Teknovis

I am always interested in statistics relating to Irish incomes, and I often get asked about this while travelling, so I thought the the following statistics from Plans to slash the USC are rash and dangerous – here’s why were very interesting:

• 70% of earners have an income greater than 12,000€ per annum
• 50% of earners have an income greater than 27,000€ per annum
• 22% of earners have an income greater than 50,000€ per annum
• 16% of earners have an income greater than 60,000€ per annum

These figures relate to earned income, so they do not include non-earned income.

Tags: Ireland

The BBC asks if the US one cent coin should be abandoned in The US penny: Should it be scrapped?.

It also provides the following nice infographic:

US One Cent Coin Infographic (Copyright BBC)

It is an interesting question, and I do not have a strong opinion on it either way.

However, I would not like the Euro cent to be discontinued!

Tags: BBC

I came across the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list today, and I thought it was fascinating!

Tags: Forbes

A nice interactive graphic from the BBC showing who owes what to whom: Eurozone debt web: Who owes what to whom?

It feels a bit depressing for a Friday afternoon :(

Tags: France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, UK

A friend recently sent me this graphic showing the interdependencies of the Euro crisis (click image to see larger version):

Euro Crisis (Copyright The New York Times)

It is very interesting, but almost scary!

Fascinating, if not somewhat scary, visualisations of the US national debt – A Visualization of United States Debt.

I bet it would make people from the PIGS countries feel a lot better if their debts were also shown to scale!

Tags: Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain

Money is something that has fascinated me for the last few years. I do not mean that I am obsessed about obtaining it :) Instead, I am interested in the design, production, and usage of the actual notes and coins! There is a lot of technology involved in all of this!

I was in the US recently. I think that it is a great country (with a few negative aspects), but the Dollar drives me crazy!

My main annoyances are:

• The coins do not have their values printed on them!
• The notes are all the same size and colour!
• The prices displayed in shops never include the taxes! This makes it really difficult not to accumulate lots of small change!

These things probably annoy me so much because I am used to using the Euro, which is very new and it was designed with usability in mind. For example, all of the Euro coins have different engravings on their sides so that they can be easily identified by visually impaired people.