>"In the United States, the top 10 percent owns 70 percent of the wealth”…."The top one
> percent have 40 percent of the wealth.”

And just why is this either interesting or disturbing?

People's attributes generally have a bell curve distribution. If we lived in a world where the wealth was distributed, by, say, how much someone could bench press, then we have a range where the strongest man in the world would have about five times the wealth that an average person would have. To many people, this would seem "fair".

However, the value of an attribute is rarely linear with its measurement. For instance, the heavyweight boxing champion may be three times as strong and twice as fast as an average person, but if average people were matched against him in the ring, how often would he win? 999 out of 1000? 9999 out of 10000?

The same thing happens in wealth gathering. If you can produce a commodity for 10% less than your competitors, you may well take the entire market, and put them out of business, even though you were only a "little bit" better.

The recognition of this amplification of distinction leads some people to conclude that competition is the root of inequality, which is largely true, but consider closely where we would be without it.

I'm one of those "top one percent", and there are quite good reasons for it. To bring this back on topic for the board and message, the distribution of wealth in the united states allows some people to personally decide to build rocket ships, against the conventional wisdom. If there weren't concentrations of wealth, all you would EVER get would be the conventional wisdom.

John Carmack
www.armadilloaerospace.com
www.idsoftware.com