Capitalogix

How Can the U.S. Be Last in Such an Important Measure?

U.S. Health Worse than Nearly All Other Industrialized Nations.

Bloomberg recently reported that the last-place health ranking of the United States among 17 wealthy countries (based on a U.S. study of health outcomes).

Americans spend $2.7 trillion every year, more than any other nation, on healthcare costs.

Yet, America fares badly in a comparison of health measures in rich countries. Here is a chart from the Economist reporting similar results.

 

 

 
America is obviously doing something wrong. But what, exactly, is the question.

 

Related articles

US Health Worse Than Nearly All Other Industrialized Countries

NBC wonders: Are we better off than we were four years ago?

Why America Performs Poorly On Nearly Every Measure Of Health

Why U.S. Lags Other Wealthy Nations in Health Measures

Cool App Shows You Data About Where You Are

Sitegeist is a mobile application that helps you to learn more about your surroundings in seconds.

There’s a lot of information about your neighborhood (or anyplace you choose). Drawing on publicly available information (such as the U.S. Census, Yelp!, and others), this app digs it up, divides it into categories (people, weather, history, housing, etc.), and serves it up in easy to digest graphics.

 

 

The results are interesting, even though an app like this just scratches the surface of what's possible with access to data.

Some of the data you'll learn about a location includes:

• Age Distribution
• Political Contributions
• Average Rent
• Popular Local Spots

• Recommended Restaurants
• How People Commute
• Record Temperatures
• Housing Units Over Time

Sitegeist was created by the Sunlight Foundation in consultation with design firm IDEO. It is the third in a series of National Data Apps.

Bet you start seeing more apps like this.

Related articles

The Data and Tech Behind Sitegeist

Sitegeist - Sunlight Foundation

Facebook Is A Data Company

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Sometimes it makes sense to buy a little time ... other times you have to play to win.

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• The 11 Most Fascinating Scientific Discoveries of 2012. (The Week)
• This Tiny Gizmo Could Be A Very Big Deal In 2013 - And Beyond. (ReadWrite)
• Flight Forecast. What Travelers Should Expect Next Year - Airlines Get an Upgrade. (WSJ)
• How Obama Decides Your Fate If He Thinks You're a Terrorist. (TheAtlantic)
• Americans Are the Most Spied On People In World History. More Spying On Citizens than Stasi Did in  East Germany (BigPicture)

 

Trading Links:

• Wall Street's 2013 S&P 500 Target from 14 Equity Strategists. (BusinessInsider)
• CyberSecurity Firm Identifies a ‘Credible Threat’ to 30 U.S. Banks. (Washington Post)
• How The Brain Evaluates Risk. (MedicalNewsToday)
• Heirs of Mao’s Comrades Rise as New Capitalist Nobility. (Bloomberg)
• Obama Trades One U.S. Cliff for Another. Yes, the calamity was averted, but only at the expense of setting up a potentially worse showdown in two months. (FT)

How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?

Back in the 1970s, a now-forgotten writer claimed that 75 percent of the people who had ever been born were alive at that moment. This 'factoid' has been referenced many times, even though a bit of reflection would show how unlikely it is.

So, what might be a better estimate of the actual percentage? In this video, a Population Reference Bureau scholar explains how to get a reasonable guesstimate.

 

 

 Find out more.

Here is an infographic look at the data.

 

Source:LiveScience

Related articles

The Real Story on the Falling U.S. Birth Rate

Is It Time To Panic About Birth Rates?

By the year 2050 the global population will have grown to 10 billion. How can Mother Earth sustain this growth?

Finding Another Earth: How Will Scientists Confirm It Exists?

If the World Were 100 People ...

As we enter 2013, the world population has surpassed 7 billion people.

How can we get a sense of what it means ... and who we are?

One way is by statistically representing the world population as 100 people.  That way, complex issues become more comprehensible and help us get a stronger sense of the big picture.

Here is a video introduction to the 100 Person Project.

 

The 100 People Project: An Introduction from 100 People Foundation on Vimeo.

 

And here is an infographic of some of the highlights of the research.

 

by KVSStudio. Check out our data visualization blog.

 

If the World were 100 PEOPLE:

50 would be female
50 would be male

26 would be children
There would be 74 adults,
8 of whom would be 65 and older

There would be:
60 Asians
15 Africans
14 people from the Americas
11 Europeans

33 Christians
22 Muslims
14 Hindus
7 Buddhists
12 people who practice other religions
12 people who would not be aligned with a religion

12 would speak Chinese
5 would speak Spanish
5 would speak English
3 would speak Arabic
3 would speak Hindi
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese
2 would speak Russian
2 would speak Japanese
62 would speak other languages

83 would be able to read and write; 17 would not

7 would have a college degree
22 would own or share a computer

77 people would have a place to shelter them
from the wind and the rain, but 23 would not

1 would be dying of starvation
15 would be undernourished
21 would be overweight

87 would have access to safe drinking water
13 people would have no clean, safe water to drink

 

If you want more information on this ...

