Iraq’s population is thought to be just under 35 million, roughly the same as that of Canada and greater than any other Arab country apart from Egypt, Algeria, and possibly Sudan. Most Iraqis, and almost all Iraqis who identify as Shiite Muslims, live in the low-elevation Mesopotamian plain, the part of the map below thatContinue reading “Iraqi Geopolitics”
The Eternal Question
…Should I buy a treadmill? According to Statista, wholesale consumer treadmill sales in the United States have fluctuated around one billion dollars per year since 2007; they dropped to 800 million dollars in 2009 after the recession and have gradually risen back up since. There are some reasons, though, why treadmills — or, perhaps,Continue reading “The Eternal Question”
The Not-So-Tiny Baltics — Image of the Day
When, in the media, the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are mentioned, usually in a sentence like “Russia may again threaten the tiny Baltic states, which unlike Ukraine are members of NATO and the EU”, they are frequently referred to as being “tiny”. This is certainly true of their populations: only 3Continue reading “The Not-So-Tiny Baltics — Image of the Day”
Image of the Day – Germany at a Crossroads
Germany, which accounts for an estimated 21% of the European Union’s GDP and has an unemployment rate that is less than half as high as the EU average, is now facing five big economic challenges: 1. Germany has one of the oldest populations in the world: it’s old age dependency ratio is as high asContinue reading “Image of the Day – Germany at a Crossroads”
Image of the Day — Unique New York
Last a month a report in the New York Times suggested that Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City from 2002 until 2014, has been thinking about running for President of the United States as a third-party candidate, and may be willing to spend as much as a billion dollars of his own moneyContinue reading “Image of the Day — Unique New York”
Image of the Day – Islands of the Atlantic
As a follow up to the post about Pacific islands from last month, I decided to make another chart showing islands in the Atlantic. This chart is not as extensive as the previous one, though; it only shows islands that have populations between 100,000 and 1 million. Also, it may be missing a couple ofContinue reading “Image of the Day – Islands of the Atlantic”
Image of the Day – US States
The graph above shows the population densities of the 19 states in America that have at least 6 million people living in them. (Of the other 31 American states, 20 have fewer than 3 million inhabitants, 14 have fewer than 2 million inhabitants, and 6 have fewer than 1 million inhabitants). The graph below alsoContinue reading “Image of the Day – US States”
Image of the Day – Now that’s a basin!
Assuming this map is accurate, the areas it highlights are those in which rivers flow into the Black Sea. A number of things about this may perhaps be geopolitically noteworthy: – some countries, most notably Ukraine, lie almost completely within the Black Sea basin, whereas others, most notably Poland, lie just beyond the borders ofContinue reading “Image of the Day – Now that’s a basin!”
Image of the Day — Changing Electoral Demographics
From America’s Internal Environmental Geopolitics: As you can see from the graph below, the US immigration boom has increased steadily in recent decades, and took off in a big way around 1990. So, immigration to the US is to a certain degree actually a fairly recent phenomenon (ignoring the pre-WW1 immigration boom, which is practicallyContinue reading “Image of the Day — Changing Electoral Demographics”
The Geopolitics of Cheap Energy
Oil prices have fallen again: they are now at $29 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate crude and a similar price for Brent, their lowest since 2003. Natural gas, coal, and other commodity prices have also been dropping of late, in most cases. So: what will be the geopolitical consequences of cheap energy in generalContinue reading “The Geopolitics of Cheap Energy”
Future Economics 