A “freakonomics” style look at the NFL Draft.
The Tragedy of the Commons (Part 1 of 4)
STFUTeabaggers, take note.
I reference the Tragedy of the Commons so often, it a fundamental political/economic/psychological/sociological concept that everyone should understand.
Do you remember the days when getting elected to Congress or choosing to work for the government was referred to as “public service”? The idea was that you would be making a sacrifice for the greater good of the country. Well, those days are long gone. Today, getting…
“America needs a fundamental shift in attitude. Instead of expecting a “nanny state” to take care of us, we should desperately try to reshape the federal government into a much smaller entity that will finally get off our backs.”
If you call Connecticut home, your standard of living and economic opportunities are almost two times better than that of someone in West Virginia. That basic inequality shouldn’t be news to any American who’s spent a day outside. But rarely has it been put in such a stark visual form. The images here are screenshots from a sweeping interactive data visualization by Rosten Woo and Zachary Watson for the American Human Development Project. The infographic maps something called the American Human Development Index — a rough, one-stop measurement of quality of life across America based on things like education, life expectancy, and income — and lets you compare it to a raft of other factors, from political activity to local homicide rates. Think of it as a medical chart from the nation’s annual physical — one that reveals some serious health problems.
A department-by-department guide to cutting the federal government’s budget.
Can someone slip a copy of this into each representative’s pocket?
If you’re gay, you might want to rethink a job at ExxonMobil. Better yet, ExxonMobil might want to rethink its policy on gays. The big-oil biz tied with Philip Morris International as the lowest ranking companies in this tremendous multi-part infographic on how LGBT-friendly the top 100 Fortune 500 corporations make their workplaces. Designed by Tiffany Farrant for Meet The Boss TV, the data visualization ranks both individual businesses and entire sectors, drawing up a black-and-white picture of tolerance in corporate America today — of who has embraced LGBT diversity and who still acts like Stonewall never happened.
Illegal immigration is much more complicated issue than the usual dichotomy of “Illegal immigrants are destroying our country” versus “Illegal immigrants play a vital role in our economy.” Before we even embark on the discussion, we need to know who we’re talking about.How many illegal immigrants are there, where are they from, and how do they fit in to the economy?
Did you take a vacation this summer? If you did, it was because your company generously allowed you a few paid vacation days. Unlike businesses in these other countries (all members of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development), U.S. companies are not required to give employees time off. Despite working some of the longest hours in the world, we take very little vacation. No wonder you’re feeling burnt out. A collaboration between GOOD and Amanda Buck.
Everybody might be working for the weekend, but we’re also working toward expanding our countries’ economies. Each hour we work contributes to the gross domestic product. But by how much? This is a look at the GDP per capita of the countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, compared with the average numbers of hours worked in each country. While we may be working hard in America, in Luxembourg, an hour of work really means something.
SOURCE: OECD
A collaboration between GOOD and Amanda Buck.
