Information is Beautiful has this fascinating infoporn showing the relative expenditures of many various and unrelated activities:
click for ginormous graphic
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
"Overall household indebtedness is up from $7 trillion to almost $10 trillion since 2000. On this sum, we estimate, the American consumer has an annual interest bill of more than $500 billion; a sum, by the way, that vastly exceeds his current income growth." —Kurt Richebacher
Knowing that the vote over the weekend in Greece was really a referendum on Euro membership, a majority of the Greek Parliament said yes to staying. European Finance Ministers meet again on Wednesday to solidify the 2nd bailout package for Greece at the same time hopefully a deal is consummated between Greece and its creditors this week. The Greek 14.5b euro bond that matures on March 20th is up by 2 pts. The optimism that all will be completed and contained AGAIN to Greece has yields lower in Portugal, Spain and Italy. The iTraxx Financial Index is also narrower by...
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September 30th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Ritholtz, hi. How have you been?
I like the way you posted this graphic that lumps together “global pharmaceutical market” with “global illegal drug market” and “world advertising spend” with “bribes received by Russian officials”. Very subtle, Ritholtz, very subtle.
I am still in retirement. I came back to make one comment, http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/09/fixing-the-sec/#comment-220858, because Bergsten alerted me to what was happening on your blog. Isn’t Bergsten great thinking YOU would actually reply to him on email?
Ritholtz, if you miss The Great CNBC Sucks, just follow me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/cnbcsucks). John Carney follows me, and so do blog babes Megan Carpentier and Mo Tkacik, so you should too!
September 30th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
TGCNBNS – your twitter link takes me to “Page doesn’t exist”
September 30th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Nothing makes it hit home like a visual picture of how much money we’re really printing for all this. Inflation is hiding around the corner…
September 30th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Thanks, franklin420d. Your “Mangy Mutts” is my favorite team name in our fantasy football league.
WordPress handles URLs in comments crappily, so IF you desire, follow The Great CNBC Sucks on http://twitter.com/CNBCSucks
I normally do not link to myself because Ritholtz edits my comments when he loses too much traffic, but I know a few of you miss me, so I am promoting my Tweeter account strictly as a public service.
Back to retirement for me. I do wish ALL of you the best. Until my next return…
September 30th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Information is beautiful.
Garbage In, Garbage Out? , Not so much.
If you for one minute think that feeding and educating the world, or solar energy investment costs are properly displayed on this chart….
Seriously, why do people lie? It is so unbecoming.
September 30th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
“My” reaction to the graphic is that virtually all of the “unpopular, politically incorrect” boxes are big AND ARE ESTIMATES OR ARE MARKED AS “WORST CASE.” In other words, they have disclaimers.
Meanwhile, the smaller boxes, such as “feed the…” are (by absence of such terms) allegedly totally accurate figures.
“My” family cannot budget food from supermarket visit to supermarket visit because the prices change so fast (and not downward either). So how can the person who created this graphic be so sure of the numbers?
BTW, I don’t (necessarily) disagree with the sentiments, but the argument is prejudiced by sloppy reasoning and slanted reporting which discredits it for anyone who actually thinks and has the slightest shred of skepticism (such as out Barry’s “polymath” and “innovation” links from yesterday).
Nothing to do with Barry of course (don’t shoot the messenger). And any semblance of agreement with CNBC sucks (Twitter, remember?) is purely coincidental (and Barry responds to me emails all the time).
p.s. It’s just so satisfying when I run my comments through the spelling checker and get to reply “ignore” to CNBC.
September 30th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
How about scaling by % US GDP? Historical comparisons (even in normalized dollars) are terribly misleading…
September 30th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Where’s the elephant in the room… social security and medicare?
September 30th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
How is the Iraq War Estimated Total equal to 30x the annual cost of the Iraq War for ’06 or ’07?
And why isn’t the combined salary of host and judges from American Idol represented?
September 30th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
BR: Knowing your fondness for data visualization, you might get a kick from playing around with IBM’s Many Eyes – registration is required to upload data, but the tools are free.
September 30th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Where is The Amount Spent on Coke and Hookers by Bankers Receiving Bonuses from Taxpayer Funds via TARP?
September 30th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
@leftback:
I think it’s evenly distributed between “Yoga Industry,” “Bribes received by Russian officials,” and “Google.”
=)
HCF
October 1st, 2009 at 12:56 am
Wow. The internet porn industry is 97 Billion?
October 1st, 2009 at 3:06 am
[...] Shared Spending is Relative: The Billion $ Gram #feedly [...]
October 1st, 2009 at 2:28 pm
One thing missing is estimated losses by financial institutions since the crisis began. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reported that the IMF calculates there will be a total of $3.4 trillion in losses and write-downs for financial institutions between 2007 and 2010 (of which $1.5 trillion will come in 2010). If it had been included, it would have been the second-biggest box on the ‘gram.