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Race and Ethnicity Maps by US Cities

Human Beings are social animals by nature. Interaction with fellow human beings is part and parcel of our daily lives. Even though we are social by nature, we also have some parochial instincts which manifest themselves in our day to day lives. Be it where we choose to live, or who we choose to interact with a majority of the times, we have a tendency to look for people with similar interests, culture and backgrounds. We are simply more comfortable interacting with people who are similar to us.

The picture below is a map of Columbus, Ohio, where I have lived the last 7 of my 9 years. The map depicts how the population is distributed by race and ethnicity and was complied by Eric Fisher using 2000 census data. Each dot represents 25 people.

Image Source:Eric Fisher

As can be seen, there is this clear divide based on race and ethnicity, on where people tend to live and who they choose to interact.  This divide exists in all of the major cities be it Chicago, Detroit, New York or Los Angeles.

Few Stats to Consider

Earlier this year, Forbes magazine released the list of the Worlds Richest People. It is no surprise that America has the largest number of Billionaires, 396 to be exact. But the surprise was India, which almost doubled the number of Billionaires, to about 47 people.

Now consider a few facts about these 47 richest Indians combined.

1. The combined net worth of these 47 richest Indians accounted for 14.7% of India's GDP. Only Switzerland and Russia beat us in the list of countries with more then 10 billionaires
2. When you consider that India has more then a billion people, we have one Billionaire for every 25 million people living in the country.
3. The GDP per capita in India is $1091. Compare this to the average net worth of these richest Indians, about $4 Billion.
4. Add the fact that 42% of the Indian population falls below the International Poverty Level of $1.25 per day and you get a sense of how one dimensional the growth in the Indian economy is.





Data Source: Forbes List of Billionaires
Population and GDP: Wikipedia

Recession Over?

The National Bureau of Economic Research said that the recession is officially over. Since the economy began expanding at the end of June 2009, the recession officially ended in the 3rd quarter of  2009. But what about unemployment? It is painfully high at 9.6% with still more then 14 mil people unemployed.

The unemployment rates tends to be a lagging indicator as can be seen from the graphs below. With the economic growth rate slowing down from its peak at the end of Dec 2009, will that result in further increase in the unemployment rate?

Data Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics  

If Only The Queen Was Indian?

Uninsured in America

Several provisions of the new healthcare law also called the Affordable Care Act went into effect yesterday. Yesterday also was the day when the GOP unveiled its Pledge for America. The document included proposals to cut spending and taxes, a staple. In addition it also included a proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In case you haven't noticed, we are in an election cycle and each side will spend the next few weeks touting or assailing the new healthcare law.

But politics aside, the reality is that number of uninsured has been on a steady rise for the last decade. For the first time last year it crossed the 50 million mark. Now there can be debate about whether all the 50 million are legal residents or not. But that's besides the point. The number of uninsured has risen in almost every age group (except the under 18), as the graph below shows, and the recession has made it worse.

Data Source: US Census Bureau

State of the US Economy

The 2010 budget depicted below reinforces the fiscal disaster that the US is facing. About 92% of all the estimated revenue in 2010 from taxes and other sources goes towards paying for mandatory services like Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and Interest on debt. The remaining 8% of the revenue must pay for the cost of the wars and must fund the other departments.

No wonder the US national debt ballooning every second because the government is borrowing to cover the shortfall. The last I checked, the debt per US Citizen was $43,473. Compare this to the median household income of $49,777 for year 2009.

Data Source: Wikipedia

Interesting Reads for the Day

Last weeks New Yorker had two pretty interesting articles. One was a profile on Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook.

The other was is a profile on Sir James Dyson of the Dyson Vaccum fame.

Healthcare Spending and Quality of Care

When it comes to healthcare spending, the United States leads the developed countries in terms of amount of money spent on Healthcare. If we look at Healthcare spending as a % of GDP among the developed countries, the United States is the highest with Health Care spending accounting for 15% of GDP.

