Statistical Myths #2

While the correlation
Between never receiving money
And never having money
Is indeed very high

There is a much lower correlation
Between receiving money
And actually having money

What’s Wealth To You?

A friend of my son’s
Still remembers this house
Because I ordered them pizza
When he spent the night here
And I ordered him one of his own

He’d never had a pizza of his own before
And hasn’t had many, since

He’s grown up now
But that is still
His idea
Of real wealth

And it kind of makes me ashamed
Of some of the things
I’ve attached importance to

He played out on Depressing street
When he was just a boy;
The life that he was born to
Had a minimum of joy

Their hope had been abandoned
For a laboratory friend;
And every day, in violence
Someone’s stay came to an end

He lived in squalor, shabbily
And found that, as a teen
He’d lost his young ability
To flee by means of dream

He hung out on Depressing Street
With others of his fate;
And made the choices that he made
Until it was too late