Now biology is trying to determine wealth distribution!!!
THE WEALTHY FEW
Every country in the world has a few rich people and then a long tail of
poorer and poorer people. In fact, not only does a filthy-rich minority
always hog most of the wealth, but the mathematical form of the
distribution is the same everywhere. In much of the Western world, for
example, 20 per cent of the people always own 80 per cent of the wealth.
Is this a law of economics? No, worse than that - it's a law of nature.
With the help of some serious mathematics borrowed from the study of
disordered materials, econophysicists Jean-Philippe Boucaud and Marc
Mezard explain why we'd still end up with the same distributions of rich
and poor, even if we all started life with the same abilities and the
same amount of money. On a brighter note however, even if the new theory
can predict ratios, it can't forecast which of us will be rich and which
will be poor.
http://www.newscientist.com/nl/0819/money.html
Nicole Seibert
Emory University
Sociology Department - Graduate Studies
Atlanta, GA 30329
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -or- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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