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Purchase Power Parity from CIA Factbook-

"This is the measure most economists prefer when looking at per-capita welfare and when comparing living conditions or use of resources across countries."

Germany was much more socialist in early nineties. And the standard of living was also quite higher than now

Nominal GDP per person contradicts your statement. As does real GDP per person. For good measure here is a study done in 2003:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p634gl14222451n1/

An excerpt:

"During the past ten years, quality of life improved in the former German Democratic
Republic (GDR), but such came with some self-inflicted problems."

Those problems are explained:

"Germany's structural problems today are a reflection of unsound fiscal and monetary policies of the 1990s."

So, not only are Germans better of by every measure I can find, the socialist fiscal and monetary policies of the 1990's are to blame for any structural problems today.

Fine, here's one that is adjusted on PPP:

http://www.indexmundi.com/germany/gdp_(purchasing_power_parity).html

Plugging this into excel and comparing with election08 data (Feel free to email me asking for the data if you don't trust me), the average Blue state gets $0.96 in spending for every dollar it pays in taxes. The average Red state receives $1.40 in spending for every dollar in taxes it pays.

These tables don't specify, what the money was spent on — a union-entrenching public-works project? Public housing? Paying off farmers to grow less food? One could make a case, that the Democrats are charging the productive to support the rest on purpose — to make everyone addicted to the government's support and destroy the "evil" Capitalism. Your figures would support that claim, actually...

But all that is only a little related to my earlier claim, that Democrats can't govern as good as Republicans. You dismissed my examples (New Orleans, New York before and after Giulliani, Seattle — I'd add Chicago, if I had anything to compare it with) as "cherry-picking" — so, why don't you pick some of your own cherries to demonstrate the opposite?

It's hard for "industrious profit driven capitalists" to get food when they can't leave their houses without being electrocuted to death by downed power-lines.

That's irrelevant — downed power-lines are a danger to the benevolent free food distributors from the government just as well. The broken infrastructure has to be fixed regardless of who is then helping avoid famine. Both, however, are going to happen quickly and without much drama under Capitalism. Under Socialism, on the other hand, things will suffer, even when there is money.

Since there are more Democrats then Republicans at every level of government right now, this creates a strong theoretical reason to believe that Republicans do not perform better then Democrats.

What? How?..

But Nicaragua's GDP is higher right now then it was a couple years ago when they were controlled by right-wing parties. So Nicaragua under "Capitalist" management would have actually done slightly worse.

For the GDP to be simply higher than in prior year, not much is needed. The measure of good government is the speed of the product's continuing growth. Nicaragua's Capitalists left a faster-growing GDP, than it has since grown under the Socialists. Although nobody knows for sure, the simple statistics show the exact opposite to what you are saying, and confirm my assertions: Socialism is bad.

I doubt, you — with your demonstrated knack for Math and Statistics — could've missed the difference between GDP being higher vs. faster-growing. That you picked the former to state: "under "Capitalist" management would have actually done slightly worse," — when the full picture shows the opposite, makes me think, you aren't posting in good faith and reinforces my suspicions about the rest of your data...

Of course, the fact that the United States and the Soviet Union funded a civil war in Nicaragua for two decades is a much larger factor in Nicaragua's current poverty then any decisions by their government.

The civil war wound down 20 years ago. I don't expect them all to have HDTV and nice cars by now, but it does not take that long to figure out, how to survive a bad harvest year...

There's no need to bring Rush Limbaugh into this.

It's not universally true, but it is more or less an accepted fact.

Fertility rates are inversely proportional to income.

In the modern world there are a lot of reasons for this. The rich tend to have access to better education. therefore, they tend to try to start a career before a family (illustrated in comedic fashion by the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy). Then with their career dominating their lives, they usually only have a couple kids at the most.

More wealthy folks have better access to birth control. Again, better education plays into this. On the extreme end of the spectrum, you have folks who have superstitious beliefs. That doesn't help keep their fertility rates down any...

