Tag: economics

  • Inflating Areas

    One trend people have begun to follow lately is that of rising prices for consumer goods. If you have shopped recently for things, you may have noticed that you have been paying more than you were just a few weeks ago. We call this inflation. The Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) tracks this for a…

  • Arrowheads

    I don’t know if this is a trend, but I’ve now seen a few graphics appearing using arrows to show the direction or trend of the data. This graphic in an article by Bloomberg prompted me to talk about this piece. I should add, after rereading my draft, that I’m not clear who made this…

  • What Will the Next Recovery Look Like?

    Earlier this morning, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its US 2nd quarter GDP figures and the news…isn’t great. On an annualised basis, we saw -32.9% growth. That’s pretty bad. Like Great Depression level bad. I’ve posted on the social media how bad this current recession is and how nobody in the workforce today worked…

  • Urban Heat Islands

    Yesterday was the first day of 32º+C (90º+F) in Philadelphia in October in 78 years. Gross. But it made me remember this piece last month from NPR that looked at the correlation between extreme urban heat islands and areas of urban poverty. In addition to the narrative—well worth the read—the piece makes use of choropleths…

  • Tariffs Are a Tax

    This piece from the New York Times isn’t really even a graphic. It’s a factette, or small fact. The article is about how tariffs are raising the price of certain goods, in this case a bicycle. Tariffs do not add money to the US Treasury, they are instead an additional price paid by US consumers…

  • Living in the Dark

    Earlier this month the Economist published an article that looked at a different way of measuring the economic output of North Korea. The state is so secretive that the publicly available data we all rely on for almost every country is not available. Nor would we necessarily believe their figures. So we have to rely…

  • Trump-won Counties Are Winning

    Yesterday we looked at how China and the European Union are planning their tariff/trade war retaliation to target Trump voters. Today let’s take a look at how those voters are doing as this article from Bloom does. The article is not terribly complicated. We have four choropleth maps at the county level. Two of the maps isolate Trump-won…

  • The Uneven Rebound of Manufacturing

    Admittedly, I only read today’s piece because of the photograph on the Washington Post’s homepage. It featured a giant banner saying Lordstown (Ohio) was the home of the (Chevy) Cruze. Every single time I drove between Philadelphia and Chicago I would see that sign. It was also near the halfway point, so whichever way I…

  • The World Grows On and On

    I mentioned this this time last year, but I used to make a lot of datagraphics about GDP growth. The format here has not changed and so there is nothing new to look at there. But, the content is still interesting. And the accompanying Economist article makes the point that high growth rates are not…

  • Millennials Are the Worst

    Happy Friday, everybody. We made it to week’s end. But wouldn’t you know it? Millennials are still terrible. Admittedly this piece is over a year old, but I could not remember ever seeing it before. If you do not recall, last year there was a debate about the spending habits of millennials and why they are not…