Variance II

 

Ain’t We Got Fun

There's nothing surer
The rich get rich and the poor get poorer
In the meantime, in between time
Ain't we got fun?

Do the rich have to get richer, and the poor get poorer?

Given my recent blog post that variance ( e.g. the difference between rich and poor) should be a constant, https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2025/02/variance.html. it is appropriate to review an earlier blog post on the difference in wealth among nations.  https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2021/11/distribution-of-wealth-iii.html .  As well as a blog  on the consequences of keeping the location parameter constant and allowing the variance to increase to accommodate growth.  https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2023/09/distribution-of-income-ii.html

The fact that variance is a constant and location is not, can lead to bad policy decisions if it is wrongly assumed that location is constant and variance is not.  It is totally correct that things were better from 1946 to 1964, and that things were much worse from 1996 to 2013, just as it is true that Christmas is better than the Dog Days of Summer.  But making every day Christmas is a stupid and childish response, just as MAGA is.  The grown‑up response is to work hard during the Dog Days of Summer so that the following Christmas can be as good, or even better than, the past Christmases that you do remember.  The fact that humans don’t live through more than portion of two cycles of historical periods of 100 years does not mean that the cycle is not there, just that a single individual can not experience multiple cycles. 

Mark Twain said that “History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”  William Faulkner said that the “The past is never dead. It's not even past”.  Just because you can’t see other cycles, does not mean that other cycles do not exist, only that you can’t personally experience them. Learn from a study of the historical past.  Grow up! It can’t be Christmas every day!  Don’t be a such a child!