Economists and demographers have known about this correlation for centuries. And it's interesting because it goes across religions, across nationalities, race, and other factors. Poor Americans are just as likely to have a higher fertility rate as poor French, or Japanese. Poor Nigerians or Indians are even more likely because a poor American is fairly well off by Nigerian standards.

Side Rant: The Israelis in particular are worried about this effect because Israel is a democracy. And the Israeli Palestinians have a fertility rate several times that of Israeli Jews. Again, the average Israeli Palestinian is much poorer than the average Israeli Jew.

The Israelis are concerned because with the higher fertility rates of the Palestinian Israeli citizens, the Palestinians may become a majority in the "Jewish State" in a couple generations. This brings up all kinds of moral dilemmas for the Israeli government, who must try to balance it's commitment to a homeland for the Jews to it's commitment to democracy for all it's citizens.

A few minutes of on the Google came up with these:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14744915
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14164483
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/177/8/846/F19
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/correlation.aspx?v1=67&v2=31&y=2004

Also, I have no idea why you brought Rush Limbaugh into this. I'm about as progressive a character as you're likely to meet. I don't know anyone that disputes this data.

Cause is another matter. Progressives would tend to contend that the reason is education, the nature of pre-industrialized societies, higher mortality rates among poor nations, the tempo of life in wealthy nations and classes.

And Rush would say they all want their welfare checks or something.

You're right about the lack of heredity for short-fatness though. It is environmental / cultural, not genetic.

Geeks should be equally worried about indium, of which China is the main producer. So much for those cheap LCDs...

Taiwan's electricity consumption in 2004 was 206 billion kWh. Their population in 2004 was around 23 million people. That works out to just shy of 9000 kWh per capita. You can't tell me Taiwan doesn't run a lot of AC given that their hot, humid weather makes Houston look mild. (Or at least, so I was told by a Taiwanese coworker who also lived and worked in Houston for years.) He used to tell stories of apartment buildings with rows of in-window AC units blasting heat onto the street making it even hotter outdoors.

Again, a big part of it likely comes down to population density and that smaller dwellings and shorter distances are more efficient than larger homes sprawled out over larger distances.

Another point worth considering is that about half of America's energy consumption (not electricity specifically, but energy overall) actually comes from commercial and industrial use, not residential dwellings.

In general, I don't think you can point to a single factor such as land size or population that serves as a strong predictor of energy consumption. If it's proportional to anything, I'd suggest it's likely most strongly proportional to GNP and the proportion of GNP that comes from heavy manufacturing (since that seems to be the real energy eater). I admit, though, that I'm too lazy to look up all those stats at the moment.

Taiwan's electricity consumption in 2004 was 206 billion kWh. Their population in 2004 was around 23 million people. That works out to just shy of 9000 kWh per capita. You can't tell me Taiwan doesn't run a lot of AC given that their hot, humid weather makes Houston look mild. (Or at least, so I was told by a Taiwanese coworker who also lived and worked in Houston for years.) He used to tell stories of apartment buildings with rows of in-window AC units blasting heat onto the street making it even hotter outdoors.

Again, a big part of it likely comes down to population density and that smaller dwellings and shorter distances are more efficient than larger homes sprawled out over larger distances.

Another point worth considering is that about half of America's energy consumption (not electricity specifically, but energy overall) actually comes from commercial and industrial use, not residential dwellings.

In general, I don't think you can point to a single factor such as land size or population that serves as a strong predictor of energy consumption. If it's proportional to anything, I'd suggest it's likely most strongly proportional to GNP and the proportion of GNP that comes from heavy manufacturing (since that seems to be the real energy eater). I admit, though, that I'm too lazy to look up all those stats at the moment.

As does Canada. They still want us to pay for our natural gas to heat our houses though.

Rather than looking at a single disease statistic I think it is more instructive to look at overall average life expectancy. I let the numbers do the talking.

CD players don't need hundreds of pounds of expensive raw materials. With annual production of 350,000 tons (2006), there's not enough supply to put large lithium batteries in millions of cars per year. In other words, it will swallow the market for lithium and drive prices through the roof. "Moore's Law" applies when the cost is driven by processing efficiency, and the value of the raw material is relatively low. That isn't the case for batteries. High demand means high prices: see "petroleum".

