Mexican Drug Cartels

Mexico has some serious problems. Primarily with the drug cartels. About two weeks ago the National Post created an infographic that looked at the northern spread of Mexican drugs into the United States. The infographic also included details on the transit and transportation networks the different drugs take along with the geographic spread of the various cartels from the Tijuana, Federation, Juarez, and Gulf Cartels as reported by US cities.

Foreign Policy magazine rates countries as to how close they may or may not be to becoming failed states. Mexico is among those that have fallen into the “Warning” category over the recent years. The second half of the infographic looks at why. In short, in the past few years over 50,000 people have been killed in drug-related homicides and several more thousand have simply disappeared. The police, military, civilian officials, journalists, &c. have become targets of the cartel if they oppose the cartels.

Mexico has some serious problems. Sadly problems have a tendency to spill over borders.

Cropping of the Mexican Cartel infographic
Cropping of the Mexican Cartel infographic

Credit for the piece goes to Jonathan Rivait and Richard Johnson.

Venn Diagrams. Let’s Go Back to Grade School.

Last week Mitt Romney’s campaign released a series of infographic adverts. They were Venn Diagrams with messages attacking President Obama by highlighting what the Romney campaign called gaps between what the president has said he would do and what he has in fact done.

Debt Gap
Debt Gap
Deficit Gap
Deficit Gap
Healthcare Gap
Healthcare Gap
Unemployment Gap
Unemployment Gap

The problem with these is that they are all wrong. Do not misunderstand me, the Romney campaign certainly has valid points in these statements. And to use an infographic to communicate their points is a valid approach. But whoever designed these adverts clearly did not know how a Venn Diagram works.

Here is a brief refresher course for those interested.

How Venn Diagrams Work
How Venn Diagrams Work

Unfortunately, the Romney campaign’s message is being lost in a failed medium. It’s like watching a clown give a doctoral thesis in rocket science. He sure might be making a good point. But it’s a clown. People laugh at clowns. People won’t take the clown seriously. The Romney campaign is making good points, but that message is being lost because the campaign cannot master one of the simplest types of charts.

Credit for the originals go to the Romney campaign. The bit on How Venn Diagrams Work is mine.

The Future of Those Without Health Insurance

As the Supreme Court is likely to scrap the mandate provision of the health care law—without which sick people are left to pay higher premiums if they can get coverage at all—later today, the New York Times looks at the impact of removing the health care law changes the number of people without health insurance.

The numbers of the uninsured
The numbers of the uninsured

Credit for the piece goes to Lisa Waananen.

Opening the Window

The Washington Post brings us a look at the mess that is our Congressional representatives buying and selling stocks affected by the legislation they write, discuss, and upon which they vote. None of the charts in this piece are of themselves particularly complex—we are looking at a pie chart after all—but they do come together to tell a story of…wholly ethical behaviour…

Trading stocks
Trading stocks

Credit for the piece goes to Wilson Andrews, Emily Chow, David Fallis, Dan Keating, Laura Stanton, Sisi Wei, and Karen Yourish.

Greece vs. Germany

It appears as if the Greeks, who voted in parliamentary elections for the second time in as many months, have narrowly voted for pro-bailout parties. But whether the pro-bailout parties can put aside their other political differences and form a coalition government remains to be seen.

Until we see that, thanks to the National Post, we can see an infographic comparison between Greece and Germany, arguably the worst and the best European economies.

Greece and Germany compared
Greece and Germany compared

I appreciate the mirror approach, but wonder if the comparisons might not have been clearer if measured directly? Or what would have happened without the mirror approach and compared the two countries in single but slightly larger charts? Regardless, one can easily see that Greece has some serious problems.

Credit for the piece goes to Andrew Barr, Mike Faille, and Richard Johnson.

I Just Want to Retire

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got goals in life. Namely to retire. So thankfully the Economist put together this infographic on retirement age across the OECD (a cool club of rich countries), specifically to look at how retirement ages have changed between 1970 and 2010 alongside life expectancy.

retirement
retirement

The (Not So) Secret Service

The Secret Service screwed up not so long ago with the whole hookers in Colombia scandal. (Proof that it pays to pay.) This infographic was passed along to me by my colleague Eileen and it investigates the results of congressional hearings into the Secret Service.

Secret Service infographic
Secret Service infographic

Credit for the piece goes to the Onion.

Follow the Money. And Enjoy a Donut on the Way. Or a Pie.

Visualising government budgets is always fun. Until you realise that you are seeing where your money is going. But now we look at Australia’s expenditures. And as I pay nothing in taxes to Australia, I get to keep my fun.

Australian budget
Australian budget

This piece is doing some interesting things within the framework of the donut chart I generally dislike. We do get to see the levels of detail for different departments or areas of spending. For example, one can see that costs for building Australia’s new destroyers and how that fits into the whole budget. Or, by clicking on a slice of the donut, one can zoom in to see how pieces fit at the selected level.

But the overall visual comparison of pieces and then identifying them through colour is less than ideal.

Found via the Guardian’s datablog, credit for the piece goes to Prosple and OzDocsOnline.

Choose Your Own Adventure. Greek Debt Crisis Style.

The Eurozone. Greece. What a complete mess. And that’s just what has happened. What about what’s next?

If you are confused about how the debt crisis in Greece and the Eurozone will unfold, you are not alone. Thankfully, the Guardian has posted an infographic, more precisely an interactive flowchart, to help us sort out the mess. Now you get to choose your own adventure for Greece and the Eurozone.

Choose your own (Greek) adventure
Choose your own (Greek) adventure

Credit goes to Paddy Allen for posting, but it appears as if Lombard Street Research deserves the credit for the piece. But I might be mistaken.