Pareto Price

It is called the Pareto Principle, but it's really just an observation, a general rule of thumb that states an 80/20 relationship between two conditions, such as the original statement by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto that 80% of the land in his country was owned by 20% of the people in it, or that 80% of the peas in his garden were produced by 20% of the peapods.

Like many misunderstood generalities, it has been used to try to explain things as different from each other as best sellers and boas mating. And ever so often, some 80/20 split comes up and when you dig into it, there's actual substance there.

Take this factoid, from the Latin American Herald Tribune: 80% of Puerto Rico Murders Called Drug-Related.

Who "called" this were law enforcement officials and academics, two of which are named in the article. With 894 murders last year, the 80% estimate means that some 715 murders--715--were drug-related. Most of the dead are less than 22 years old.

Our average school has roughly 400 students in it. At the current rate, the drug-related murders are emptying almost two of Our schools every year. I know Our schools suck, but being gunned down sucks light-years more.

The article also states that the average cost of keeping someone in prison in Puerto Rico hovers around $30,000 a year, an absolute joke because it takes less than $14,000 a year to provide a local student with a public college education (and raising that price is causing a lengthy, useless, brain-dead strike that will lead to nothing but booze-addled memories) and because at $30,000 a year, you KNOW some fat hogs are feeding at Our trough.

Now am I going to focus on the 20% of murders that are supposedly not drug-related? Of course not. I'm going to focus on the 80%, on how the deaths of so many of Our people have an impact on law enforcement, on government security measures that weigh down every product and person that enters Our bailiwick, on the court system, on prisons, on medical and forensic services and on the demagoguery that swirls around every bill that affects these services because that 80% is dying and the Fools don't care a whit except for the political mileage they can suck out of it all.

But here's the point: Half of Our adult population doesn't work or lives off of government funds. Of those that work, some 60% earn too little to pay taxes, meaning that 40% of half of Our workers are paying the taxes to underwrite the police, the courts, the prisons, the medical and forensic system and the government's blind grubbing under the mockery of security. And for those of you who can do simple math in their heads, 40% of 50% is...20%.

We may have 80% of Our murders related to drugs and We may have 20% of Our people footing the bill for its ramifications. No wonder so many of My Brethren don't care, as they fall in neither the 80%...or the 20%. 


The Jenius Has Spoken.