Top all-time · #3590
Catherine Mulbrandon
Personal blog · visualizingeconomics.com/blogeconomicsdata
Catherine Mulbrandon writes Visualizing Economics, a personal blog at visualizingeconomics.com about economics and data. Since 2009, 22 different Hacker News readers have linked it 26 times. The last post was in 2017, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (20) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mulbrandon's blog for charts on economic history such as long-run inflation, income shares, taxes and population. Commenters mostly cite its graphs as data in debates over wages, taxes and inflation.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 20 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Visualizing Economics is an web site run by Catherine Mulbrandon where I share my data visualizations about the economy.
What Hacker News says?
"I sincerely believe that what the West is doing in this respect is anti-development and anti the fight against climate change,” he said, accusing rich countries of charging too much for clean technology." Look who is talking: http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2007/12/09/comparing-po... Until countries like India do not take steps towards sustainable human population, these are all pointless games.
Comment linking /blog/2007/12/09/comparing-population-growth-china-india-africa-latin-america-western-europe-united-states
on “Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister”- ct · 2011-01-11
Submitted Effect of Inflation on S&P Price Return (1871-2010) as a story · 3 points
HN discussion There might be good reasons to use that breakdown, but I still think referring to people with a household income of $65K as "upper class" is misleading. There's also something a bit strange with this breakdown. The top 20 percent of households made more than $91,705 [0][1] in 2007. $65K appears to be the top 20 percent of census tracts . That doesn't seem right, though, because you wouldn't expect 20 percent of the…
Comment linking /blog/2006/11/05/2005-us-income-distribution/
on “Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech”Submitted Four ways to visualize US income inequality as a story · 2 points
HN discussionCheck out the graph: https://www.visualizingeconomics.com/blog?tag=Inflation Scroll down to "US Inflation 1790-2015". "-0.2% Average Annual Inflation 1774-1912"
Comment linking /blog?tag=Inflation
on “Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything”Submitted What happened to wages? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionFiat money literally is a scam though after the gold standard was abandoned. https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/purchasing-power-of-th... https://www.visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2016/6/1/us-inflat...
Comment linking /blog/2016/6/1/us-inflation-1790-2015
on “Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU”Submitted Adoption of New Technology since 1900 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAlso see: http://visualizingeconomics.com/2007/11/04/has-middle-americ... . Incredibly stable since 1960.
Comment linking /2007/11/04/has-middle-americas-wages-stagnated/
on “Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now”Submitted US National Debt 1940-2010 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI think that visually most representative is the population graph provided here http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2007/12/09/comparing-po... It does not include all the world regions, I understand that for example Eastern-Europe and most countries in Asia are missing, but I think that it communicates the bigger picture.
Comment linking /blog/2007/12/09/comparing-population-growth-china-india-africa-latin-america-western-europe-united-states
on “Wealth doesn't trickle down – it just floods offshore, research reveals (2012)”Submitted FDR's Income Tax Return from 1913 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionBecause class struggle is making a comeback? Managers set salaries. Guild professions (e.g. lawyers, doctors, accountants) set their prices and uphold the guild with cryptic languages and lengthy vetting processes. The case where engineers (of either companies, processes, products or technology), instead, are in the position to set compensation (or more specifically, are able to profit by the fruits of their labor),…
Comment linking /category/share-of-income/
on “Ask HN: Propaganda for creative salary manipulation?”Of course not, they would never complain. Poor southerners don't do that. The one did talk about losing the farm though. Don't take his word for it though, look at some data: http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/05/04/average-incom...
Comment linking /2008/05/04/average-income-in-the-united-states-1913-2006/
on “Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay”The 2000 crash was mostly a stock market drop. The actual economy never constricted, just approached 0 growth. http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2011/03/08/long-term-re... If anything it was how weak the 2000 correction was that lead to the housing bubble.
