Politics Archive:
Presidential Primary Calendar
1 Dec 2011An interesting comparison of state primary and caucus dates 2000-2012, both for the Democrats and Republicans. You can watch Iowa and New Hampshire keep moving back the opening day to stay before other states trying to steal the spotlight. The bad news: Super Tuesday isn’t until March 6th – so we have 3 more months to go of lame media coverage of the Republican field.
Greek Crisis Videographics
23 Nov 2011This jumps around a little too much for my taste – but it is a good example of using simple facts to put things in perspective.
Here’s a slightly more in depth, much more tongue-in-cheek version (from two years ago):
Finally, an even more tongue in cheek SNL skit about which god is in charge of Greek finance:
How (un)Popular is Congress?
16 Nov 2011Congress is less popular than the IRS, lawyers, banks, and Nixon – but just above Fidel Castro. Hahaha!.
Opinion polls are probably the mostly worthless statistics out there. However, they can sometimes be amusing: In the 1990s, Michael Moore’s television show “TV Nation” paid for a number of entertaining polls to be professionally conducted:
65% of all Americans believe that frozen pizza will never be any good and there’s nothing science can do about it.
15% of Americans wish Dennis Hopper would go back on drugs.
29% of Americans believe that Elvis was right to shoot TV sets.
60% of Americans say that if they could push a button that would make Larry King disappear, they would “keep pushing it and not stop.”
17% of college graduates would punch themselves really hard in the face for $50.
16% of all Americans believe that the world is out to get them. Of those, 46% are gun owners.
Death and Taxes 2012
In: Politics US Economy
8 Nov 2011Jess Bachman has updated his beautiful visualization of the United States budget. He’s been doing this for several years, so the design is very solid and accurate.
United Bases of America
2 Nov 2011
Shoe Throwing Index
24 Oct 2011This is a strange little tool: an interactive index to middle east unrest.
Move the sliders to ascribe different weightings to the various indicators that may influence instability (since the values shown are rounded, they may not always add up to exactly 100). Lock individual sliders by clicking the checkboxes. Roll over the chart to see indicators for each country.
Occupy George
19 Oct 2011Hacking money with graphics to draw attention to economic inequalities. I love that they included accurate titles and legends. (via Ritholtz)
10 Essential Fiscal Charts
14 Oct 201110 beautiful charts from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Fiscal Analysis Initiative, examining the United States Debt and the challenges facing Congress’ Super Committee.
What Wall Street Protesters are Angry About – in Charts
In: Bailout Employment Finance Politics Stock Market US Economy
14 Oct 2011A series of 30+ charts on unemployment, wages, corporate profits, income inequality, debt, taxes, and bailouts from the Business Insider. It’s actually quite an accurate compendium, and the narrative annotation spices up what are otherwise pretty dry charts from the St. Louis Fed (note: if you’ve never used the FRED data/graphing system, you should really go play with it – they even have an APP now). I particularly like the sequence where they illustrate that banks are borrowing money from the FED at basically zero interest rates, and using it to buy treasuries. Hilarious.
The US Military – Maybe Not What You Think
5 Oct 2011Pew Research Center released a study on civilian and military views in the post 9/11 era. Headline MSM coverage (MSNBC; CNN) has focused on the finding that 1-out-of-3 veterans say the wars were not worth fighting – but the report actually contains a treasure trove of interesting graphics about our military.
The complete study in PDF format can be found here.
Leader Timeline
3 Oct 2011Interesting photo timeline design idea. To be fair, they should have used a linear scale. (via; thanks to David Cramer for the link).
Female World Leaders
29 Sep 2011
US State Budget Gaps
In: Finance Interactive Internet/tech Politics Source: FT US Economy
27 Sep 2011What is shocking to me is that there are 12 states with no shortfall.
Note: Some Financial Times features require a subscription.
Tax Break Breakdown
In: Innovative Interactive Politics Source: Washington Post US Economy
19 Sep 2011To be cliché: the truth may surprise you. This is a great look at the “loopholes” in our tax system, point by point. You can filter by kind of break, compare individual vs corporate, find out when they were first implemented, and see how they all add up. However, I really wish the lines in the main bar graph had matched width with the amount of the break (with the y-axis being billions of $) – at first glance that’s what I thought was going on. I’m also not sure how I feel about things like “employer contributions to health care” being considered a break. (related article)
Republican Candidates Venn Diagram
In: Politics Source: NYT
23 Aug 2011
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- Scott from Ohio: Considering the kinds of things Congress has been up to lately, slowing them down isn't exactly a ba [...]
- Rogier: True as long as the task at hand doesn't change.... [...]
- Jay: The Geek looses. Management eventually realizes it can automate his job. [...]
- Frank: @ Michael: apparently you live somewhere *within* the big, brown sphere. I live on the surface of [...]
- neale: Thanks made my day :-) [...]