Tag: economics

  • 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…

  • Detroit

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    Brendan Barry
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    Detroit’s population has fallen drastically while its economy has been all but eviscerated with the near-collapse of the American automotive industry. But it was not always that way. The National Post looks at Detroit over the years, starting in 1950. It’s the mapping and charting out of the decline and fall of what was once a…

  • Follow the (Canadian Foreign Aid) Money

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    Brendan Barry
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    Canada spends quite a bit of money on foreign aid. Last week a National Post infographic looked at the targets for that aid program and in particular highlighted Haiti, a country that has received large sums after the devastating earthquake three years ago. Credit for the piece goes to Kathryn Blaze Carlson, Mike Faille, and…

  • Canadian Debt

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    Brendan Barry
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    Canada, along with Australia, was one of the few Western, industrialised economies to weather the global recession of 2008 fairly well. However in recent years, despite the economic boom in the energy-rich western provinces, many of Canada’s provinces have been accumulating substantial—though not yet crippling—levels of debt. Toronto’s National Post explores the federal and provincial…

  • Palestine

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    Brendan Barry
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    With Palestine admitted to the United Nations as a non-member observer state, the Middle East tensions between Israel and Palestine have reached a new level. Regardless, Palestine may now have access to international institutions and is closer to being a recognised, sovereign state. Toronto’s National Post published a large infographic looking at the state of…

  • US Healthcare State Exchanges

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    Brendan Barry
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    Later this month the Affordable Care Act mandates states decide on how they wish to implement the state healthcare exchanges. The Guardian’s US interactive team has created this interactive application to track the state decisions. Each state is clickable to provide further details on what has been decided. Credit for the piece goes to the…

  • Taxes

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    Brendan Barry
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    Let’s face it, governments need money to function. If you want a large military, you have to fund it. If you want pension system, you have to fund it. If you want medical care for the old, the sick, and the poor, you have to fund it. If you want to give everyone unicorns made…

  • The Drop in the Unemployment Rate and How to Spin It

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    Brendan Barry
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    On Friday we received the monthly jobs report. And the furore that arose with it. Principally the anger stemmed from right-leaning commentators who believed that the non-partisan Bureau of Labor Statistics, a government agency tasked with collecting data on employment among other metrics, “cooked the books”/ “massaged the figures”/ flat-out lied to show a significant drop…

  • Average Household Spending

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    Brendan Barry
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    This tree map from the Wall Street Journal looks at an interesting subject: average household spending. How much are we spending on housing, on food, on transportation, &c.? But I’m not so sure that the main visualisation is necessary. I appreciate the big colour and splashiness, but the space use seems inefficient. Perhaps if the…

  • Economic Freedom

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    Brendan Barry
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    Canada, our neighbour to the north, is sometimes taken to task for being too socialist or too liberal with their healthcare system and regulatory oversight of industries, including finance. But what data increasingly shows us is that we cannot say their more socialist economy is weaker than ours. Rather in several metrics now, the Canadian…