November 19, 2014

Global Cooling? NOAA Global Surface Temperature Anomalies Prove Otherwise

There’s no doubt much of the United States has been damn f’n cold lately, and we’ve yet to engage in those late November rituals involving turkey carving and conservative uncle debating. And when the weather turns cold, you know, during months that usually are cold for much of the U.S., climate-change-denying conservatives can’t help themselves, because Al Gore told them global warming/climate change meant that winter would cease to exist — well, at least that’s what they “heard.”

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January 29, 2014

The Supply Side Lie

Post war until roughly the 1970s, increases in income in all quintiles more or less moved together. The bottom quintile increased with the top quintile. Since the 70s, the top two quintiles continued to grow, with the top quintile actually accelerating (although to be fair, it corrected/adjusted during the Great Recession, but only modestly). But since the 1970s, the bottom three quintiles have been pretty much flat.

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September 28, 2013

CHART: Minimum Wage vs. Unemployment Rate, 1948 – 2012

Most Americans believe the minimum wage should be increased. It would make good economic sense, and it would help pull people out of poverty. But many Republicans in Washington say this is a non-starter because raising the minimum wage would be a job killer. But how do we know this is true? Should we just take their word for it? And come to think of it, calling something a job killer seems to be the boilerplate Republican response to just about anything these days, including Obamacare and raising taxes. Republicans aren’t lying to us, are they?

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September 27, 2013

Two Charts Climate Change Deniers Don’t Believe

There’s a lot of hot air (okay, that was too predictable) from climate change deniers in the run up to today’s UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report. Some of these deniers are actually saying global warming has stopped or in some cases reversed. Remember, we aren’t talking about skeptics. These people are out-and-out denialists. They are unconcerned with facts and evidence. The only thing that matters in their narrow worldview is their “belief” that climate change is not real or not man-made.

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June 20, 2013

CHART: The Conservative ‘Big Government’ Lie – U.S. Residents per Public Sector Worker

Conservatives loathe “big government.” I mean, they hate it with a passion. But their antipathy for big government is manufactured from a false pretense that larger government leads to smaller individual liberty. It’s hard to believe something as complex as the United States government, in a country with a population over 300 million, could be boiled down to a zero sum game of government vs. liberty, but that’s conservative logic for ya.

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June 17, 2013

SNAP: Food Assistance: These Simple Charts Could Prove You’re An Ass

Many conservatives have no problem showing their disdain for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as “food stamps.” In December 2011, then Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum asked, “If hunger is a problem in America, then why do we have an obesity problem among the people who we say have a hunger program?” This is the kind of unthinking “wisdom” that emanates from the conservative bubble.

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June 14, 2013

CHART: Fear Of Terrorism Makes People Irrational – Terrorism Fatalities vs. Firearm Homicides

Due to Homeland Security - photo by Thomas HawkAmerica is a country that prides itself on bravery and strength, but we have an irrational fear of terrorism in the post-9/11 years. You are more likely to die in a car accident, a fall, or even drown, than die in a terrorist incident. In some cases, many thousands of times more likely. But while we made no rash or illogical decisions regarding automobile deaths, we have done exactly that in response to terrorism. In addition to car accidents, falls and drownings, you are also more likely to be murdered by firearm than murdered by terrorist attack. And while car accidents, falls and drownings are accidents, murder by gun is no accident, and that makes it a good statistic to compare to terrorism.

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June 1, 2013

Chart: Medicare Insolvency Projections 1980 to 2013

Every year we find out the long-term insolvency projection from the Medicare Trustees, and every year we hear calls from Republicans for major changes and cuts to Medicare in response. So this week we find out that the insolvency projection has been expanded by 2 years to 2026. That’s 13 years until insolvency. That sounds bad right? Well it’s not. The historic average Medicare insolvency projection since 1980 is over 12 years. It’s been as low as 4 years and as high as 28 years during that span. So with the latest report from the Medicare Trustees, we find out the sky is not falling because the program’s insolvency projection is sitting right at it’s 30-year average.

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