Allen’s blog of trivial stuff

On a talk show tonight the host proclaimed that most medical innovations come from the United States while challenging a caller to identify one from France.  To research that, I looked at the countries of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine award recipients.  These are the countries of institutions the individuals work at (presumably at the time of the award), not the country of origin of the individuals.  For the years 1984 - 2008, the countries are listed below.  (Fractional shares of the prize are typically awarded, thus the decimals.)

United States = 17.16666

United Kingdom = 2.5

Germany = 1.8333333

Switzerland = 1.16666666

Austria = 1.0

France = 0.5

Italy = 0.5

UPDATE: The 2009 prize was divided into thirds, all of which went to researchers at institutions in the United States.

Last Tuesday (March 31) there was an “Employee Free Choice Act” forum which was broadcast on PCN earlier today.  A lot of claims were made that probably couldn’t be statistically looked at, but at least one was easy: the claim that people are moving out of states with lots of union jobs into states without them.  Below is a list, combining US census population change between 2007 and 2008 with BLS numbers on percent of union-represented employees.

The 15 states with the smallest population increases (actually decreases for Michigan and Rhode Island) compared with the ranking in percent of union jobs:

Seven of these with the smallest population increase are also within the top 15 with unionized jobs.

The 15 states with the highest population increases compared with their unionized job rankings:

Likewise, seven of these states are within the 15 states with the least percent of unionized jobs.  (There are 51 since DC is included.)

New York has the most unionized jobs at 24.9%, while North Carolina is last with only 3.5%.

This posting will be expanded as I uncover the statistics.

Annual unemployment rate:

14.6 % - 1940

9.9 %  - 1941

9.7% - 1982

9.6% - 1983

8.5% - 1975

7.9% - 2009 [Average of January (7.6%) and February (8.1%.)]

Source: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat1.txt

Disclaimer: Due to changes in collection techniques, the BLS cautions against comparing data between years.  See “Historical Comparability” in http://www.bls.gov/cps/eetech_methods.pdf.

Federal Funds Rate

16.39% -1981

13.35% - 1980

12.24% - 1982

11.20% - 1979

10.51% - 1974

10.23% - 1984

On March 12, 2009: 0.18%.

Source: http://www.federalreserve.gov/Releases/H15/data/Annual/H15_FF_O.txt

Annual Average Inflation Rate: Years > 10%

14.65% - 1947

13.58% - 1980

11.22% - 1979

11.03% - 1974

10.97% - 1942

10.35% - 1981

Current (January 2009) inflation rate: 0.03%.

Source: http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx?dsInflation_currentPage=0

This web site cites a Department of Energy forecast that renewable energy sources (excluding hydro and nuclear) will supply 4.2% of our energy by 2030, up from 3%.  I’m still trying to track down the actual report.

http://www.windaction.org/opinions/15231

How are other countries doing?

Germany is #1 in generation from wind and is considered to be significantly ahead of the US, although the US has surpassed Spain as #2.  As of 2007, Germany produced about 22,000 MW of electricity via wind, which is 7% of their total consumption.

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Wind/2008_data.htm#fig2

http://www.wind-energie.de/en/wind-energy-in-germany/

(There are some articles which are perhaps newer claiming the U.S. has surpassed Germany.  I’ll try to check on these, but it doesn’t change the basic point.)

Germany also leads the world in solar power generation at 3,733 megawatts, a little over 1% of its entire amount of consumption.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5449

Don’t hold your breath!

The Pentagon says eleven percent of detainees released are either confirmed to or are suspected to have returned to militant activity.

In addition, 110 detainees should NEVER be released due to their potential damage to the U.S.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE50C5JX20090113

The media makes it sound like people at the Treasury are working overtime manning the printing presses to actually pump out all of this money.  Perhaps it’s just a simplification, but it’s not really correct and gives a false mental image; the Treasury sell bonds instead of actually dumping dollar bills into the economy.

http://www.hnn.us/articles/60041.html

This Wall Street Journal references a Health Affairs article that says, simply, this number is incorrect.  It claims 25% of these were eligible for public coverage and another 20% actually could afford their own insurance, so the number is really more like 25 million.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122722921596746391.html