Lest we steer ourselves into a another precarious situation like the current one with fossil fuels, perhaps it would be good to look at the issues with acquiring necessary raw materials, should the current domestic battery market expand by an order of magnitude.

Assuming many of the batteries manufactured still require cobalt, then increasing the demand of that material by 10x would almost certainly place peculiar political demands on the country that provides most of the world's cobalt: the Congo. To paraphrase a commenter on the original article, will we end up "bringing democracy" to the Congo as we just did in Iraq?

What about cadmium? NiCd Batteries already represent the majority of the world's use of cadmium. It's a by-product of zinc manufacturing, and poisonous in high concentration. Following a trend already everpresent the local auto industry, more manufactured cadmium comes from our neighbors to the North and South than from us, even tho we have the largest market of the 3 countries. To what extent would existing environmental problems with cadmium manufacture be exacerbated by the damand increasing 10x?

Finally there is nickel. The company that provides 20% of the world's supply, Norilsk Nickel, also happens to reside in one of the world's most polluted areas. How would both the local environmental damage, AND the US's relationship with Russia, be altered by a 10x increase our demand for nickel?

(US demand has been flat, btw. It's the increased demand for growing economies around the world when not met with an increase in supply that is causing the increase in prices).

Flat in comparison to what? Here is a graph of US oil consumption for the last 25 years, sure doesn't look flat to me. It looks like we have increased our consumption nearly every year.

Also, I've heard many predictions that we would be out of oil by now.

[citation needed]

Brazil also has a large amount of oil production and a large proven reserve

http://www.indexmundi.com/brazil/oil_production.html

I doubt that'll happen, they don't have any oil.

That's simply not true," as a very cursory search shows. Great Britain's inflation rate outpaced the US by a good measure, for example, yet the pound was and remains very strong against the dollar.

It is more accurate to say that the US dollar was overvalued for quite a few years, and that this is an overdue correction.

You mean like being able to legislate by decree

  * You mean like using a power that every other president in Venezuela has used?
  * You mean where "decree" is in an incredibly limited scope, a fact rarely reported by the media?
  * You mean where any act he legislates, no matter the method, can be rescinded by the popular vote?
  * You mean where normal laws take 10% of the population to rescind, decree laws take only 5%?
  * You mean where the legislature can rescind or modify said decrees -- quite unlike the US "Fast Track" legislation?"\

Nah, let's demonize Chavez and distort the facts!

shutting down opposition TV stations

  * You mean TV stations that helped organize a bloody coup against him?
  * You mean TV stations that even most of their backers admit broke the law?

Nah, let's just demonize Chavez and distort the facts!

unchecked inflation

  * You mean an inflation rate that was 31.2% in '03, 31.1% in '04, 22.4% in '05, 16% in '06, and 15.8% in '07?

It's high, but it's dropping, not rising. Despite the best efforts of the opposition to destroy the economy.

But nah, let's demonize Chavez!

or doubling the murder rate?

  * With 11,000 murders in 2003 and a population of 26.2 million, that's 42 per 100,000, compared to their US-loving neighbor Colombia's 63-84 per 100k and Washington DC's ~50 per 100k.

Bad numbers, and certainly worse than it was before. But, sadly, that's Latin America for you.

They are certainly achievements. But if I were him, I would rather be remembered as a Bush basher than the rest.

I'll note what you *didn't* mention, like the percentage of those without healthcare, or the illiteracy rate. Or like having to do this stuff with an opposition that wants to wreck the economy and once overthrew him in a coup, and the US who would like to do both of those as well.

It's not the biggest by any means, but 15,240 barrels a day is hardly insignificant, and that might pose a conflict of interest. (Of course, you could say the same thing about the way the US government deals with environmental issues too.)

Sure, gotta love that unemployment rate and annual GDP growth as low as .1% in France and Germany

Not to nit pick, but...

Assuming that your indeed from the land down under (based on the whois information on your site, which I checked just to be anal ;-) I'd like to point out that if your already 34, your life expectancy is going to be quite a bit less than 80 years, even if you are in in above average physical condition (though having good genes is obviously going to make a huge difference).

