded on excellent principles, might yet lead to a final state which was neither expected, nor desired. People are seduced by the logic or supposed reasonableness of our economic basis, but this in no way ensures the outcome. Dynamic systems can have quite surprising behaviour, and it is a mistake to claim that one can predict outcomes, without detailed modelling or simulations. An example would be to ask the average individual what a plot of the fractal equations would look like. Simple equations, but very astonishing complexity.