British think-tank Demos has released a report, Faithful Citizens, on the political ideology and engagement of religious people. Some of the findings are not obvious, perhaps since so much of our view of the role of religion in Australian politics is informed by commentary from the United States, which is probably actually quite atypical in the degree to which people draw religious battle-lines on policy. From the Demos website:
The report presents two key findings. First, religious people are more active citizens – they volunteer more, donate more to charity and are more likely to campaign on political issues. Second, and more counter-intuitively, religious people are more likely to be politically progressive. They put a greater value on equality than the non-religious, are more likely to be welcoming of immigrants as neighbours and when asked are more likely to put themselves on the left of the political spectrum.
My first go at putting a Processing visualisation online: a sort of bumps chart for countries based on R&D spending.
Apple just posted spectacular holiday quarter results. Revenue of $46 billion blew away their previous record of $28 billion, and profit of $13 billion is larger than Google’s entire revenue.
More than half those revenues come from iPhones, too, with unit sales of 37 million way above the previous record of 20 million. So, no basis in that whole “The iPhone 4S is OK, but it’s no iPhone 5 - Apple must be losing their touch” idea.
Filed under apple
Writers in The Australian continues to misinterpret scientific statements on climate change. A recent press release from the World Meteorological Organization reported on the temperature in 2011, noting that it continues the trend of years much warmer than the long-term average:
At present, 2011’s nominal value ranks as the equal 10th highest on record, and the 13 warmest years have all occurred in the 15 years between 1997 and 2011.
The WMO also noted that 2011 was the warmest La Niña year on record (La Niña years tend to have cooler global temperatures, in contrast to El Niño years).
Imre Salusinszky in The Australian managed to twist all this into something with the complete opposite meaning:
Last year was the sixth coldest since 1997, which shows the catastrophic scenarios of recent times are no longer looming over us.
You only have to look at the WMO graph to see that we’re hardly out of the woods.
It’s almost as if Salusinszky’s not actually interested in reporting on the science. Surely not?
(Source: scienceblogs.com)
Filed under climate science
The Motley Fool, an investing website, has some analysis of commonly-repeated statements about how the US is in economic thrall to China, which are actually not true. The key highlights:
Misconception: Most of what Americans spend their money on is made in China.
Fact: Just 2.7% of personal consumption expenditures go to Chinese-made goods and services. 88.5% of U.S. consumer spending is on American-made goods and services.
Misconception: We owe most of our debt to China.
Fact: China owns 7.8% of U.S. government debt outstanding.
Misconception: We get most of our oil from the Middle East.
Fact: Just 9.2% of oil consumed in the U.S. comes from the Middle East.
Going deeper, another interesting fact is that only half of that 2.7% actually goes to China in the form of import costs, while the other half is spent in the US on supply chain and retail tasks. The original Federal Reserve source says:
Goods and services from China accounted for only 2.7% of U.S. personal consumption expenditures in 2010, of which less than half reflected the actual costs of Chinese imports. The rest went to U.S. businesses and workers transporting, selling, and marketing goods carrying the “Made in China” label.
This is not to say that there are not serious issues with the US economy’s capacity to remain globally competitive, particularly when China and other countries are investing heavily in advanced technologies that are likely to drive a lot of growth. For example, see this piece from McKinsey on how the US has lost the lead it once had in many fields of technology, hindering its growth. But it’s important to keep these factors in perspective. With that in mind I’m looking forward to reading a book I just got, Advantage by Adam Segal (subtitled How American innovation can overcome the Asian challenge), which deals with these issues.
Filed under china USA economy
