10% i'm about to ruminate on wealth distribution. some folks call this wealth inequality. some folks rant that it's too high. and others want them to just shut the fuck up. okay. let's see if we can find a way to have this discussion without anyone losing their mind. there's something called the gini coefficient. it's a metric developed and used by statisticians. i'm sure it's a perfectly cromulent thing. 0 is perfect equality. this would be where an arsonist has just as much wealth as tony stark. which would be a horrible world to live in. gini coefficient of 1 is perfect inequality. ie i have everything and all of you have nothing. also a horrible world to live in. well, for you. clearly the right number is somewhere in between. but where? no one knows. what does the gini coefficient mean? there is no answer for that. and that makes the thing pretty much useless. great. we need something that's easy to understand. like say, the timmer factor. for the sake of round numbers, let's pretend the richest 9% own 91% of the wealth. okay so you, me, and 8 of your friends have a little business making chairs. we make 11 chairs. i get to keep 10 of them. you and your friends share the last 1. so here's the definition: the square root of the timmer factor is the ratio of rich to poor where the richest have enough equal shares for the poorest and the poorest have enough equal shares for the richest. why square root? hang on. i'll get to that. in our example, i, the one rich guy, have enough chairs (10) for everyone else. you, the ten poor guys, have enough chairs (1) for me. we buy into wealth inequality at this level because we can convince ourselves that it's a factor of 10. ie the educated super smart ceo really is worth 10x the uneducated floor mopper. except you have to square that ratio in order to get the actual inequality factor. the timmer factor in this case is 100. are your boss's efforts really worth 100 times yours? you've really gotta wonder if maybe not. just maybe. consider. if his labor really is that valuable, then you should just quit and let him do all the work.  ¶ 8:00 AM