[ExI] the formerly rich and their larvae...

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Feb 8, 2008, at 8:24 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:
> In a nutshell:
> In 1967, when the U.S. Government first started keeping track, the  
> Gini
> coeeficient for nationwide household incomes was .399 and in 2001 it
> was .466 for an approximate average growth rate of +.002 per year. If
> this trend continues then, in approximately 264 years, one person will
> own everything or sometime along the way, as Emlyn pointed out,
> "something will give".


Did you read and understand the limitations of the Gini coefficient  
with respect to predicting properties of an economy?  That coefficient  
does not mean what many people interpret it to mean and it should  
probably be higher than it is if the economy was better structured and  
stronger (though I have not computed that -- I am guessing based on  
what I know of US economic structure).

That said, we should *expect* it to correctly and healthily slowly  
converge on 1 in an economy where a) intelligence is an increasingly  
important market differentiator and 2) machine intelligence -- even  
low-grade versions -- start to play a factor in the economy.   
Intelligence, when unhindered, will strongly bias the Gini coefficient  
toward the high side.

Cheers,

J. Andrew Rogers