For all the spending associated with Healthcare, the US ranks 37th in the most recent WHO rankings. Though the rankings methodology might have its shortcomings, given the complexity of ranking a national healthcare system, the US has been slipping in ranking in other indicators or public health including male and female life expectancy and infant mortality. 

Data Source: CATO Institute 

Worst Companies in America

Who do you think would qualify for one of the worst companies in America as ranked by the American Customer Service Index

There are the usual suspects in the airlines. How can you have a worst company list without the cell phone companies or the cable company? In the year when anything with a bank or a banker is hated, you would expect banks to be on the list.

But there are a few surprises as well. Did anybody guess that Facebook and Myspace would on the list? How about McDonalds?

If you want to know the American Consumer Satisfaction index for a company that you do business with, you can visit the ACSI website for the scores.

The Growing Income Inequality

Slate magazine is running a series on the growing income inequality in America. Its worth a read. The slide show on the growing income inequality is especially great.

The income share graph below, obtained from this slide show, depicts the growing income divide between the rich and the poor.

Sources: Congressional Budget Office, Census Bureau. 
Chart by Catherine Mulbrandon of VisualizingEconomics.com.

Cricket - The Gentleman's Game No More

The most recent allegations of spot fixing (certain aspects of the game are fixed rather then the game itself) against three cricketers from Pakistan have just scratched the surface of what many had suspected. Big money changes hands every-time a bowl is bowled or a run is scored.

There was a time not too long ago, when cricket was played for the love of the game and money and fame were an afterthought. But now it feels like the opposite is true. Fame and fortune are all that matter.

Harsha Bhogle captures this very essence in his article for cricinfo. He writes

India's new generation of cricketers is not just wealthy beyond imagination, they seem to have acquired it without a lot to show for it. I do not know if these young men are looking 10 years into the future, acquiring a work ethic that their solidly brought-up seniors possessed. They seem satiated, two years at the top seems to drain them; the BMW seems more alluring than the sustained effort of a 10-year career. For those that don't want a place in history, the low-hanging fruit can come from many sources.

Whats in a Name?

We have gone from Bombay to Mumbai, Calcutta to Kolkata and Madras to Chennai. Now we have "Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar" to a growing list of name changes.

The honorable Chief Minister of UP Ms Mayawati has won a political victory when the Supreme Court of India decided to favor her in allowing Amethi to be renamed as Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar

Makes you wonder where our politicians and courts spend their time and valuable tax payer money.

What Happens to the Old iPhone's

With people snapping up iPhone 4 like there is no tomorrow, I have always wondered what happens to all the old phones that are out there in the market. Do people just junk them, Store them in the closet just in case they need them or is there a resale market.

Well there definitely is a resale market and companies like Gazelle and Nextworth are making brisk business.

Imagine Leadership

Imagine Leadership as imagined by Harvard and its new Dean Nitin Nohria

Word of the Day - Deja Vu

For people who were closely following US financial markets at about 3pm, it sure felt like Deja Vu. It was like the fall of 2008 all over again.

Dow Jones Index dropped almost close to a 1000 points within a span of 10-15 mins. The chief cause of this drop, the sovereign debt crisis in several European countries and Greece in particular. The crisis seems to be so bad, that even the Euro may not be immune as Paul Krugman points out in his recent Op-ed for the New York Times.

The Power of a Tweet

They say, "Pen is much more powerful then a sword". The ex-IPL commissioner Lalit Modi can certainly testify to that.

A few tweets by Lalit Modi aimed at getting even with the now former Indian Union Minister Shashi Tharoor have spectacularly backfired and have exposed the shady dealing in the IPL that include bid rigging, nepotism, tax evasion, black money, bribes and even the dreaded match fixing. The collateral damage in all of this is the IPL and the entire Indian cricket establishment.

Just to give some perspective, MTI Worldwide valued each of the brands at above $10mil in 2009. And I am pretty sure it is much much more in 2010 considering that the two new additions to the IPL paid a whopping $735mil. This is huge considering that IPL did not even exist 3 years ago.

