[RD] Daily Graphs and Charts

[hobbsyoyo]

holy crap North Dakota. Sweet sweet oil?

Yes although with the slump in oil prices, ND is going to be one of the worst performing states on this measure for the next year or two.

 

[Cutlass]

Spoiler :

 

[classical_hero]

Is there a link to a bigger picture of that?

 

[Atticus]

I am a terrific fan of the Big Mac index. It's a little hard to completely standardize, but as an estimate it's sooooo good as an indicator of the society's relative wealth.

It may be the standardization problem you're referring to, but isn't there the problem that in US Big Mac is considered a common thing people eat. In Angola or similar places it may be a novelty thing. In the places in between it's just not as popular as in the US to be as cheap.

The idea of picking an everyday item as a measure of wealth is of course nice, but why Big Mac? Why not a litre of milk or a kilo of rice or potatoes or flour? I don't know what Big Mac costs, but can tell the prices of these pretty accurately. They're of course culturally dependent as is Big Mac, but I'd guess to a lesser degree so.

 

[El_Machinae]

A Big Mac requires a number of inputs, and its in-store price is a combination of factors: from wages, the cost of renting the location, to the price of bringing in a standardized piece of bread and meat, to cooking, etc.

So it's a measure of the relative purchasing power of the society. If you're able to get beef from local suppliers who earn local wages, then the relative cost for a worker will be lower.

That talk was really, really good. It's one of ~5 that I've circulated, and I listen to a LOT of lectures.

 

[El_Machinae]

In real dollars, that's the amount of money earned by the officer that year of service.

Military Retirement and its market distortion

Fairly good article. Makes a good point about how back-loading pensions causes a clear incentive distortion (and also keeps a great deal of gov't debt 'off book'). As an aside, I recommend using the retention rates between 4-8 years as a reasonable indictor of what it 'should' be; post-washout period, but far enough away from the sweet-20. Now, front-loading salaries (even in the form of savings plans) would probably increase mid-range retention, but that's probably a good thing.

 

[warpus]

I keep reading such polarized views of American vets - some statistics seem to imply that they have it too good ^^, due to the socialist system set up to look after vets or whatever, but a lot of people also seem to think that vets in the U.S. get the shaft, there's housing issues, suicide, etc.

Is it mainly a matter of "Stay in the system long enough and you'll get to ride with us on the gravy train and get free handouts for life, but otherwise, FO?" Or what are the issues exactly?

 

[sophie]

The system is theoretically good, but highly inefficient and the state of mental health access (or even mental health awareness) is...bad in this country.

 

[CavLancer]

The VA has been good to me. Never expected any of it really. Service to a democracy is its own reward. Then again, they never hauled me off to fight for a people who didn't want to be fought for.

 

[ls612]

I keep reading such polarized views of American vets - some statistics seem to imply that they have it too good ^^, due to the socialist system set up to look after vets or whatever, but a lot of people also seem to think that vets in the U.S. get the shaft, there's housing issues, suicide, etc.

Is it mainly a matter of "Stay in the system long enough and you'll get to ride with us on the gravy train and get free handouts for life, but otherwise, FO?" Or what are the issues exactly?

The VA and other post-service incentives for soldiers on paper sound amazing for them. In practice they are often very corrupt and inefficient which can lead to the well publicized things like vets with dangerous illnesses being told to wait to see a doc for years and then dying in the mean time, or people who call the VA suicide and mental health hotline being routed to an answering machine.

 

[El_Machinae]

Keep in mind, vet services are a totally different thing from pension.

 

[Cutlass]

The people I've known who use the VA for healthcare are often quite happy with it. But the problem with the VA is for new users to properly get into the system in the first place, and that services other than straight healthcare are often royally screwed up. Getting non-healthcare services from the VA can be hard. And the DoD makes it harder, because they want to separate as many service people without paying the costs as possible.

 

[Cutlass]

 

[JohannaK]

Literally off the charts.

 

[El_Machinae]

Whaddya bet those rising costs are all the people who're suffering from the diseases of old age, and all the cheap people at the end there are people who didn't go through those diseases, or benefited from efficacious treatments?

 

[warpus]

Diversity of players' birthplace in the top 4 professional sports leagues in North America & MLS

Here's a map of which states and provinces those MLS players born in the U.S. and Canada come from.

Spoiler :

 

[Gigaz]

Whaddya bet those rising costs are all the people who're suffering from the diseases of old age, and all the cheap people at the end there are people who didn't go through those diseases, or benefited from efficacious treatments?

I'm curious about that high-age dropoff too. If the high costs are caused by cancer and Alzheimers or something, why would older people not contract that? As far as I know, the death rate does not decrease for people beyond a certain high age. There may be some "be healthy at high age" genes but they are neither common nor very efficient. It's mostly luck and lifestyle.

 

[El_Machinae]

So, let's remember something. Corporate profits are part of a zero-sum game between the stockholder, the employee, and the customer. In the end profits aren't a 'good thing', since they're part of the zero-sum. If profits lower because customers get better prices, or employees get better wages, the net good is roughly the same.

What corporate profits are supposed to do is drive competition. Someone notices you're making a killing, moves next door and then offers the same product for slightly cheaper. Better for the customer. It's basically the same reason why monopolies are bad and we have anti-trust laws.

The Economist ran an article this week about how the American companies have had a decade of really great returns, while we're not seeing an entrance of new players to compete those profits away.

Something stinks in Competition-Ville

 

[W|M]

It seems that monopolies are the most individually profitable situation for a given company. Profits exist because they're stolen from workers

 

[El_Machinae]

Yes, each individual company prefers profits. We all prefer profits. They're zero-sum. I want lower prices for the goods I pay. I want better dividends from the stocks I buy. I want the highest wage my boss can afford. Zero-sum.

But this ratcheting up of corporate profits means that they're not being eroded by competition.