[ckuehne]

"The author confuses linear distributions with exponential ones, comparing them as stacked bar graphs without suitable differentiation of axis."

Could you elaborate? By the way, the graph is taken from the original paper (click the details link below the graph).

[ctdonath]

The graph (and the article's conclusion) would be more sensible if the bottom bar were on a linear axis while the top was on a suitably scaled logarithmic axis. The author does not comprehend the consequential differences between percentages and absolute values.

[ctdonath]

Addressing my own innumeracy, reworking the numbers I find that all three bars are indeed exponential, expressing percentage increases of different orders of magnitude (the top is increasing wealth accumulation at 10x the percentage rate of the bottom). Mea culpa aside, the author is using a linear X axis instead of a far more suitable logarithmic scale, thus skewing the reader's perception of the graph (as exemplified by the fact that all the HN comments failed to notice this).