Soda, Pop, or Coke? INFO VISUALIZATION: The debate continues.  ¶ 10:48 AM 10 Comments

  More Economic Issues DATA:Here's an interesting peice from Morgan Stanley about the current issues brewing in the economy. Again, it's the same things I posted on last time.

• Energy prices up


• National / Personal debt and Trade Deficit up


• Real Estate bubble


• Savings null

Here's the kicker paragraph from the article:

Just prior to the two oil price spikes of the 1970s, discretionary spending by US households had also gone to excess. The GDP share of consumer durables and residential construction -- the latter being a proxy for the discretionary demand for shelter -- was running at peak levels of around 14.5%. In the aftermath of those two earlier energy shocks, discretionary spending collapsed -- with the combined share of consumer durables and homebuilding falling to 11.5% in the mid-1970s and 10.5% in the early 1980s. These were the most severe consumer-led recessions on record in the United States. In the current expansion, discretionary household spending has moved into a similar zone of excess. The combined share of consumer durables and residential construction has averaged 14.3% of GDP over the past year -- virtually identical to peak shares hit just before the two energy-shock-induced consumption collapses of the 1970s. In other words, just as the energy shocks of the 1970s hit US households at a point when their spending behavior had gone to excess, the same is the case in the present climate. Yet unlike those earlier periods, today’s asset-dependent, overly-indebted American consumer is lacking any semblance of a backstop of income-based saving to shore up the downside. It would be one thing if American consumers were committed to defending modest lifestyles. It is another thing altogether in today’s era of excess -- there is much more room and greater urgency for consolidation.

The only investment Dan and I have in non-cash assets right now is investment in international bonds (Templeton Global Income Fund) because I just have a bad feeling about economy as a whole right now.

When is this government really, really going to get serious about energy policy? And, no, the latest pork-fest energy bill doesn't count.  ¶ 8:43 AM 3 Comments

  Krugman: Doom & Gloom (But I agree this time) DATA: So, I'm not an economist.

However, I've been reading more and more about the housing bubble. And I've seen it play out in real life; none of my friends are looking to buy houses, we all understand that they are overpriced. Today, I read a very interesting article by the good ol' bear Krugman, called Safe as Houses.

I used to live next door to a Russian émigré. One day he asked me to explain something that puzzled him about his new country. "This place seems very rich," he said, "but I never see anyone making anything. How does the country earn its money?"

The answer, these days, is that we make a living by selling each other houses. Since December 2000 employment in U.S. manufacturing has fallen 17 percent, but membership in the National Association of Realtors has risen 58 percent.

I've thought for sometime, even back in Seattle, that housing prices were unsustainable. Now that I'm in New York, I know they are. (Living in a city with a per-capita income of $22,402 but where the average apartment closing price is now $1,300,000.00 will do that to a person.) Meanwhile savings rates have fallen to zero, interest only mortgages are proliferating, and the twin deficits are rising.

Despite my generally bullish take on the US economy and future in general, I think it may be time to switch into hedge-mode and short a few housing related stocks.

Another Op-ed piece ties the economy to Bush's slowly falling approval ratings:

[P]eople are feeling insecure because they understand that today's economy is built on shaky fundamentals. Average Americans may not sit around fretting about America's outsized budget and trade deficits, and its unprecedented foreign indebtedness. But many of them - as buyers, borrowers and employees - are concerned about the increasingly bubbly housing sector.

The economy's shortcomings are nowhere more obvious than in the job market. Nearly four years into an economic expansion, job growth is still substantially slower than in previous recoveries. Wages for 80 percent of the work force are barely keeping pace with inflation, and aid for the workers hurt by global trade is paltry. Because Mr. Bush fails to acknowledge the lackluster job and wage growth, he fails to respond appropriately. The administration's insistence that the economy is getting better all the time - a stance that is based on statistical aggregates that are often divorced from individuals' actual experience - only intensifies the anxiety that people feel.

  ¶ 10:42 AM 2 Comments

  Best to Worst: 6 1&9 7 4 E J&Z L 5 Q 2 3 V F A D R M B W C N DATA: Straphangers just released their latest NYC Subway reportcard. I guess I've got a good mix with my commute using the R or the V (two of the shitty lines) and sometimes the N or the W (even worse), however I always transfer to the 6 at 59th Street or 51st Street, which gives me a taste of the good life every morn' on the city's best train.

Gothamist has a good conspiracy theory:

N riders aren't surprised their line sucks; Gothamist likes how one person the Post interviewed was "sweating profusely" as he waited for a train, because we've noticed that many N stations (Times Square, Herald Square, Union Square) are like saunas. If Gothamist were a conspiracy buff, we'd say the 6 is the best line because Mayor Bloomberg usually takes it from his townhouse, but we're not anything like that. But perhaps we'll change our nickname for the N from the "Never" to the "Nasty" train.

  ¶ 12:15 PM 1 Comments

  Changing Demos: Minority Majorities (Take that, logic!) INFO VISUALIZATION: A quick visualization from the USCB and the AP:

  ¶ 10:20 AM 5 Comments

  Worldometers.info INFO SCIENCE: Check out this cute little page of "live" earth stats. It'd be fun to take the calculations for this site and change the meters so that they look like an odometer (complete with rolling and all).

• The data is somewhat correct for 2003-2004 years and most of the times for 2005 too.
• Requires JavaScript
• Uses your computer's clock, so if you are curious how much we will have HIV-infected in 2050 then just change your system time to 2050. Please note that it will just calculate values based on current statistics.
• Please note that we're unable to "track" recent events like earthquake or war fatalities, since there are no available to public statistic about such events.

Be sure to check out a few of the doom statistics, like "topsoil erosion from farmlands (metric tons) this year" and "topsoil erosion from farmlands (metric tons) this year."

And what's up with "lightning strikes to earth this year" being so high? Can that be correct?  ¶ 6:30 AM 2 Comments

  Julius' Stream of Consciousness INFO SCIENCE: The New York Times is running an interesting article about Southwest Airline's Ding, a Windows only notification program that alerts you when Southwest has reduced ticket prices for your local airport. It's an interesting idea, but flawed. Why would I want to use their system, when they could just IM or SMS me instead? To me, this would be greatly preferred. In fact, I would give JetBlue and Southwest my IM information right now for New York / Seattle ticks. Why hasn't anyone done this? It could be applicable to all sorts of areas that bargain hunters (like me) frequent.

In other news, check out Bush's report card, also in the times. It's full of good info, but suffers from a poor ink to info ratio; what's up with those dots and wavy lines?

In personal news, I have a strong urge right now to dump IT for a few years. I'm doing DBA stuff, and I'm bored out of my mind. I'm juggling some options, like doing some civil service work while looking into graduate school. But who knows right now, having come to a crossroads in my life and living in an awesome city has really opened up my eyes to some completely different work options. I could use some time away from the whole hypercompetitive, superacronymified IT field. Or maybe I'm just lazy from soaking up too many xrays while out on the road driving across country. :-P  ¶ 7:22 AM 0 Comments