Friday, July 31, 2009
Presenting the $5 Slice
Mayor Koch would have organized a boycott, I'm sure. The conventional wisdom, however, is that Di Fara Pizza is a treasure. More...
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The White Male Recession
One of the memes floating around out there is that this recession is hurting white men disproportionately. Here's an article in USA Today that points out that the unemployment rate among older white men is at an all-time high of 6.5% while black women have it great at 12.55 unemployment because historically their rate has been around 20%.
Those poor white men suffering almost half the unemployment rate of the black women! More...
Those poor white men suffering almost half the unemployment rate of the black women! More...
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Most Interesting Shots (Today) #7
Every day Flickr ranks all of my photos based on an algorithm they call "interestingness." Here are today's "most interesting" shots.
17 of the 30 are taken in New York City
6 are taken in Fire Island Pines, NY
6 feature my dogs (#14 is brand new)
5 show the old Met Life Building
4 feature the Empire State Building
4 are shots of the reflecting pool in New York's Madison Square Park
Previous versions here. The actual Flickr page is here. More...
Monday, July 27, 2009
Hidden New York
It's amazing what's hidden in plain sight in NYC, like this beach house on a roof at 1st and 1st just off Houston More...
Friday, July 24, 2009
The Longshot
New AOL chief Tim Armstrong has unveiled his strategy at an all-hands meeting in Dulles this morning. I wish them well, but this will be the mother of uphill battles.
Pretty cool they got Steve Case, Ted Leonsis, Martha Stewart, AND Warren Buffett (left) to attend. Perhaps some of these will be on AOL's board? More...
Pretty cool they got Steve Case, Ted Leonsis, Martha Stewart, AND Warren Buffett (left) to attend. Perhaps some of these will be on AOL's board? More...
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A Modest Proposal
Problem: Lots of underutilized open space right in the middle of Manhattan next to some of New York's most desirable neighborhoods.
Solution: Get rid of all that greenery and replace it with something useful like an airport More...
Solution: Get rid of all that greenery and replace it with something useful like an airport More...
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Big Mac Index
The Big Mac Index is an attempt to measure purchasing power parity among currencies. The theory is that a Big Mac should cost the same no matter where you buy it. If it costs much more to buy in a country than in the US, then the idea is that the currency of that country is overvalued compared to the dollar.
The current index shows that the European currencies are generally overvalued and the Asian currencies generally undervalued compared to the dollar. More...
The current index shows that the European currencies are generally overvalued and the Asian currencies generally undervalued compared to the dollar. More...
NYC unemployment
For quite a while, the unemployment rate in New York City has been lower than the national average. Now that has changed.
More...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Lies
Among the things that irk me the most is the use of badly drawn charts to mislead readers. In today's Economix blog the chart at the left appears. It purports to show that veterinary spending and healthcare spending in the US have grown neck and neck, when it fact the underlying data shows nothing of the sort.
This chart is scaled so that the trendlines match (i.e., so that the visual picture matches the conclusion the blog is drawing). If it had been scaled in a neutral fashion (e.g., by indexing vet spend and health spend at 100 in 1984) the chart would clearly show that healthcare spending has grown significantly faster than vet spending, which is a very different conclusion than the one this chart purports to show. More...
This chart is scaled so that the trendlines match (i.e., so that the visual picture matches the conclusion the blog is drawing). If it had been scaled in a neutral fashion (e.g., by indexing vet spend and health spend at 100 in 1984) the chart would clearly show that healthcare spending has grown significantly faster than vet spending, which is a very different conclusion than the one this chart purports to show. More...
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Health Care
The U.S. not only outspends every other OECD nation on health care, that trend is accelerating
More...
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Jobs Ratio
This chart shows the ratio of unemployed people to job opening. There are now nearly six unemployed people for every job opening. More...
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Announcing Club Wagner
For 30 years the GOP has attacked taxes of any kind and we see where that's gotten us. Now, here's a group who wants taxes as a whole to rise.
More...
Monday, July 6, 2009
Ad Market Deflation
The advertising market continues to unravel. As I written before, I think advertising is not only going to shrink with GDP, but it will also shrink as a percent of GDP due to the inherent deflationary characteristics of digital media.
More...
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Borrowing from Posterity: Oil Edition
One of the defining characteristics of our age is that we have devised countless ways to consume more stuff by borrowing money that posterity will have to pay back and by consuming non-renewable resources without regard for the effect their depletion will have on future generations.
This graph is an attempt to lay out how much fossil fuel remains on earth and when it will be depleted. The End of Oil trope has been around for a long time and has been "disproven" every time the price of oil falls, so the timing of this chart is naturally speculative.
What is indisputable, however, is that we will run out eventually. This graph says we have 90 years left. The accompanying article says, basically, we don;t have a plan B. More...
This graph is an attempt to lay out how much fossil fuel remains on earth and when it will be depleted. The End of Oil trope has been around for a long time and has been "disproven" every time the price of oil falls, so the timing of this chart is naturally speculative.
What is indisputable, however, is that we will run out eventually. This graph says we have 90 years left. The accompanying article says, basically, we don;t have a plan B. More...
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
8.36 Million New Yorkers
New York has more people than ever before. 360,000 more than the last census.
More...
On hiring the unemployed
It seems that many companies would prefer to hire only people who are currently employed, reasoning that they are more likely - in this economy - to be survivors and top performers.
More...
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