pachrist

Slightly younger old millennial.

Bacon used to be just about the most expensive meat you could buy.

Bill Clinton tried to kill Osama bin Laden.

Terrorists were angry leprechauns who had been abused by centuries of British oppression.

Russia was kind of cool for a little while.

Words are wind.

It’s an interesting stat. Is this individuals or households? Is it “head of household” or is it also counting minors?

Regardless, there’s enormous disparity.

The median wealth in India, according to Wikipedia, is $3755. There’s probably hundreds of millions of people there who fall into the less than $380 category.

Again, Wikipedia, but Africa has just over 700M inhabitants with a median $1242 wealth. That’s $879B. For everyone on the continent. 8 people have 1.5X more wealth than an entire continent full of people.

But maybe it’s not 3.6B people. Maybe it’s 3B or only 2B people. It’s still not OK.

But what about Istanbul and Konstantiniyye?

My wife keeps threatening to get me a “My other Subaru is a Subaru” for my old Outback. I threaten to get her one for her Tribeca, but a Tribeca isn’t a Subaru.

It’s traditionally explained with two lemonade stands on a long beach. If their product is generally indistinguishable and both want to maximize their number of customers, they will eventually settle on halfway mark of the beach. One gets all the foot traffic from the left, the other from the right, splitting it 50/50.

The same applies to businesses on a map, not just a one dimensional beach. Most consumers don’t really care if it’s a Home Depot or Lowes, or a BP or Exxon. If one of them discovers a gap in the market and places something there, someone else can come along and grab half the market. It’s something Walmart has done in a lot of small towns. They’ll come in and split market 50/50 with a small, local shop knowing that there’s not enough money to turn a profit with splitting the market in half. But they know they the can run a loss for a year or two, the competition will close, and then they’ll have 100% of the market.

It’s a really topical thing in politics. There are more centrist voters than at either extreme end, so politicians tend to fall more in the middle. Politicians like Trump change the landscape though. While an extreme candidate, the Republican party had already been shifting more right for a while, so he only marginally pulled the voter base right, but pulled most Republican politicians right, or pushed them out. Democrats moved to match. It essentially means that far right Republicans have a short stroll to the nearest lemonade stand, but far left Democrats have to trudge a couple miles in the hot summer sun, and they’re deciding it’s not worth it.

I’ve had some luck explaining it by asking folks why multiple gas stations are at the same intersection, or asking why Lowes and Home Depot are always right next to each other.

I live in Tennessee. The number of lives that Dolly Parton has changed for the better is immeasurable. The two things you’re supposed to do as a Christian are to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

She loves her neighbors more than she loves herself. Anyone talking trash about Dolly is the worst kind of person.