In Edward Tufte’s books, he stresses that one should never present a number in isolation. The question that one should answer, as a writer/presenter, is “compared to what?”[...] I just did a Google News search to see how many reporters compared the latest jobs report from the U.S. Labor Department to the U.S. population growth rate. The answer was “none”. This New York times story was typical. It reported that 20,000 jobs were lost in January, but did not say anything about how the number of Americans had changed. [...] The population clock says that there are 308.6 million people living in the U.S. Without leaving Google, one can calculate that 252,000 people were added to the U.S. population in January. So we have 20,000 fewer workers and 252,000 more people. To me that is a much more interesting story than simply “we have 20,000 fewer workers.”

Mazumtirdzniecības apgrozījuma kritums pret visu laiku augstāko punktu – 2007.gada jūniju ir pārsniedzis 40% robežu, tagad tas ir 41.3%. Tai skaitā kumulatīvais pārtikas tirdzniecības apgrozījuma kritums sasniedzis 35.3%, bet nepārtikas precēm tas bijis 44.3%. Atsevišķās kategorijās apgrozījums jau ir samazinājies vairāk nekā 10 reižu. Tā noticis ar tapešu un grīdas segumu pārdošanu, savukārt audio un video ierīču mazumtirdzniecība kritusies par 70%, un šim procesam pagaidām gals nav redzams.

Kopējais mazumtirdzniecības apgrozījums ir atgriezies 2004.gada līmenī, bet pārtikai – 2003.gada līmenī.

When a subordinate state in a federal monetary union has severe fiscal problems and runs out of money, what does it do? It issues IOUs. Think California or the Argentine provinces before 2000. For example, in Portugal, we could coin a phrase and call such IOUs escudo. Essentially the government passes a decree that states that such escudo IOUs would be acceptable for all internal payments, except tax payments, between Portuguese residents, but not for any external payments between Portuguese residents and foreign residents. All public sector and private sector wage payments shift on to an escudo basis as do interest payments by a Portuguese resident to another resident. Portuguese residents’ deposits and borrowing with Portuguese banks shift to an escudo basis; others remain in euros.
[...]
Note that the government, whose taxes remain paid in euro, would be long in euro, whereas the Portuguese private sector would be long escudo, short euro. So, the government transfers its net long to the central bank and asks the central bank to manage the escudo/euro exchange rate, so that it is stabilised, say at a level that represents a 25 per cent internal devaluation, (the choice of number would need careful calculation).
[...]
It would be messy, and an unattractive dual currency mechanism. But it could work; it has done so before now in other countries and circumstances.

2008. gadā Latvijas izvirzījusies vadībā starp Eiropas Savienības (ES) dalībvalstīm pēc to iedzīvotāju skaita, kuri dzīvo uz nabadzības robežas, liecina pirmdien publicētais "Eurostat" ziņojums.
Latvijā par nabadzīgiem tika atzīti 26% iedzīvotāju, Rumānijā tādu bija 23%, bet Bulgārijā - 21%. Grieķijā, Spānijā un Lietuvā šis rādītājs sasniedzis 20%.
Saskaņā ar ES standartiem, uz nabadzības robežas dzīvo tie, kuru ienākumi veido mazāk nekā 60% no mediānas [sic! -w] atalgojuma līmeņa valstī.