The L curve for dummies

[Fud]

http://www.lcurve.org/

The US population is represented along the length of the football field, arranged in order of income.

Median US family income (the family at the 50 yard line) is ~$40,000 (a stack of $100 bills 1.6 inches high.)

--The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high.

--At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.

--The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line.

--From there it keeps going up...it goes up 50 km (~30 miles) on this scale!

http://www.lcurve.org/images/LCurveFlier2003.pdf For a real look at it or see the vid on the site.

There is nothing natural like this in nature like a bell curve unless say a meteor hit earth. Give this to some monkey standing at the one yard line and see if they can actually grasp it. They probably wont get it if they live in a trailer park voting GOP with visions of Gradeur that they might be one of the elite while the elite just laugh and spit in their faces.

[Greyhound]

1. K & R

:kick:

[TahitiNut]

2. Here's a way of looking at it from just the wages perspective

And here's how we're doing in our headlong rush to becoming a banana republic under a plantation economic system. We're on a par with Peru and Costa Rica - worse than China. We live in a different 'world' than Japan, German, Norway, Canada, and other egalitarian democracies.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

3. When you have a large disparity

between median wage and average wage, it highlights the problems with fiscal disparity in this country. The median wage is only $23K? That means that half the population makes less than that amount, and that's a serious problem.

[TahitiNut]

4. You got it. Exactly.

That's precisely why I show both. Sadly, however, only the marginally math-literate really comprehend this, but it's essential to a fundamental understanding of economic conditions.

"When Bill Gates visits an unemployment office, the average person there becomes a multi-millionaire."

No matter how many times that's said, some just still don't get it when they're being lied to.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

5. And the average person believes that they will eventually become

fabulously rich like Bill Gates. Unfortunately, reality doesn't exactly match this fantasy. That's why you can have poverty stricken people voting for Republicans. Poor southern voters are one good example.