Yearly Archives: 2012

The Economist was extremely unforgiving of Mitt Romney’s gaffes on his most recent trip abroad and the first as the presumptive Republican Presidential candidate.  No doubt this was intended to give Romney credibility with regards to foreign affairs (something generally very important to the Republican Party), but Romney’s trip was more like a string of blunders that were embarrassing. Is he really this ill prepared?  I’ve included an excerpt from the post on The Economist.

“After spending several days getting flayed by the British press handling of the Olympic games, he moved on to Israel, where his campaign promptly involved itself in a diplomatic scandal (this time with actual consequences) over whether it had said that Mr Romney would back a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran. 

Mr Romney went on to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel, a position no American administration has ever taken because discussions over the final status of the city are the most explosive subject in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Then this morning, at a fund-raising breakfast largely populated by ultra-rich Jewish Americans, Mr Romney managed to suggest that Palestinians are poor because their culture is inferior to that of Jews.”

Read the entire article in the Economist, Mitt Romney abroad: Like Bush, but without the cosmopolitan flair.

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo/NPR

Whenever I watch or read the news the topic most discussed is always either the US or global economy (esp. with regards to Europe).

I’m not an economist and after a certain point I start to tune out all this out, but I do love pictures and charts so I found this interesting.  The graphic below details how Americans spent their money last quarter.

If this was a personal consumption chart I think I’d need a separate breakout for Ptown and for wine. What category (ies) would you need added?

Want to read more? Check out the article on NPR here.