Tag: infographic

  • Feltron 2012 Annual Report

    Perhaps the most recent winner in the unsurprising post category is Nicholas Felton’s latest Feltron Report, for 2012. As usual, solid work. Below is the spread for beverages, something which I am known to record and report upon from time to time. Credit for the piece goes to Nicholas Felton.

  • US Trade Balance

    The US imports a lot. But it does not export quite as much. The difference between those two figures is what is known as the balance of trade. Quartz looks at the US balance of trade not at an overall level, but between individual countries. This is not one of my favourite pieces. For starters,…

  • Wealth Inequality in the United States

    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

    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

    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…

  • Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela

    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

    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

    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…

  • Budget Sequestration and US Austerity

    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…

  • Historical Chicago Snowfall

    Snow should fall upon Chicago this afternoon and it may measure up to a few inches in depth. But much of this winter has been below average. And that is much the same from last year when snowfall did not even reach 20 inches. I went through NOAA data to look at the last decade…