Yesterday, the Washington Post ran an editorial that put the estimated death toll from the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo at 3.9 million, the equivalent of the entire San Francisco Bay Area population.

The war, which has involved as many as six nations, started in 1998 and continues to this day. The International Rescue Committee and The Lancet found that 98% of the deaths were due to treatable disease and malnutrition, largely the result of displacement during conflicts in the east. The remaining 160,000 deaths were a direct result of fighting.

The quality of the data in the editorial and the reports on which it is based are very impressive; the results are not. By comparing our response to the conflict in Congo with other recent wars and natural disasters, we find a discouraging record:

• -On a per capita basis, 30 times more United Nations Peacekeepers were deployed to Kosovo, where 12,000 people died, than to Congo where 3.9 million people have died this far.
• -The dollars of international aid distributed to Aceh, Indonesia in the wake of the tsunami was almost 100 times higher than the aid that has flowed to Congo.
• -In 2005 the media reported on Darfur more than 5 times more often than on the conflict in Congo.

The lessons from the data are clear:

1. 1. The media is more likely to report on wars that have been labeled genocide.
2. 2. The media is less likely to report on festering wars with no apparent good guys and bad guys.
3. 3. Media reports drive world attention. World attention drives donation rates, the reaction of our governments, and the deployment of U.N. Peacekeepers
4. 4. Citizen donations are fickle.  Governments are ultimately responsible for addressing conflicts such as that in Congo.

To learn more about the war in Congo, visit the IRC web site. There is also a link to take action by writing your Senator (assuming you’re not a Washington, DC resident).

Sources: Statastic research, International Rescue Committee, Wikipedia, Washington Post.

Today is Rembrandt’s 400th birthday, though he hardly looks a day over 23. Rembrandt was well known in his time, though he lived beyond his means and declared bankruptcy 350 years ago. In the end, he was forced to sell everything, save some paint, a brush and canvas. Although he died poor, it’s unlikely that any private collector who owns his paintings today will. In December, 2000 his Portrait of a Lady fetched a cool $28.7 million.

During his lifetime, Rembrandt was prolific, producing more than 600 paintings. He took on so many apprentices, that art collectors are still trying to disambiguate the provenance of some works.

So where are his paintings now? A survey of 176 paintings finds that 80% of them remain in Europe. Most of the others are in the United States. German museums housed a quarter of the Rembrandts in the survey, 47 paintings in all. Over the past 400 years, 85% of Rembrandt’s paintings have left his native Netherlands, but the Dutch still have the distinction of owning the most Rembrandts per capita.

Every so often, Jeffrey Sachs tries to humiliate the U.S. into increasing its foreign aid. It’s true: While we give away about $19 billion annually in foreign aid, it’s not much relative to our Gross National Income. The Dutch give away about 5 times more, and we’re usually toward the bottom of the rankings for industrialized nations.

But even our Official Development Assistance - grants that promote economic development in low income countries - doesn’t really get to the poorest countries on earth. The United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) helps quantify a country’s progress in areas such as health, education, and general economic welfare. One might think that this would be a pretty good guide to foreign aid benefiaries. But the five most under-developed countries on earth only receive $186 million in aid from the U.S., about 7% of what Israel receives annually.

At more than $10 billion in 2005, Iraq alone accounts for 45% of our total foreign aid. So the U.S. is spending about half of its development assistance solving a problem that we helped create. Actually, if you look at the top 4 countries that we give assistance to, it reads like a who’s who of failed U.S. foreign policies: Iraq is devolving into civil war, Israel has lost our roadmap to peace, Afghanistan cultivates poppies and terrorists, and we have outsourced Sudan’s genocide.

The bottom ten countries on the HDI index are miserable, conflict ridden places. But are they better off with or without our so-called aid?

Sources: Statastic, Wikipedia, United Nations Human Development Report

Notes: The “least developed countries on earth” is based on the 2003 United Nation’s Human Development Index.  Several countries that might have appeared near the bottom of the HDI were not ranked in 2003, many because of recent conflicts.  Statastico would like to give proper credit to the abject underdevelopment of the following countries that may have made the top 10 most miserable places to be a citizen, had they been ranked: Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Liberia, Afghanistan, and Monaco.  Ok, maybe not Monaco.

In 1972, the year Statastico was born, a penny was worth the equivalent of a 2006 nickel. Imagine if the U.S. Mint decided in 1972 to start making new coins called Fifths (with a portrait of James Monroe, naturally) and they were worth 1/5 of a cent. Well, we have them today and we call them pennies.

As recently as 2002, the U.S. Mint pulled in $24 million in seigniorage by producing pennies. No more. The Washington Post recently reported that because of rising zinc prices, the U.S. Mint is paying about 1.2 cents for every penny produced – not a very good return on investment.

