Obama vs. Romney Tax changes, by quintile
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/19
It’s also worth noting that these numbers only tell half the story: Romney has promised to offset the cost of most of his tax plan through spending cuts and tax reforms, and so any analysis of who pays is incomplete without those policies. But that information is impossible to graph, as Romney hasn’t released it yet. All we can say is that since Romney has promised to increase spending on defense and honor Medicare and Social Security’s scheduled benefits for the next decade, it’s hard to see how he makes good on that promise without cutting deep into programs for the poor and tax preferences that benefit the middle class, and if that’s right, then the poor and middle class are paying much more than you can tell from the graph above.
WaPo 7-17-12 It’s been more than 50 years since a drought this extensive has afflicted the Lower 48 states.
Drought in US July 2012
From NYT 7/9/12:
USA trends
On his blog, McAfee explains the graphic:
Since the Great Recession officially ended in June of 2009 G.D.P., equipment investment, and total corporate profits have rebounded, and are now at their all-time highs. The employment ratio, meanwhile, has only shrunk and is now at its lowest level since the early 1980s when women had not yet entered the workforce in significant numbers. So current labor force woes are not because the economy isn’t growing, and they’re not because companies aren’t making money or spending money on equipment. They’re because these trends have become increasingly decoupled from hiring — from needing more human workers. As computers race ahead, acquiring more and more skills in pattern matching, communication, perception, and so on, I expect that this decoupling will continue, and maybe even accelerate.
He offers some (and some not so good) solutions here.
Also, charts on the development of poverty since Harrington.
Why we’re not shut up in a room:
Chart
(I post these charts so I will be able to show them in an argument)
Can’t stand hearing Repooplicans saying again and again that Obama has lost jobs and has never created any jobs. Note that Obama took office during the great decline in employment, and jobs started going up after the Stimulus started. Here’s the important graph:
chart of jobs before/after obama
From Ezra Klein, 9/9/2011:
