Cookies

Blogger said I need to post a notice about cookies if theirs doesn't show up, to satisfy European laws. I don't see theirs on my page, maybe because of something to do with my page setup.
So here it is.
Blogger keeps cookies.
I might have apps that keep cookies, I don't know.
I do not personally keep cookies.

Not in America

 Great song by Jonathan Jensen.

 

 

Trump doesn't rule out third term

 March 30, 2025

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-third-term-white-house-methods-rcna198752

 President Donald Trump did not rule out the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House, which is prohibited by the Constitution under the 22nd Amendment, saying in an exclusive interview with NBC News that there were methods for doing so and clarifying that he was “not joking.”

A Piece of Paradise

(When I wrote this, I thought it might be bull frogs who made the sounds like a giant rubber band being plucked . Recently, thanks to the Internet, I found that they are green frogs. But "some bull frogs" sounds better and is easier to sing than "some green frogs", so I'm not changing it.)

A Piece of Paradise
copyright 2001 Patricia M. Shannon

Walking my dog in the evening,
I hear the crickets call.
How peaceful is the quiet
after the sun falls.

(chorus)
I feel I've found a piece of paradise
to spend delightful days,
listening to the sounds of nature
and watching the squirrels play.

After spending too much time
cooped up in a cube,
I feel full of freedom
when I come out to the woods.

Breathing in the clear, clean air,
I feel so energized;
I need the comfort of the woods
more than I realize.

And
(chorus)

Stopping by a waterfall,
much to my delight,
I see a mini-rainbow
shining in the bright moonlight.

A hooty owl says "Who are you?"
A loon sings a jazz song.
The stars put on a light show.
while some bull/green frogs thrum along.

Yes
(chorus)

..

Beware of fake JOANN web sites

 

Hours needed to escape poverty

 

The Mathematics of Inequality

 

 

Mathematical analysis shows that without redistribution, wealth becomes increasingly more concentrated, and inequality grows until almost all assets are held by an extremely small percent of people.  History shows this analysis is accurate.   I first saw such an analysis years ago, I believe in Scientific American in the winter in 1990, 1991, or 1992. I haven't been able to find the article in the Scientific archives, because they don't have good enough descriptions for the column where it would have appeared. I bought several articles I hoped would be the right one, but didn't find it. Luckily, there were finally some more recent analyses I was able to reference in my blog.

 

https://now.tufts.edu/articles/mathematics-inequality

By Taylor McNeil
October 12, 2017

Seven years ago, the combined wealth of 388 billionaires equaled that of the poorest half of humanity, according to Oxfam International. This past January the equation was even more unbalanced: it took only eight billionaires, marking an unmistakable march toward increased concentration of wealth. Today that number has been reduced to five billionaires.

Trying to understand such growing inequality is usually the purview of economists, but Bruce Boghosian, a professor of mathematics, thinks he has found another explanation—and a warning.

Using a mathematical model devised to mimic a simplified version of the free market, he and colleagues are finding that, without redistribution, wealth becomes increasingly more concentrated, and inequality grows until almost all assets are held by an extremely small percent of people.

•••••

It’s easy to imagine how wealth-attained advantage works in real life. “The people with that advantage receive better returns on their investments, lower interest rates on loans, and better financial advice,” said Boghosian. “Conversely, as Barbara Ehrenreich famously observed, it is expensive to be poor. If you are working two jobs, you don’t have time to shop for the best bargains. If you can’t afford the security deposit demanded by most landlords, you may end up staying in a motel at inflated prices.”

The model tracks the data with remarkable accuracy, he said.

•••••

Putting aside ethical issues of growing inequality, it can also create an unhealthy economy, Boghosian said. “That’s because when wealth concentrates and the middle class is depleted too much, you may get very wealthy industrialists, very wealthy manufacturers, but to whom do they sell their products? It locks up the economy,” he said.

•••••

https://www.austms.org.au/Jobs/Library4.html

THE MATHEMATICS OF INEQUALITY

By Mark Buchanan
reprinted from The Australian Financial Review
September 2002
(originally in New Statesman)

•••••

Even if everyone starts out equally, and they remain equally adept at choosing investments, differences in investment luck will cause some people to accumulate more wealth than others. Those who are lucky will tend to invest more, and so have a chance to make greater gains still. Hence, a string of positive returns builds a person's wealth not merely by addition but by multiplication, as each subsequent gain grows ever bigger. This is enough, even in a world of equals where returns on investment are entirely random, to stir up huge disparities of wealth in the population.

•••••