Getting rid of pennies is a contentious issue. There is a pro-penny organization and people seem to attribute more value to a penny than it’s actual worth. Americans are frugal enough to pick a penny up off the street 76% of the time, though rich folks are more than twice as likely to leave that penny on the ground.

Indeed the mighty dollar’s biggest currency rival, the euro, also has 1 cent coins. However, businesses in Finland, the Netherlands and Greece commonly round to the nearest 5 cents to avoid those coins, so maybe the Europeans are onto something.

What about the rest of the world? Comparing a country’s most humble coins is a little tricky. A penny and a centavo both divide a major unit of currency by 100, but that’s where the similarity ends. First, you have to factor in the ebb and flow of exchange rates. Then it’s important to consider what a centavo buys locally, also known as purchasing power parity (PPP). One centavo might buy a whole mango in Guatemala, but it would only get you the mango’s stem in a U.S. grocery store.

So how worthless is the penny? Only the Chinese produce a more worthless coin (and we all know that their currency is undervalued). On the other end of the scale, the Japanese 1 yen coin is worth almost six times more than a U.S. penny in local wages.

And while we’re on the subject, have a look at our largest commonly used coin, the quarter. In coin-crazy Japan, they mint the most valuable coin in the world at currect exchange rates: The 500 yen coin is worth $4.33.

But once you factor in the lower local wages, it’s the Central and West African CFA (a vestigial franc from French colonial rule) that truly stands out. The 500 CFA coin - popular and convenient for highway bribes - is worth about 80% of the local hourly wage in Cameroon, the equivalent of a coin worth $16.50 in the U.S.!

Sources: Statastic research; Wikipedia; xe.com; IMF

*Notes: These are the highest and lowest value coins that commonly used in these selected countries. Coin currency equivalent was converted to dollars using exchange rate as of 7.13.06. Average hourly wages were calculated using the PPP of GDP per capita, and assume that workers toil 50 weeks per year, 40 hours per week.

Today the New Economics Foundation ranked Vanuatu the happiest place on earth. To their credit, the innovative Happy Planet Index (HPI) tries to takes into account how well humans turn their resources into what economists like to call “utility” (or “happiness” to the rest of us).

The winner has a great location to be sure, and something in common with others in the top ten happiest countries: massive inequality. Most of the top fifteen happiest countries were in near the bottom of income inquality as measured by the Gini coefficient. You’d think that those folks would’ve noticed the disparity, but perhaps this is a new type of underclass that is just too busy “convert(ing) the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens.”

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*Notes: World Rank in Income Equality is based on the Gini Index available for 124 countries as ranked in the 2005 United Nations Human Development Report. Additional sources were used for Vanuatu, St. Lucia, and the Grenadines. No data was available for Dominica (#4 HPI) or Cuba (#6 HPI).

Today is Major League Baseball’s 77th All-Star Game. Statastico was curious about how well these all stars are compensated relative to NFL Pro Bowl players, MLS All Stars, and NBA All Stars.

The NFL has the highest per game average for its best athletes, but the NBA, with much smaller teams, has the highest annual average salaries. Baseball pays its stars the most, while even the richest Major League Soccer star come in well below the poorest NBA star.

Given the choice, Statastico would rather read expertise than opinion. Recent polls concentrate on the latter. More interesting, however, is the wide gap between the public’s opinion and the opinion of experts. So why the obsession with public opinion polling?

The media use polling data not only to guide their own stories and advertising, but often as the basis for stories. So reporting what people think to the people who are thinking it becomes a self-reinforcing cycle.

And then there are the politicians. They guide their district gerrymandering, their campaign messages and financing with public opinion polls. And of course politicians themselves also guide public opinion. Just look at how many times the phrase “addicted to oil” has appeared in the media, and you’ll understand why the public suddenly has a passion for energy independence.

But experts are polled less often. The Atlantic Monthly often polls its foreign policy experts, and Foreign Policy recently released polling data highlighting the divide between the experts and the public. These types of polls are crucial to moving debates forward.

So what informs public opinion? The average American is not devouring policy blogs, obsessing over exit strategies in Iraq, evaluating the efficiency of turning corn into ethanol; they’re not even reading newspapers. They’re thinking about what to have for dinner, searching for low airfares, and keeping up with the latest news about Brangelina.

The public is also increasingly fragmented. The Internet facilitates specialization of interests and opinion, so Americans who do pay attention to the news are more likely to get it from a partisan source. Public opinion polls supposedly help us understand the political climate, but politics are shaping that opinion. Polling the public on important issues is no more than politicians’ PR departments checking to see whether their messaging sticks.

