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A comment on How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself. Parent comment

Re:How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself by vannevar on Saturday February 09, 2013 @05:29PM (#5194330)
Rich people can lose wealth far faster, and far more easily than poor, trust me.

It is a tautology to say that you can lose more money the more money you have, because anyone (rich or poor) can simply choose to throw it away. That doesn't change the mathematical fact that interest compounds and that more wealth translates into more income in our economic system.

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Re:How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself by lutusp on Saturday February 09, 2013 @05:34PM (#5194364)
Complete agreement. I've been writing about the mathematics behind a well-known feedback effect in which ... get ready for a cliche ... the rich get richer and the poorer get poorer. Simply put, and as you point out, it's caused by compound interest:

http://arachnoid.com/wrong/index.html#Economics

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