Its rather ironic, that the same social media (Twitter) that Lalit Modi used to build the IPL brand that made him the most powerful man in world cricket, may have contributed to his downfall.

Check out the tweets of Lalit Modi that led to the IPL controversy.

Shashi Tharoor on Soft Power

Be it his tweets about cattle class or his ongoing row over the IPL franchise, since Shashi Tharoor has joined politics in India, controversy and him seem to be inseparable.

Despite of all the recent bad press, Shashi Tharoor is an extremely articulate and accomplished speaker. See his talk on TEDIndia, the rise of India through its soft power.

Random Musings of The Week

Some interesting and informative articles about the news,views and reviews.

A recent ruling by a US federal court could have a significant impact on Network Neutrality. This MSNBC article is a good primer on what "Network neutrality" is, and the what the recent ruling by the federal court means for people like me who live by the internet.
New Yorker magazine article on how American States may be headed the Greek Way towards a financial meltdown.

Check out my other Random Musing posts 1,2,3,4, 5

Google Goes to Kansas

If you are a regular Google user like me, yesterday (April 1st) Google on its website had "Topeka" listed instead of the omnipresent words "Google".



Turns out Google was making fools out of us (Aprils fools day) as well as recognizing the town of Topeka, Kansas for changing the town name to Google.

The irony is that I had to use Google to find where Topeka is. Oh I am sorry, I had to use Topeka to find where Google is.

Bees Attack the Queen - Have a Last Laugh

Looking at a garland, a swarm of honey bees thought they were going to have a field day. But the garland was made of worthless money: at-least to the bees. Realizing that they had been fooled and in a fit of rage, they decided to attack the Queen herself, when she was addressing her loyal subjects.

But little did the bees realize that the power of the Queen can stretch far beyond the human world. With the full force of an army of her cronies, the Queen is attacking back. And she will not rest until she finds out why the bees dared to attack her. As for the cost of this unnecessary war, it will be up-to the human subjects to bear the burden. When mutli crore's were spent on the garland that started the war, who cares about another few crore's.

The bees, which are such resourceful creatures, must be having a last laugh at the stupidity and dissipation of the human subjects.

Today is π Day

March 14th or (3-14) is π day. And as usual, Google has a doodle celebrating this ever mysterious number. For starters π is a irrational number and does not seem to have an end. On last check, π was calculated out to a record 2.7 trillion places. Also there is no pattern which has been discerned about how the digits seem to repeat.



Image Source: Google
For more interesting π facts, check out The Joy of π

Random Musings of The Week

Its time again for a post on some interesting articles that I read this past week.

First, lets starts with the most important topic of discussion: Healthcare. Every body keeps talking about the rising healthcare costs. The debate in Washington to overhaul the healthcare system has been centered on two issues: Making sure that everybody who is eligible can buy health insurance and how do you control the out of control healthcare costs. When it comes to cost, one of the drivers that is often overlooked is the rate of hospital acquired infection. They add significant cost to the overall care of the patients. Yet preventing them does not take rocket science. Its as simple as providers washing their hands before a procedure, or touching a patient etc. Read an interesting conversation with one of the Physicians leaders who is spearheading efforts to reduce rates of hospital acquired infections.

The second article is also about reducing cost of healthcare. Its an idea (though I admit its far more radical just washing your hands) that is being considered by one of the lawmakers in the state of Vermont. If this lawmaker has his way and can muster enough support in the legislature, then hospitals would be banned from advertising their services to consumers.

This third article is about the role of the media, in an age where information can travel as fast as the thought process itself. And when information travels so fast, how does an individual know if the information has been filtered for its accuracy and whether it can be trusted. This conversation between Fareed Zakaria and Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, reminded me of the infamous death panels. Eric Schmidt hits the nail on the head when he says:

We're in a situation where we're going from a model where everything you saw was true and was highly metered -- that is, highly controlled -- to an explosion of information where not everything you see is true. And it's very difficult for humans to sort out what's true and what's false.
This will be the bane of politicians. It will be the bane of people like yourself, people everywhere. How do I know that this is true?
And the problem gets worse with real-time information and the fact that people are willing to say things that aren't true, and so forth and so on.

