Thursday, July 17, 2008

It's tough to panhandle in a small town.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beggar: 1 Kopek? Yesterday you gave me 2 Kopek!
Man: I had a bad day.
Beggar: You had a bad day? Why should I suffer?

Source: Fiddler on the Roof (transcribed from memory)

Dr Obvious said...

Cite? Interesting trend if true, I just don't know if it's true or not.

Anonymous said...

i thinks its more like:

x axis; amount and value of work performed

Anonymous said...

"Part of the reason this subject is so contentious is that some of those most vocal on the subject of wealth—university students, heirs, professors, politicians, and journalists—have the least experience creating it."

-- quoting Paul Graham from his essay Mind the Gap

Anonymous said...

It's true for all societies.

Jason Woertink said...

Well as the number of people increases the amount an individual can make by selling to others increases. For example, the Indexed book has the potential to make more money in a country of 300 million instead of a country of 100,000 people. There are just more potential customers.

Comfortably Numb said...

amazing!!!!

Unknown said...

The same would apply for differences in height and weight, wouldn't it? Increase sample size, increase the number of outliers?

Machiavelli, back in Renn Florence, noted that a community is doomed when the gap between its rich and its poor exceeds a certain size, because then the rich have more in common with the rich of other cities/nations than they do with their own neighbors. The rich effectively become a tribe apart. So instead of the rich seeing local poverty as a problem they should be involved in solving, they see it simply as someone else's problem and go back to wondering whose yacht is bigger.

Anonymous said...

Machiavelli had a yacht? That explains a lot.

Anonymous said...

Assuredly America's elite class would have their bureaucracies imprison or murder as many commoners as needed to maintain their self-created status quo so as to maintaine their wealth and power.

History shows the elites will do whatever is needed to keep the commoners in their place.

Anonymous said...

@bad1news :kids are gullible. :-P

Also you can say about size of a town vs inequality or you can compare size of a town vs happiness.

Anonymous said...

unfortunately not true in towns like Jackson Hole, WY and Bozeman, MT. i speak from experience, missing the snow, here in my new home in affordable Georgia...

 
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