I point this out as a lot of people take the current life expectancy figures for where ever they live to mean they can expect to live that long, when in fact that figure is only for those born this year (and already assumes things like health care treatments will continue to develop and improve in their life time, at the rate they are now). The life expectancy for someone already in their mid thirties in .au is probably a lot more like 70-75.

As you can see from figures taken from the CIA world fact book for babies born just 6 years ago in .au, the life expectancy was not 80+ years but just over 77 and half years. To do a very dodgy back-of-a-fag packet calculation based on that same rate of decline (purely because that's as far back as that graph goes), if you were born 34 years ago (in 1972) that takes 13.8 years of your life expectancy, bringing it down to just over 66 years!

As I say, that's a very rough calculation and quite a bit under what ever the real value is (and would think that the average for someone of your (or my) age is probably closer to 70-75), but I'd hate to think there are people keeling over in their 60's and 70's thinking "Hey wait, I'm supposed to have another 10-15 years to go here!" due to a misunderstanding about the way 'life expectancy' statistics are calculated.

If there is any stuff you wanted to do in your final years, you might want to try and squeeze it in before you hit 65, just to be on the safe side. :-)

I admit I picked one I knew that was bad, Brazil has a growth of 1% pa - but thats only about 0.1% higher than US & Canada, and 4x more than the UK. Ireland is nice & high too at 1.16%. Oddly (or not), Afganistan is currently running at near 5% increase.

> for an economy struggling against a weak Yen.

The Japanese economy is struggling against their own demographics; there are fewer and fewer young people to support more and more older folks. Hard to say how that's going to sort itself out... but seems like a vacuum is opening there that will be filled by someone.

Mr. President,
    Our most recent intelligence reports here:
          http://www.indexmundi.com/en/commodities/minerals/ copper/copper_t20.html
    erm... I mean here:
          http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ ci.html
    CLEARLY indicate that Augusto PINOCHET left WMD's laying around (you know before he left/exiled)as he wasn't a very nice person. I recommend that we invade post haste to prevent these WMD's from falling into terrorist hands. Of course we will be doing the entire WORLD a HUGE favor in doing so, and thus it would be justified if we help the pooor Chilies "Restructure" their economy, it will probably smooth the transitional process if we get some good wholesom USA companies like Haliburton behind the rebuilding process, you know, to help. Of course they will need to make a profit, as that is the American way right?

So its all set right? We'll go get those WMD right away! Oh your at the ranch that weekend, how about July 17? No thats your Vacation time isn't it....Hmmm Septemberish? Good! USA HO!

Hardly, this has little to do with that. One of the main reasons they have population problems is because there are far more males born then females. Gender imbalance and other things in the population are the real issue here, of course this being slashdot pithy reasonings like the above seem more logical. However, the research shows otherwise:

The sex ratio at birth in Japan is 1.05 males/female. This is pretty standard really. Canada, the US, Mexico, and most other countries have a 1.05 sex ratio at birth.

The 1.05 ratio is the reason that a 2.10 'replacement rate' is said to give zero population growth in the long term. E.g., suppose you have a society of 105 men and 95 women. The females would need to produce an average of about 200 / 95 = 2.1 children per woman over their lifetimes in order to replace the population exactly.

This is the same for all countries with this sex ratio. So it does not explain why Japan's population structure is different from other nations.

China, OTOH, has a ratio of 1.12 males/female. Presumably this is due to a pretty significant sex bias in the rates of abortion and unreported infanticide. This will have some effect in the years to come.

Hardly, this has little to do with that. One of the main reasons they have population problems is because there are far more males born then females. Gender imbalance and other things in the population are the real issue here, of course this being slashdot pithy reasonings like the above seem more logical. However, the research shows otherwise:

The sex ratio at birth in Japan is 1.05 males/female. This is pretty standard really. Canada, the US, Mexico, and most other countries have a 1.05 sex ratio at birth.

The 1.05 ratio is the reason that a 2.10 'replacement rate' is said to give zero population growth in the long term. E.g., suppose you have a society of 105 men and 95 women. The females would need to produce an average of about 200 / 95 = 2.1 children per woman over their lifetimes in order to replace the population exactly.

This is the same for all countries with this sex ratio. So it does not explain why Japan's population structure is different from other nations.

China, OTOH, has a ratio of 1.12 males/female. Presumably this is due to a pretty significant sex bias in the rates of abortion and unreported infanticide. This will have some effect in the years to come.

Like in Norway. In 2004 ~4.3%

http://www.indexmundi.com/norway/unemployment_rate .html

http://www.indexmundi.com/kenya/infant_mortality_r ate.html

http://www.indexmundi.com/indonesia/gdp.html

And as Bill Gates's personal wealth is esitmated at $46.5 billion

http://www.marxist.com/scienceandtech/bill_gates_c apitalism.htm

And Ballmer's worth is $12 billion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/0,2763,1 046102,00.html

And Paul Allen is worth $20.5 billion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/0,2763,1 046102,00.html

you have the top three at Microsoft worth approximate 9% of the entire Indonesian GDP. And Microsoft is pissed, i.e., the greedy plutocrats and lawyers who run Microsoft are pissed, that a nation where the average wage slave makes about $80 - $100 a month

http://countrystudies.us/indonesia/63.htm

has found that it makes economic sense to pirate an OS that costs more than an average month's wages?

Geee - poor babies. Greedy motherfuckers. Almost as evil as the slime moulds who run Indonesia...

RS

My prediction is that all attempts at selling what most people would consider inferior computers will not work. Not in India nor in any other developing country.

What many people from rich countries do not realize, is that people in countries like India have a different set of priorities. If you go to any slum you will notice that even though housing is terrible, plumbing is non-existent, and garbage is strewn everywhere, many people own televisions, refrigerators, radios, cell phones, etc.

I don't see any reason why computer ownership will be an exception to the rule. Poor people will want their kids to have the same computers as rich people do (perhaps with less RAM, smaller monitor, etc), and will not be interested in buying a computer designed for the poor.

One more note... a lot of statistics about computer users in developing countries are very misleading. For example, the CIA claims that there are about 18.4 million Internet users in India, but if you travel to any Indian city you will see Internet cafes everywhere, all crowded with people. There may be 18.4 million subscribers to Internet services, but the actual number of individuals with Hotmail/Yahoo/Rediff accounts is probably a lot higher, perhaps even 10 times higher.

China's rate of growth for all Internet users is probably a whole lot higher than the US. The US market is already saturated, while China is just getting started. Check the chart for total number of Internet users (CIA data)

Unless the number in China has changed dramatically, the US has many more Internet users. Check the top 100 countries by number of Internet users

And as long as we're talking literacy, Egypt has quite a way to come before it catches up with the likes of Poland or Greece.

So to sum it up:
1. $120 million = revenue from just one piece of MS's Israel operations.
2. $3~4 billion = total MS sales/licensing in Israel
3. 3~4% of the Israeli GDP = MS's revenue (money earned w/o accounting for MS expenses)
4. Profit

The death rate of the entire world is 8.83/1000. The world population is 6,302,309,691.

The death rate from automobiles is 0.2/1000 (using your data). As a percentage, car accidents account for a bit more than 2% of all world deaths.

For comparison, over 4 million die yearly from getting a cold. In other words, the death rate from the common cold is 0.6/1000, or a little more than 7% of total worldwide deaths. That's about 11,000 daily. Or, another way, a 9/11 every 9 hours.

I think we need to find a cure for the common cold before we worry about car accidents. What do you think?

The death rate of the entire world is 8.83/1000. The world population is 6,302,309,691.

The death rate from automobiles is 0.2/1000 (using your data). As a percentage, car accidents account for a bit more than 2% of all world deaths.

For comparison, over 4 million die yearly from getting a cold. In other words, the death rate from the common cold is 0.6/1000, or a little more than 7% of total worldwide deaths. That's about 11,000 daily. Or, another way, a 9/11 every 9 hours.

I think we need to find a cure for the common cold before we worry about car accidents. What do you think?