Check out my other Random Musing posts 1,2,3, 4

Want to See a Doctor - How Much Will it Cost?

If you want to buy something in the market place, you look for the product and you know exactly how much it is going to set you back. Various factors go into how the price is set. The chief among them is competition among various sellers.

But when it comes to healthcare, nobody knows what it is going to cost for a doctors visit, an X-Ray, MRI etc. Neither is there any information available on what the various doctors will charge for the same test/procedure. Why is it that the price of a gallon of milk can be found by the click of a button, it is so difficult to find the true cost of seeing a doctor for your illness?

Well, there is a bill in the US Congress called "Transparency in All Health Care Pricing Act of 2010", which plans to take the first step in developing a transparent pricing for healthcare costs.

Read more about the bill at Transparency in All Health Care Pricing Act of 2010

Also read a similar post Could Price Tags Save American Health Care

Just on a side note: If you are in France and need to see a doctor, you will know exactly how much the doctor will charge you for a particular test. If you want to find out more about the French, Germany, Japanese, UK or the Canadian health care system and how they are run, check out the excellent book The Healing of America

Random Musings of The Week

I found some interesting articles and blogs over the course of my countless hours spent on the web last week. Below is a short list:

New Yorker Magazine had a pretty good article on Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman

For those of us who have seen Avatar, this seems like life imitating art.

For those of us who are mathematically challenged, or who want to make math more fun and meaningful, this blog by Steven Strogatz, an Applied Mathematics professor at Cornell University is much fun to read.

Vancouver Winter Olympics are over. During the course of my limited viewing of the competition, I was always wondering if the figure skaters ever felt dizzy with all the spinning that they do during the course of their routine. Well I was glad and somebody else was thinking on the same line. And the answer is rather mundane then I thought.

Check Random Musings for older articles.

Paying Zero for Public Services

Corruption is a huge problem in India. Whether be it a matter of joy like a birth in the family or a matter of great sadness with someone passing away, nothing becomes official unless you grease the palm of one of the babu's working in the government office.

To make a dent into this malice, and to raise awareness to the rights of an individual, an organization called Fifth Pillar has come up with a unique idea: Zero Rupee Note.



Read more about 5th Pillar at Paying Zero for Public Service

The Perils of Prosperity

"What goes up must come down", according to the old proverb. But it seems like this logic did not apply a couple of years back to housing prices. A key economic group, Homeownership Alliance said in the beginning of 2006,

"the possibility of falling home prices over the next ten years is extremely remote. In fact, mortgages are expected to rise a whopping 5 percent on average!".

Oh, how they were wrong! For most people, during the boom years, rising home prices offered a way to prosperity. The logic was, buy a house, wait for a year or so for home prices to rise and sell it at that higher price and pocket the difference. Lot of sophisticated investors as well as novices to real estate were drawn in by the easy money and the associated prosperity. But this drive for more money and prosperity that brought everything tumbling down like never before in history.

In his book The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath: The Past and Future of American Affluence, Robert Samuelson writes that the drive to prosperity is a paradox. He writes:

Modern, advanced democracies strive to deliver as much prosperity as possible to as many people as possible for as long as possible. They are in the business of creating perpetual booms. The cruel contradiction is that this promise itself may become a source of instability because the more it is attained, the more people begin acting in ways that ultimately invite its destruction. Booms often have unintended and nasty side effects; even anticipated side effects that are ultimately unsustainable—stock-market bubbles, excessively tight labor markets—can be hard to police because they're initially popular and pleasurable.

