It IS funny to hear people talk about wealth and income distribution, and the fact that the rich are so much richer than the poor.


What makes it funny is they think they are dealing with a fixed pool of people. If we could make these people richer, and those people poorer, incomes would all be more closely scattered.


But, as WildBill has pointed out, all that would really happen if you made "these people richer" is about 10 times as many new poor people would come in under them.


The only way to make the rich and poor closer - without bringing in a whole new wave of poor people behind the poor you lift up, every time you make society wealthier - is to fix the poor where they are or lower, and then move the rich down to them.


The number of poor people just waiting to be pulled into the world is infinite. The higher the top of the bell curve, the more of this bottomless base you expose.


leORY