JAN PEN

Imagine people’s height being proportional to their income, so that someone with an average income is of average height. Now imagine that the entire population of America is walking past you in a single file of ascending income. The owners of losing businesses are invisible; their heads are below ground. Then come the jobless and the working poor who are midgets. After half an hour, the strollers are still only waste high as the median income is have the mean [average].… Then the normal size people enter. Soon, giants thunder by and are 12 feet tall and they get taller. When the last 400 people walk by at the end, each is two miles tall.

Imagine people’s height being proportional to their income, so that someone with an average income is of average height. Now imagine that the entire population of America is walking past you in a single file of ascending income. The owners of losing businesses are invisible; their heads are below ground. Then come the jobless and the working poor who are midgets. After half an hour, the strollers are still only waste high as the median income is have the mean [average].… Then the normal size people enter. Soon, giants thunder by and are 12 feet tall and they get taller. When the last 400 people walk by at the end, each is two miles tall.