Hans Rosling's Gapminder chart and what it really says about human progress
Hans Rosling's Gapminder chart is one of the most famous data visualisations ever made. Most people watch it and feel good. They should watch it again and feel uneasy.
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Hans Rosling's Gapminder chart is one of the most famous data visualisations ever made. Most people watch it and feel good. They should watch it again and feel uneasy.
The Iran war is no longer just a geopolitical story. Oil prices, inflation expectations and softer growth are pushing bond investors to price a stagflation shock with major consequences for the Fed and households.
Born before the web, I watched the internet go from dial up novelty to the invisible system modern life runs on.
The US Government now has more than $35 trillion in debt. But how did it get there?
This is not an energy chart. It is a chart about power. China has spent the past two decades expanding nuclear generation at speed. Germany has shut its reactors down completely. One country is building firm electricity capacity. The other has chosen to dismantle it.
Iran has been almost completely offline for more than a week. According to NetBlocks monitoring, nationwide connectivity dropped from normal levels to around 1% in early March and has remained near zero since. This makes it one of the longest internet shutdowns the country has experienced in recent years.
Brent crude has pushed above $100 per barrel. It was bound to happen. The speed is not unusual either. Oil markets react immediately because the global system has very little slack. For ordinary people the implications are straightforward. Oil prices eventually flow through to petrol, diesel and transport costs. When crude rises sharply, the price of filling a car tends to follow. That's not great when many of us are experiencing a cost-of-living squeeze.
The current US-Iran conflict has brought the Strait of Hormuz back to the centre of global energy markets. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes through that narrow waterway. When tankers hesitate, insurance costs jump and shipping routes become uncertain. So the question the market must answer is simple: Is oil becoming harder to obtain right now?
If you compress 400 years of economic history into a single animation, this is what you will see. The world has never been stable.