The geographically accurate cartogram above represents the population of Alabama's counties.  The more populous a county is, the larger it is on the map.  This cartogram shows that Jefferson, Madison, and Mobile are the most populous counties by far and together the three counties account for just under 30 percent of the state's total population.  This, in a state with 67 counties.

The geographically accurate cartogram above represents the size of the states based on their number of think tanks.  Washington DC contains one out of every five think tanks in the US.  Think tanks are clearly an east coast phenomenon.

The cartogram above represents the size of the states of the EU based on the number of think tanks.  The United Kingdom contains one out of every five think tanks in the Union.  With its impending exit, the EU is poised to lose 20 percent of its think tanks.

Most states in both the EU and the US do not bother with think tanks so much so, that the entity with the most think tanks by far, is not even a state.  Outside of Washington DC, only the United Kingdom has more than 200 think tanks.

The World Economic Forum published its annual Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) recently and while some states of the European Union faired spectacularly others, not so much.  Half of the world's top ten most competitive nations are in the EU, namely the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Finland.  The Index is made up of 114 factors ranging from property rights to reliability of police services and from the quality of roads to the prevalence of various diseases.  These 114 variables are broken up into 11 categories or "pillars" as the Index puts it: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation.

The cartogram above represents the size of the states of the EU based on the number of hectares they dedicate to harvesting oats, the larger the state the more hectares it dedicates to oat production.  Spain dedicates the greatest amount of land but Poland is not far behind.  These two countries combined account for just over one-third of the land dedicated to oat production in the EU.

Short-term rates continued their rise in November while medium-term rates rose slower and long-term rates dropped from the previous month.  The yield curve continued to narrow as it had in the previous month.  Short-term rates have increased their rise in rates but the one-month bill had no sessions with higher rates than the three-month bill.  That is, the one-month bill maintained the lowest rate throughout the month.  However, the yield curve narrowed from the bottom up and that has been a steadfast indicator of recession.

Today a look at barley production in the European Union.  Spain dedicates the greatest amount of land but France and Germany are not far behind.  These three countries combined account for just under half the land dedicated to barley production in the EU.

Today a look at rye production in the European Union.  Poland dominates the EU with regard to the amount of land dedicated to the crop.  It alone accounts for over half of the hectares that are dedicated to rye production in the Union.  With Spain and Denmark, the three countries account for over three-fourths of the land dedicated to harvesting rye.  There is one major caveat however, Eurostat has considered Germany's data unreliable for several years now and thus has not included data for Germany.  Going back to 2009, the last year data for Germany is available, Germany allocated almost the same amount of land as Poland.  So keep that in mind when viewing this map.  A major producer is not included.

Today a look at wheat production in the European Union.  Unlike potato production, there is no geographic area that dominates the amount of land dedicated to the staple grain.  There are both northern and southern states that dedicate many hectares to it as well as eastern and central European states.  Only western Europe (in the geographical sense) does not dedicate much land to the crop.