RE: statistics and wealth
From: TR Ruddick (truddickearthlink.net)
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 21:15:02 -0600 (MDT)
I too felt tempted to write in with definitions of median, mean, mode,
standard deviation, regression to the mean, and multiple variant
analysis...but I thought, what the heck, those who care can get a
statistics textbook and study it from a real statistician.  Thanks to those
who did a professional job of it...

On the issue of wealth, that's a term that refers to relative monetary
possessions.  If you have wealth, then comparatively you have lots more
money than most of the people in your society.  It doesn't correlate with
prosperity--a wealthy person in an impoverished society is still wealthy,
but not as prosperous as the typical person in a society that's better off.
Specifically, Job was, by Biblical account, wealthy (until the Lord tested
him) but was not nearly as prosperous as the average American today.

Jan, the word that your university econ major was trying to define was
"happiness."  If we want to re-define words for some purposes, that's OK,
but too much conflating of the meanings of different words leads to
difficulties in communication.

Wealthy people, generally, are unhappy.  Read the bio of Donald Trump, for
example, who admits he's a man who can't stand himself.  Those who are
self-actualized don't feel sufficiently driven to do what's necessary to
amass vast quantities of capital.  (Exceptions among those who just happen
to get rich while doing what they love, like Richard Bach for instance.)


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