Author Archives: Stubborn Mule

Income Inequality in Australia and the US

A topic that the New York Times visits from time to time is that of income inequality. In the United States, the gap between the highest and lowest earners has been increasing over the last 80 years or so. A recent article returns to this theme and provides further insight into the trend. It cites research from the new book “Unequal Democracy” by Larry M. Bartels, which indicates that income inequality has increased far more under Republican presidents than under Democrats.

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Paralympics Medal Tallies by Population and GDP

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The 2008 Paralympic Games are now well underway in Beijing. Since my Olympic medal charts on Swivel proved popular, I have now created a data set for the Paralympics as well, which I will be updating regularly (source: Beijing 2008 Paralympics website). One of the topics I touched on during the Olympics was the influence of the size of a country’s population and economy on their performance at the Games. This topic did prove controversial with at least one reader and the links may be more tenuous for the Paralympics. Neverthless, I will risk revisiting the subject here.

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Weak Dollar and Australian Petrol Prices

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The world’s financial markets have shifted their focus from oil supply problems to the demand side of the equation. They appear to have decided that the US and European economies look so dire that oil consumption will collapse. As a result, oil prices have been in free-fall, barely staying above US$100 per barrel. If the recent hostilities in Georgia had taken place a couple of months earlier, oil prices would almost certainly have shot up. But with the shift in focus, they scarcely reacted to the conflict.

Unfortunately for Australian motorists, a weak Australian dollar is preventing the full effect of lower oil prices coming though to the price of petrol at the pump. Oil is not the only commodity to see price declines, not good news for the currency of a commodity producing country. More significantly, the Reserve Bank has started cutting interest rates and the dollar is moving down alongside rates. Since the end of July, the dollar has fallen almost as much as oil. The result, evident in the graphs below, is that oil prices have not fallen nearly as much in Australian dollar terms as they have in US dollar terms.

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Monetising Microblogs with Music?

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In my recent post on the future of Microblogging, I expressed concerns about the viability of twitter given that they are yet to find a business model. But perhaps I just wasn’t thinking laterally enough: earlier this week I stumbled across a novel approach to monetising microblogging. The new site Blip.fm brings music to microblogging in a way that initially had me scratching my head, but it is gradually starting to make more sense. Based on a recent post on the Microblogger’s blog, 140char, others are responding in much the same way.

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An Online Communication Primer

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In a recent post on his Sprechblase (“Speech Bubble”) blog, Cem Basman examines a number of different forms of communication that have evolved on the web: chat, forums, wikis, blogs and microblogs. Although the boundaries can be blurred, Cem’s summary of the key features of each of these forms is a useful one.

The original post is in German and, with the help of Google translate and my own rusty German, I have adapted it to produce an English version. I am publishing it here with Cem’s blessing. Cem couches his discussion in terms of his notion of “die Sphäre” (the “Sphere”), by which he means the totality of communication in all its forms on the web.
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Australian Grocery Prices on the Rise?

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Last month, the Australian Government launched the GroceryChoice initiative, with the goal of helping consumers find the cheapest place to shop for their groceries. As I wrote at the time, the GroceryChoice website allows users to compare prices in a given area, but comparisons across areas are not made easy. Undeterred, I simply scraped all the data from the web-site for easier analysis. Today GroceryChoice released prices for the month of September, making it possible to start analysing prices over time as well as by region and retailer.

The website provides prices for a number of specific grocery “baskets” (Fruit & Vegetables, Meat & Seafood, etc.) as well as for a more general “Basic Staples” basket. A crude average of prices of this Basic Staples basket around the country would suggest that prices are on the rise, having increased from $75.41 for August to $75.97 for September. However, this figure should be taken with caution. Quite apart from the fact that this analysis does not take into account the differing population sizes in each region, there is also significant variation across the different retailers, as is evident in the chart below.

“Basic Staples” Prices by Retailer (A$)

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Last Word on Personality Tests

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While my recent post on personality testing attracted some unexpected attention (from an organiser of the course), it did also generate some interesting discussion. Some I have spoken to have found more value in personality tests like Myers-Briggs and HBDI than I have, while others shared my irritation.

The reason I am posting again on this subject is because an old friend of mine, who is a practising psychiatrist had emailed me with his thoughts on the topic, but preferred to remain anonymous and not post on the forum himself. He was, however, happy for me to share them, so here they are:
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The Future of Microblogging

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I have been an enthusiastic user of twitter for quite some time now, but I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is unlikely to survive, at least in its current form. This is partly because they will struggle to build a business model to start paying off their venture capital backers. But more importantly, it is because twitter is a closed system and that will ultimately constrain its potential.

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Olympic Medals per Capita – Update

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Since my last post, about Beijing 2008 Olympic rankings by population and economy size, there has been a lot of action in the medals per capita stakes. The Bahamas knocked Jamaica from the number one spot with a Bronze in the triple-jump, only to have Jamaica regain the crown as it continued to win Gold in track and field. Then, with a Silver in the Men’s 4 x 400m relay, the Bahamas got to the front again in what is now an unassailable lead.

For the blow-by-blow on MPC, visit the LA Times MPC blog. I can’t help mentioning that Australia has now pulled ahead of New Zealand!

Previously, the charts I used were static, unable to keep up with these rapid changes so, although the Games are drawing to a close now, I thought I would include Swivel charts which will update as the last results come through. This time I am showing rankings in terms of a simple total medal count per million of population (previously I used a points system, 3 points for Gold, etc).

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Olympic Medal Count by Population and GDP

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Now that the swimming is over, Australia is likely to see its rankings in the Olympic medal tally start to fall. To feel better about this situation, people like to start pointing out that we still look pretty good for a small country and it’s certainly true that of the countries currently in the medal tally (as at 22 August 2008), we rank only 36th in terms of population. Ever since I blogged about the data-sharing site Swivel, I have been regularly updating a data-set with the medal tally. So, it was a simple matter to add in population as well. The chart below provides a high-level overview of the medal results by population. It shows both the total number of medals won and the gold medals. The further a country sits in this chart above a 45 degree line, the better it is doing by population.

Total Medals (blue) and Gold medals by Population

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