If the world was made of rubber ...

[Griffon64]

How accurate it is and whether people have seen it before I don't know, but I found it rather interesting. ( more can be found at http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/ )

Some ones I found interesting: Africa practically disappears on the housing one, except for the small bulb of South Africa at the bottom.

Immigration - Australia looks fairly normal!

War deaths - Grotesque Africa. But ...

Military spending - Grotesque America.

World house prices



HIV deaths



Alcohol consumption per capita



War deaths



Military spending



Toy imports



Toy exports



Disclaimer: I don't know how the data was compiled and in most cases I don't even know what unit of measurement was used. The source website, http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/ may be able to answer your questions if you have them I haven't checked.

[axordil]

Hey, that's a cool little inset map of Hong Kong on that last map.

[yovargas]

So, Africa gets all the death and poverty. We get....toys.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

Notes UK alcohol consumption with a touch of pride.

[Inanna]

India apparently doesn't import or export toys. We make 'em and use 'em. Or every tire/stick/stone is a toy.

Interestingly we stay fairly the same size on housing prices, War deaths, alcohol consumption; squeeze a bit on military spending (am happy to see THAT) and balloon a bit on HIV deaths (:().

Am resisting looking into the data set right now.... cus am pretty sure alcohol consumption in India does not include the locally made alcohol sold without any controls/checks etc.....

[Erunáme]

Notes UK alcohol consumption with a touch of pride.

How about the housing prices one?

[elfshadow]

Griff, thanks for posting those--how telling.

And the only area in which America is fairly proportional is alcohol consumption.

To give an idea of US military spending compared to all other countries (I wish I could post the chart but it's from my International Relations professor's class outline and only students have access to it--I can't copy/paste) the US spent just over $400 billion in 2004 on its military budget. The US, of course, is first in the world in military spending. Second is Russia, who spent a little less than $60 billion in 2004. The portion of the US military budget devoted exclusively to research, development, and technology in 2004 was $53.9 billion. That's more than the entire military budget of every single country in the world apart from Russia. The combined military budgets of North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Libya, and Sudan--all countries considered to have poor relations with the US--numbered maybe $20 billion or so. The US's military budget is 20 times that.

[Primula Baggins]

And we've got millions of children with no health insurance, and crumbling schools and infrastructure, and New Orleans rotting outside the tourist zones.

Good thing we've got our priorities straight. :|

[Túrin Turambar]

Remember, though, that money is only spent on people. Money spent on the military goes towards jobs and wages, healthcare and education for personnel, creating buisness for local and national industry, ect.

The problem in economic terms is that the military doesn't actually produce anything that goes towards GDP or economic growth. IOW, we all can't be in the military. Still, money spent on the military isn't exactly just thrown down the drain.

[Primula Baggins]

Except insofar as it lines the pockets of people who are already rich, which is what quite a lot of it ultimately does.

[Túrin Turambar]

Moreso than spending on something else?

[baby tuckoo]

The maps remind me to wish our antipodal friends--Impish, nl, LM, perhaps others--a very gay ANZAC day.

It is a place a dearly want to visit, though it will have to wait until I first see the British Isles. As I've said for most of my life, "maybe next year."

[nerdanel]

And we've got millions of children with no health insurance, and crumbling schools and infrastructure, and New Orleans rotting outside the tourist zones.

Good thing we've got our priorities straight. :|

IAWP w/one modification:

We've got millions of people without health insurance. It always bothers me when the focus is on uninsured children. If an adult has a medical condition for which he or she cannot obtain treatment by virtue of uninsured status, s/he is, in my view, no less worthy of our concern and efforts.

This insurance issue has really been on my mind recently because I had a vision related scare and called a couple of ophthalmologist offices describing symptoms potentially related to retinal detachment. The first words out of their mouth in response to my panicked description of symptoms: "What kind of health insurance do you have?" I had to bite back the words, "Does it matter?" If I did in fact have a condition that can cause total blindness within days (which, btw, it was a false alarm and fortunately I didn't)...screw insurance, I've got a question for you - "What kind of Hippocratic oath did you take?"

Fortunately, I didn't have to have that exchange because I could calmly answer that I had adequate PPO coverage to meet their every concern. But what if I didn't? How is this not a top priority, that so many people don't have coverage, whatever their age?

(Ahem. Did I mention this had been on my mind lately? )

[Primula Baggins]

Oh, it's on my mind, too, Nel, given that Mr. Prim's career options will be rigidly limited for the rest of his working life because I was sick in 2005 (and I will never be able to get long-term care insurance, so even our kids might be affected unless we can save enough money—which affects them now, of course).

However, I live in one of the states that has made an effort to insure at least kids, and that is a start. Insuring kids is a no-brainer—it saves money later to make sure that congenital conditions are found and treated, immunizations are received, teeth are cared for, etc.

[elfshadow]

It sounds like my family has suffered the same problems with health insurance companies that yours has, Prim. About seven years ago my mom was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and she has to take daily injections of interferon for it. Luckily, the drug company actually pays for most of the cost of the interferon, but there are several other expensive medications that she also has to take for her associated headaches and such. This, of course, has caused our health insurance costs to steadily increase since she was diagnosed. The rest of our family has fortunately been able to switch insurance companies since then (my older brother and I both use our university's plan) but my mom cannot switch. Since she has MS, which is a "pre-existing condition" in insurance company speak, any different company she tries to insure herself with will exclude the MS coverage from her benefits. Of course, because of the nature of MS--it's an autoimmune disorder--just about any illness she contracts could be linked to it. So she can't change plans, and her current insurance company can basically raise her rates whenever they feel like it. It's such a horrible system, I'm so sorry to hear that your family has similarly been affected. Too many families have.

The military spending figures shocked me as well. I understand paying salary and benefits to the troops and their families, of course, but when you consider that our "research, development, and technology" budget is more than the entire military budget of almost every other country--is that money really being spent in the best way possible? Is it actually making us more secure or is it just lining the pockets of defense contractors? And even if, in some way, it's making us slightly more secure, what price do we pay?

[axordil]

Moreso than spending on something else?

Can someone wave down jnyusa?