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Wealth inequality in America

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From the video Wealth Inequality in America

Published 7 Feb 2014

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Law of diminishing returns

Illustration of Adam Smith’s quote about trade: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker…” showing how self-interest leads to mutual benefit in trade and a tipsy baker.

The Butcher, the Brewer, the Baker — Adam Smith quote

Chinese zodiac calendar showing the 12 zodiac animals, their personality traits, and zodiac years from 2025 to 2036, with 2026 marked as the Year of the Horse and early-2026 births belonging to the Year of the Snake

Chinese Zodiac 2026: Year of the Horse, Animals, Years, and Meanings

Gini Coefficient illustration: a scale of wealth distribution is depicted where green squares represent the wealth of an individual within a population. On the left, every individual has a green square - equal wealth distribution. In the middle, the wealth sits with only half the population. On the right, all the wealth sits with only one person - they have a shiny crown and gold chain to display that wealth!

The Gini coefficient

The law of diminishing returns: at some point, doing more of the same stops paying off like it used to. You might think that adding more of a good thing would make things better. And, yes, that’s often true, up to a point. However, the law of diminishing returns suggests that as you add more of a single factor, you are likely to yield progressively lower benefits. It’s like the old adage, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Another cook or two might help, but beyond that, they’ll probably start getting in each other’s way. Aside from cooking broth, you might see the law play out in spending on advertisements, quality improvements in production or your wealth. And we should also never forget that more is different. The sketchplanation is an homage to perhaps my favourite comedy sketch with an early-career Simon Pegg in the series Big Train: The Cake Factory (video). Well worth two and a half minutes. Also see: The law of diminishing brownies I updated this sketch for the release of Big Ideas Little Pictures. Here's the originalThe law of diminishing returns: at some point, doing more of the same stops paying off like it used to. You might think that adding more of a good thing would make things better. And, yes, that’s often true, up to a point. However, the law of diminishing returns suggests that as you add more of a single factor, you are likely to yield progressively lower benefits. It’s like the old adage, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Another cook or two might help, but beyond that, they’ll probably start getting in each other’s way. Aside from cooking broth, you might see the law play out in spending on advertisements, quality improvements in production or your wealth. And we should also never forget that more is different. The sketchplanation is an homage to perhaps my favourite comedy sketch with an early-career Simon Pegg in the series Big Train: The Cake Factory (video). Well worth two and a half minutes. Also see: The law of diminishing brownies I updated this sketch for the release of Big Ideas Little Pictures. Here's the original

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