Tag: New York Times

  • The Growth of the Non-payers of Federal Income Tax

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today will be an unusual day in that it shall have two posts. This first post is following up on yesterday’s about the 47% of Americans who do not pay federal income tax. The Earned Income Tax Credit was created to incentivise people to work. A tax on your income, after all, does the opposite.…

  • The 47%

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    Brendan Barry
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    This is the year of the percentages. From 99 to 47. Earlier this week, Mother Jones revealed via a secretly recorded dinner Mitt Romney as claiming that he doesn’t care about the 47% of people who do not pay income tax. He probably meant that he doesn’t care about getting their vote rather than caring…

  • Ivory Trade

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    Brendan Barry
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    This graphic from the New York Times looks at the illegal ivory trade out of Africa and into, primarily, the markets of Asia. I think the map works fairly well in showing why certain countries are centres for the illicit industry. But the two donut charts integrated into the graphic as part of the Indian…

  • Indo-European Language Origin

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    Brendan Barry
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    Polonius once asked Hamlet what he was reading. Hamlet replied “Words.” I still love that scene. But, it turns out that we now have an even better idea of where our words came from. It turns out that it is more likely that our shared Indo-European languages originated not in the steppes of Russia but…

  • Hurricane Isaac vs Hurricane Katrina

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    Brendan Barry
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    I live in the Midwest but I grew up on the East Coast. I spent my summers at the Jersey shore. (No, not that one.) I know a thing or two about hurricanes. Isaac is expected to make landfall later today in the New Orleans area almost seven years to the day when Katrina made…

  • Obama Administration Failing on Mortgage Modifications

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post features a Sankey diagram from the New York Times that looks at how the Obama administration has been failing to help homeowners with mortgage problems. Less than 25% of applicants have seen successful modifications of their home loans. The diagram here clearly shows the process and the failures that have led to so…

  • Oil Imports

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    Brendan Barry
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    Oil, sweet oil. We Americans love the stuff. Like too much of anything, though, that can lead to some problems. This post isn’t about that. But rather it’s about a New York Times graphic on how even though we are learning to check our sweet tooth, we are importing more oil from the Middle East…

  • Olympic Medal Ranking

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    As I wrote about last weekend, one can look at the Olympics rankings in a number of different ways. Even without weighting medal counts, one has to decide whether to rank countries by gold medals (as the IOC does) or by total medals (my personal preference). The New York Times looks at both in an…

  • Surveys of Swing States for the 2012 Presidential Election

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    Brendan Barry
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    The New York Times has been conducting surveys or polls of voters and likely voters in swing states, i.e. the states where the 2012 election will be decided. The nice thing about the piece is that it allows the user to select different sets of demographics through which one can view the questions asked. Furthermore,…

  • Obama Campaign Spending Breakdown

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    Brendan Barry
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    Over the weekend, the New York Times looked at how the Obama campaign has been spending its cash. I appreciate the value in these sort of block charts, but, I wonder if a bar chart would not have been more clear for the comparison. I like the block charts when the designer is rearranging the…