US Economy Archive:

A fantastic annotated heatmap from the Washington Post breaking down job creation/loss by sector. On the right is an interactive, slightly more annotated, line chart version of the same data. I prefer the heatmap. (related article)

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The Washington Post has mapped out a bunch of interesting stats concerning States’ Budget problems: shortfalls, pension liabilities, proposed cuts (health care, education, etc), and who is in charge. To sum up: this is yet another way we’re screwed beyond belief. (related article)

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Based on these indicators, things are returning to normal.

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More excellent work from VisualizingEconomics:

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An 85 foot long annotated timeline of early American financial and industrial history. Similar to the 1775-1943 Booms and Busts timeline I posted last year, this one isn’t quite as technical, but the historical notes are fascinating: 1877: “Guaranteed Mtges coming into use”, 1899: “100 taxis in New York”, 1910: “Movie censorship being demanded”.  (via)

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Patchwork Nation tracks a number of traditional economic and social indicators over time – but they also include some interesting alternative ones:

Cracker Barrel restaurants and Whole Foods Stores:
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Gun shops and Casinos:
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Bankruptcies 2007 vs 2010:
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Change in family income 1980-2010:
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Housing prices trends don’t look the same if you adjust for inflation.

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On a side note, the designer of the above, Catherine Mulbrandon over at Visualizing Economics, has a kickstarter campaign to fund production of a new publication on US Income. She does great work and I recommend you donate, if so inclined.

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One of my favorite economic dashboards. It highlights major macro indicators, what direction they are trending, and what the typical ranges are. It also lets you drill down to explanations of why you should care, and historical values.

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Karl Hartig was creating beautiful complex data visualizations back when most of us “graphics experts” were still trying to figure out how to change colors in excel.  Here is a selection of his work on population, electronics, energy, stocks, immigration, politics, and music. Soak it up!

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Despite media spin, the United States is a long way from getting all of the bailout money back. (via Ritholtz)

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I’m just posting this into the chart rolodex in case I ever have a need for it. Long time series can be a surprisingly big pain in the ass to pull together. Case in point: I had never seen the site MeasuringWorth before (which is where this data came from). Nice!

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Projections of when China’s GDP will be bigger than the USA’s, based on several different growth rates. There’s also an interactive version.

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“Eight charts that explain everything that’s wrong with America”, from Mother Jones. (Thanks to Matt Brown for the link!)

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How America compares to other industrial countries based on a variety of basic indicators (income inequality, life expectancy, education) as well as some uncommon ones (prison population, level of democracy, and “wellbeing”). Conclusion: America is not #1! Can anyone think of indicators that WOULD make us look good in this crowd?

heat table of advanced countries performace on a variety of indicators

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Sure, inflation in January was only 1.6%:

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but there’s a lot of variation in the products that make up the CPI (butter was up 19.6% y-y, for example), which this tool from the WSJ lets you explore:

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Want to know how the CPI weights all of these goods? Check out this oldie but goodie:

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What is Chart Porn?

An addictive collection of beautiful charts, graphs, maps, and interactive data visualization toys -- on topics from around the world.

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