The quest for ever-more and ever-better prosperity subverts itself. It might be better to tolerate more frequent, milder recessions and financial setbacks than to strive for a sustained prosperity that, though superficially more appealing, is unattainable and ends in a devastating bust. That's a central implication of the crisis, but it poses hard political and economic questions that haven't yet been asked, let alone answered.

Want to Drive a Cab in Mumbai - Language Skills a Must?

In one of the most ridiculous news of the day, the Maharashtra government has made it mandatory that cab drivers in Mumbai need to know how to read, write and speak Marathi. If you are rolling your eyes at where the priorities of the state government are, you are not alone.

Look at the bright side: a cab drive who is reading a Marathi newspaper or solving a Marathi crossword puzzle, while driving a cab. If he is involved in the accident, so be it. At-least he had the necessary language skills to be a cab driver.

What Does it Mean to be a Superpower?

The last few years has seen the talk of how the global balance of power is shifting from west to east. There is all this hoopla about how China and India will be the next superpowers. And the growing economic pains in the west have only added to more fuel to the fire. But what does it really mean to be a superpower in the world stage?

Having close to double digit economic growth make a country a super power? Or building new roads, bridges, super-fast trains make a country a super-power? Or flexing the new found muscles on the world stage, be it the UN, or the Climate Change talks make a country a super-power?

Sure all of these things can make a country get noticed. But it is how responsibly a country uses its new found recognition to further the greater good of human kind, is what will make a country a true superpower.

Case in point been the recent tragedy in Haiti. In response to an article by James Fallows, a readers writes:

"There are some moments in international affairs that put global power relations into perspective, however. The U.S. is committing $100 million to Haiti, plus probably untold amounts in private donations from aid organizations and religious groups. President Obama is deploying 5,000 troops including the 82nd Airborne and sending in a carrier task force. American companies are mobilizing humanitarian efforts, and there will likely be dozens of search and rescue teams from across the U.S. trying to land in Haiti. Miami Dade county alone is sending an 80-man search and rescue team.

"China is committing $1 million and sent 50 guys on an Air China plane.

"Yes, there is geographical proximity to consider [plus China being on average still very poor], but if this isn't the most obvious display of the massive combined military, economic, and soft power the U.S. can bring to bear if it chooses, then I don't know what is. To me, this shows the still enormous gulf in both power and the responsible use of power between China and the U.S. For all its faults and recent woes, the U.S. can and will step up and perform the duties demanded of the only indispensable nation. China, in spite of breakneck growth and a booming economy, cannot and will not."

Read the complete post at Unified field theory: Google, China, Haiti

Why do we need Health Care Reform in the US?

When we think of healthcare reform in the US, things that come to mind are the rising cost of healthcare, how the US spends 15% of its GDP on healthcare: the highest in the world, the growing number of uninsured, or how the doctors are burdened with unnecessary paperwork etc.

Everybody from politicians to laymen agree that something needs to be done about it. Everybody has a reason to make changes to the system be it political, economic or medical. And this last year has been spent talking about how to reform a broken system. But lost in all of this din is one essential question. Is there a moral responsibility on the part of any government to provide good and affordable healthcare to its citizens?

TR Reid, in his book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, asks that question. He writes

Those Americans who die or go broke because they happened to get sick represent a fundamental moral decision our country has made. Despite all the rights and privileges and entitlements that Americans enjoy today, we have never decided to provide medical care for everybody who need it. In the world's richest nation, we tolerate a healthcare system that leads to a large number of avoidable deaths and bankruptcies among our fellow citizens. Efforts to change the system tend to be derailed by arguments about "big government" or "free enterprise" or "socialism" .... and the essential moral question gets lost in the shouting.

Job Losses

If you are in the job market looking for a job, then pretty much every state is a red state. The graph complied by Slate Magazine and based on Unemployment statistics from the US Department of Labor, reflects how the great economic crisis took such a heavy toll on the job.

Its scary to say the least. And today's numbers released that the US lost another 85000 jobs in Dec 2009, points to what many economists have been calling a Jobless Recovery

You can view the graph moving from blue to red at Job Losses