Comment linking /blog/2011/03/08/long-term-real-growth-in-us-gdp-per-capita-1871-2009
on “Will America's debt doom us?”One thing people outside the US may not realize about studies like this is that a very large percentage of socioeconomic breakdowns in the US are proxies for the traditional north-south civil war divide. Compare a map of income inequality by state and overlay the 1860 election and you'll be looking at extremely similar maps. So, to a large degree, this study is merely saying that upper income people in the US South…
Comment linking /blog/2007/07/17/united-states-income-inequality-map
on “Study: Rich are less generous when they think there’s high economic inequality”In living (for some), 80%+ tax rates have been used and tax was very high for about 5 decades: - the top marginal rate of tax was 62% in 1932 (up from 25% in 1931) - rising to 91% in 1963 (income over $200k) - It was at 70% in 1981 (before dropping to 50% in 1982) http://taxfoundation.org/article/us-federal-individual-incom... and a graph here: http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2010/02/04/historical-m... Though I…
Comment linking /blog/2010/02/04/historical-marginal-income-tax-rates
on “An open letter to Paul Graham”> All school children since the mid-1990s have been indoctrinated from birth with a Chinese Communist Party's highly-exaggerated historical narrative called the "century of humiliation" I suggest reading about the chinese history under european/american colonialism. To call it "Highly-exaggerated" is like saying the holocaust was highly exaggerated. It's absurd and makes it hard to take your comment seriously. > and…
Comment linking /blog/2008/01/20/share-of-world-gdp
on “Chinese Scientist Accused of Smuggling Samples, Amid Crackdown on Research Theft”> It sucks, but its more like "you know what your house will be worth in another 15 to 20 years when it would have gotten there based on a reasonable fiscal policy and a 2% economic growth rate. Any reason for using 2% growth instead of something closer to the US average (which is around 4%)? http://visualizingeconomics.com/2010/11/04/log-scale-long-te...
Comment linking /2010/11/04/log-scale-long-term-real-growth-in-us-gdp-1871-2009/
on “Fed: Americans' wealth dropped 40 percent”All species self-regulate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals Also really fun comic about this: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/st-matthew-island/ happy to admit I'm wrong. There you go. Now before you start blaming developed nations about their energy usage, it is good to review the data persented here: http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2007/12/09/comparing-po...
Comment linking /blog/2007/12/09/comparing-population-growth-china-india-africa-latin-america-western-europe-united-states
on “This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power”Non-shitty, blogspam with a dozen moving, flash-based ads links: The Complexity of the U.S. Tax System http://www.quicksprout.com/2010/02/18/the-complexity-of-the-... Who Is Paying Taxes? http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/who-is-paying-taxes/ How Wealthy Countries Tax Their Citizens http://www.visualeconomics.com/how-do-wealthy-countries-tax-... Turbo Tax Infographic: Who Files Income Taxes Early http://www.columnfive…
Comment linking /2010/03/15/federal-tax-rates-by-income-for-single-filers-2009/
on “Infographics About Taxes”I have a few issues with this article. One is that basing "they could buy x amount at so and so store" is meaningless because when you are poor you don't tend to arbitrage for lower prices, you buy when you're out. Not to mention that poor neighbourhoods have fewer supermarkets in number and are less likely to offer sales. But more egregious, the Walmart cited is in a shopping district with a Costco and a HomeDepot…
Comment linking /blog/2007/10/14/san-francisco-oakland-poverty-map
on “SNAP households spent 9.3 percent of their grocery budgets on soft drinks”I'm sorry but this... We're talking about a generation that, although its members had much less material amenities than us, they had an easier time getting ahead. Try buying a house as a young person now. When my dad was my age, he could support a family on his salary. Is a myth. First, mortage rates haven't gone up they've been going down for 28 years (though in fairness they shot up before that): http://mortgage-x…
Comment linking /2006/08/15/average-income-in-the-united-states/
on “Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled”Definitely not hacker news. If we were on reddit, I would also mention that the percentage of GDP captured by the top 1% is also at a high not matched since right before the Great Depression: http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2007/04/04/nytimes-incom... ...and that the increase in tax paid by the top 1% tracks almost perfectly the increase in their percentage of the total income: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/…
Comment linking /2007/04/04/nytimes-income-gap-is-widening-data-shows/
on “Tax Burden of Top 1% Now Exceeds That of Bottom 95%”Don't accept free money during a pandemic? Except that would be bad too..... Govt handouts during the pandemic added significant money without increased production to keep people afloat, which is good short term. The cost of that is inflation medium term. Long term wages rise to offset inflation. This has always been the pattern. Adding money for nothing to the system devalues each piece of money, so inflation is ex…
Comment linking /blog/2008/05/04/average-income-in-the-united-states-1913-2006
on “Workers’ Pay Globally Hasn’t Kept Up with Inflation”Yet wages generally do rise against inflation, otherwise we'd be as poor as we were in 1600, so this "by design" must not be true...... https://www.visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2008/05/04/average...
Comment linking /blog/2008/05/04/average-income-in-the-united-states-1913-2006
on “Workers’ Pay Globally Hasn’t Kept Up with Inflation”