The detailed research and source information can be found here and the statistics provided by Donella Meadows in 1990 that originally inspired the 100 People Project can be viewed here. A different groups research is here. And the Snopes research is here.

Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Doomsday Planning?

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• The Five Cs of Opportunity Identification. (Harvard Business Review)
• SpaceX's Elon Musk: Your ticket to Mars? Half a million dollars. (LATimes)
• How IBM Is Watching How You Shop Online. (AllThingsD)
• Is Sleeping With a Partner Better For You Than Sleeping Alone? (WSJ)
• Why Do Children Think Covering Their Eyes Makes Them Invisible? (Popular Science)

 

Trading Links:

• Smart People Can Make Stupid Investing Decisions. (Forbes)
• Four Common Mistakes about the Fed. (OldProf)
• Fed Likely to Keep Buying Bonds. To combat threats of new turbulence & uncertainty. (WSJ)
• Raging Bulls. How Wall Street Got Addicted to Light-Speed Trading. (Wired)
• Two-Thirds of Millionaires Left Britain to Avoid 50% Tax Rate. (Telegraph)

Your Weekend Reading Linkfest

Lots of good stuff this week to distract you from the bad.

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• Why it’s Not All Bad to Be Bored. (NYTimes)
• Alec Baldwin Puts the 'Fear' Into Christmas with Glengarry Christmas Spoof. (CX)
• Spotify's 10 Most Popular Tracks of 2012. (TheWeek)
• The Purpose Of War? Thought provoking commentary. (ABC)
• Human Modification. Scientists are experimenting with different ways to enhance humans. What's possible? (TheBrowser)

 

Trading Links:

• The World’s 200 Richest People. (Bloomberg)
• Investors’ 10 Most Common Behavioral Biases. (RPSeawright)
• Market Data Firm Spots the Tracks of Bizarre Robot Traders. (TheAtlantic)
• Book Recommendations from Nassim Taleb. (FarnamStreet)
• With Profits Dropping, High-Speed Trading Cools Down. (NYTimes)

Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• The Science of Success. Interesting article. (TheAtlantic)
• Is Technology Making You More (or Less) of a Jerk? (Harvard Business Review)
• Why Things Fail. From Tires to Helicopter Blades, Everything Breaks Eventually. (Wired)
• Removing Earwax Isn't Good For You, Experts Say. (WSJ Video)
• Life Expectancy for Less Educated Whites in U.S. is Shrinking. (NYTimes)

 

Trading Links:

• Walmart Reports Its Best Black Friday Ever With 5,000 Items Sold Per Second. (TheNextWeb)
• Does Black Friday Correlate With Upcoming Stock Market Performance. (Bigtrends)
• Fiscal Cliff: The What, Why, When, and How - All In One Place. (Learnist)
• Reality Check: Does High-Frequency Trading Hurt the Little Guy?  (QZ)
• Anonymous Deletes The Bank of Jerusalem’s Web Database. (BetaBeat)

Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Ever wonder how the stock market works?

 

Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise &Lance Aldrich

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• Management Secrets of the NFL. (Wall Street Journal)
• Why Does the Return Journey Feel Quicker? (IrishTimes)
• Will Google's Personal Assistant Be Creepy or Cool? (NYTimes)
• Meanwhile, In Space, Asteroid Mining Startup Inks Deal With Virgin Galactic. (TC)
• Do you want sprouts with that? A former McDonald's boss would like to welcome you to his new restaurant. No butter, cream, white flour, or additives. (Wired)

 

Trading Links:

• Jim Rogers: It's Going To Get Really "Bad After The Next Election". (MoneyMorning)
• Singapore's Message for Today's America - The Globalist. (TheGlobalist)
• Why Knight Capital Was Saved And Lehman Brothers Failed. (Forbes)
• Social Benefits of High Frequency Trading. (FT)
• Apple's iPhone Is Now Worth More Than All Of Microsoft. (Forbes)

Here Are Some Interesting Links to Read This Weekend

The iPhone 5 is cutting edge ... and Siri is getting smarter.  Too bad it can't answer the tough questions.  Here's a cartoon that imagines what would happen if asked "Can the economy be fixed in the current political climate?"

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 10 Strategies That Made Bill Clinton’s DNC Speech Effective. (Poynter)
• Atheism: The Growing Disbelief. (Economist)
• A Tricky Equation. Parents Who Hate Math. (Wall Street Journal Video)
• How All 50 States Got Their Names. (MentalFloss)
• Sounds Like a Fun Job. Corporate Futurist. Telling plausible, provocative, fictional stories that are based on facts. (Slate)

 

Trading Links:

• Can the Stock Market Rally Last Through the 2012 Election? (FuturesMag)
• Goldman Sachs’s MIST Topping BRICs as Smaller Markets Outperform. (Bloomberg)
• Home Prices Headed Up 7%? After a six-year decline, things are starting to look up. (Barrons)
• Searching for a Speed Limit in High-Frequency Trading. Critics’ Target HFT. (NYTimes)
• SunTrust Sells Coca-Cola Stake After 93 Years, Collects a Tidy Two Million Percent Return. (Forbes)