Tag: economics

  • Swiss Coffee Exports

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    Brendan Barry
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    While I hate coffee, I do like sankey charts. And this piece from Quartz makes use of one when discussing the exports of coffee. In particular, the article focuses on the value that coffee manufactures, e.g. Nestle, add to Swiss imports of un-roasted beans before exporting them roasted. (Increasingly in little pods.) Overall, the piece…

  • Home Ownership

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    Brendan Barry
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    I am pretty much a sucker for small multiples. And so today I present a good one from the Washington Post. The story starts looking at the broad, national scope of the issue. And from there it breaks home ownership down by state. Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post’s graphics department.

  • Strolling into Work…

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    Brendan Barry
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    …forty minutes late with an iced coffee? It’s what we millennials do since we don’t understand that time exists between 04.00 and 10.30. Don’t believe me? Well, Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight crunched the numbers and it turns out that there is some truth in the humour. Cities with a younger, more millennial workforce tend…

  • Indoor Plumbing

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post is a small interactive map—nothing fancy there—about indoor plumbing. As it turns out not every home in the United States has it. Of course, last weekend I ended up driving through those dark counties in western Pennsylvania. And I can believe it. And I can definitely say I saw a few outhouses. Credit…

  • Economic Hardship Relates to Hate

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    Brendan Barry
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    After shootings in Kansas City, the Washington Post looked at hate crimes versus poverty. It turns out there is a somewhat positive correlation. Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post graphics department.

  • Tax Day and Income Inequality

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    Brendan Barry
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    Tax Day for Americans seems like a great time to talk about income inequality. The article from which this chart comes talks about a recent book exploring the parallels of the 19th century’s inequality—as the article reminds us, the time of “Please, sir, may I have another?”—and the forecast for the 21st. Anyway, the graphic…

  • Comparing Urban Statistics

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    Brendan Barry
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    Sometimes when you are considering moving, you want to look at some broad statistics on the area in which you want to move. In Boston, the Boston Globe has put together a neat little application that does just that. Type in two settlements in the metro area and then get a quick comparison of the…

  • Chicago’s Disappearing Middle Class

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    Brendan Barry
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    President Obama has made a big deal recently about income inequality. The story in short is that the rich in the country are getting rich; the poor are getting poorer; and the people in the middle are fewer in number. Here in Chicago, this has meant that over the last few decades, many of the…

  • Changing the Minimum Wage

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    Brendan Barry
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    Here’s a piece from the New York Times where I have to quibble with some minor design decisions. The story behind the graphic is various state actions on the minimum wage compared to where President Obama wants the minimum wage raised. This is a good story and broadly I like the execution. But these arrows,…

  • Acquiring Technology via Purchases

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week Facebook acquired a company specialising in virtual reality. The Wall Street Post put together a timeline of technology company acquisitions over the last several years. Each line is a different company and sizes of dots represent the value of the different purchases. Credit for the piece goes to the Wall Street Journal’s graphics…