Author: Brendan Barry

  • Wealth Inequality in the United States

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    Brendan Barry
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    Reality is never what you think. Over at the Washington Post’s Wonkblog I found a post about a YouTube video looking at wealth inequality in the United States. It looks at a study that compared what Americans thought the distribution of wealth in the United States is vs. what they think is an ideal distribution.…

  • Analysing Amtrak

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    Brendan Barry
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    The Brookings Institution released a report investigating the ridership of Amtrak’s various routes in an attempt to identify ways of cutting costs. They also released an interactive piece along with the report that pairs a map with a simple table. Highlighting a route in the table highlights the route in the map and links the…

  • The United States Compared to the Rest of the World

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    Brendan Barry
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    Have you ever wondered how big the United States is? MAPfrappe allows you to compare different geographies in Google Maps. My employer has an office in Chicago and an office in Santiago, Chile. How big is Chile? North-to-south it is quite large. But east to west, the distance is like that of driving from Chicago…

  • The Reach of Nazi Concentration Camps

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    Brendan Barry
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    In a truly disturbing article, the New York Times detailed recent research by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to identify all the camps established by Germany in World War II, be them extermination camps, labour camps, ghettos, &c. At one point in the article, one of the principals behind the USHMM work stated he…

  • Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela

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    Brendan Barry
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    Hugo Chávez died yesterday. He was a controversial president to be certain. Some claim he was a dictator who tolerated no opposition. But he won four elections. Some claim he helped reduce poverty and ease the suffering of the poor. But he eviscerated the middle class and private enterprise. And he has left Venezuela in…

  • Understanding Modern China

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    Brendan Barry
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    China is a big country, both geographically and demographically. It can also be rather opaque and difficult for an outsider to understand. So this recent work from Reuters is amazing because it makes China a bit more transparent while illustrating just how the political system structures power and personnel appointments. Truthfully, there is more content…

  • Catholics and Cardinals

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    Brendan Barry
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    As the conclave in Rome is almost ready to begin, likely sometime next week, cardinals are gathering in Rome to discuss the affairs of the Catholic Church and then elect a new pope from within their ranks. Many outsiders talk about the time for a pope from outside of Europe, that the papacy has been…

  • Minions

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    Brendan Barry
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    We throw the word minion around at work quite often. So for your Friday enjoyment comes a graphic from Indexed that looks at minions vis-a-vis wages vs. compensation as well as whether a worker is busy vs. powerful. Credit for the piece goes to Jessica Hagy.

  • Hispanics in California

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    Brendan Barry
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    Places never stay the same. And a large part of that is due to demographic shifts. California recently released figures looking at its demographic breakdown through 2060. The New York Times charted and mapped the data through 2020. What the interactive graphic reveals is a stunning shift in just 40 years, less than two generations.…

  • Budget Sequestration and US Austerity

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    Brendan Barry
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    First things first, the verb is to sequester. The noun is sequestration. 1 March is not when the sequester begins. It is when the sequestration begins. Now that we have the preliminaries out of the way, much is made of high government spending relative to revenue. However, this conversation still misses the point that government…