So please poll the experts. Statastico doesn’t care what the American public thinks about pulling out of Iraq. We should care about what Iraqis think. We should care about what experts in the State Department think. Instead of obscuring scientific consensus as the Bush administration has done with global warming, help us understand possible solutions. Scientists and experts are not always right, of course. But politicians’ job is to listen to the experts and help the public understand real options for hard problems.

Sources:

1: http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm#earth

2: http://web1.foreignpolicy.com/issue_julyaug_2006/TI-index/thepopularfront.html

3: http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/1009a1GlobalWarming.pdf

4: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

The polling data about scientific consensus and global warming is based on a scientific review of 928 scientific papers related to global warming. None of the papers reviewed, “disagreed with the consensus position.” Several scientists do disagree with different aspects of global warming. Here is a list of scientists who disagree with the global warming consensus.

Today Wimbledon will crown a new women’s champion, either Amelie Mauresmo from France or Justine Henin-Hardenne from Belgium. Two things are certain: the winner will speak French and the winner will take home less than her male counterpart.

Wimbledon is the last remaining Grand Slam tennis championship to pay different purses to the men’s and women’s champions. The Gentlemen’s Champion will receive £655,000 ($1,212,469) while the Ladies’ Champion will receive £625,000 ($1,156,936). Why the $55,000 difference? Don’t men and women compete equally? Not really. In Grand Slam tennis tournaments, men play best of five sets, while women play best of three. Sports writers, sports feminists, even proud economists, have spilled (or typed) much ink on this subject. But is it even fair to compare wages when men and women are playing a fundamentally different games?

Let’s have a look at the statastics. Over the past five years (2001-2005), Wimbledon Men’s Champions - usually Roger Federer - have played 53% more sets (and 66% more games) en route to the championship than the women’s champions during the same period. If the averages hold up for 2006, the Gentlemen’s Champion will have earned $51,376 per set played while the Ladies Champion would take home $75,126 per set played at Wimbledon. There you have it: women earn 46% more than men at Wimbledon. It is, perhaps, one of the few examples outside the adult film industry where women earn more than men.

Statastico would like to see equal pay for equal play. This is not to suggest that they should cut women’s purses at the Grand Slams. Give us more tennis! Women and men run the same distance in marathons, swim in the same Olympic pools, and play on the same sized soccer fields. Pay them identical purses and let the women also play best of five sets at the Grand Slams. That is true equality.

Source: Statastic research

People all over the world love beer. Some like beer made by monks, some prefer their watery domestics. Yes, most American beer is a bit pale and tasteless, but Americans seem to know what they’re doing when it comes to packing a lot of alcohol into as few calories as possible.

So to celebrate Friday, Statastic is providing you with a guide to beers that give you the best bang for your… belly. Bear in mind that alcohol content varies by state, especially if you’re living in Utah. This is also a limited sample as alcohol content and caloric data for beer is tough to come by.

Statastic’s Beer List may not help you avoid a beer belly – that’s apparently genetic – but it does provide a headstart for your weekend. The results? With the available data, Sam Adams Triple Bock is the champion. Of the beers you’re more likely to find in your grocery store or local bar, Michelob Ultra, Coors Aspen Edge and the great tasting, less filling Miller Lite are all promising. And if advertising is as accurate as I suspect it is, cracking open a cold Keystone Light is a surefire way to fill your hot tub with supermodels. Supermodels love watery domestics, especially when they only have 100 calories and 4.2% alcohol.

Cheers!
Statastico

All beer calories and alcohol content provided by RealBeer.com
Except: ^Calorie-count.com and CalorieKing.com
**Askmen.com

The Internet has been available in the developing world almost as long as it’s been here in the U.S. Internet cafes were popping up in Cameroon in the mid 1990s before the local Peace Corps volunteers even knew how to use them. Penetration rates, however, lag predictably behind the richer countries in the north. But the lack of telecommunications infrastructure is something of a blessing in disguise: developing nations have the potential to leapfrog technologies. Cell phones and VOIP prove easier than installing costly land lines, and there’s no need for telephone poles and copper cable if governments can create WiFi and WiMAX zones around burgeoning urban areas.

Wired Magazine recently featured a map with average prices for one hour of online access in Internet cafes around the world. Statastic used the average hourly price as a percentage of daily wages to provide a glimpse into the state of Internet access in a selection of low to middle income countries.

The chart below begs several questions. Could lowering the cost of public Internet access lead to higher usage rates? What is the demographic profile of the average Internet user in the developing world? Should multi-lateral donors subsidize the cost of public Internet access?

Among this small sample, D.R. Congo, Nigeria and Kenya are the three most expensive places for locals to access the Internet, relative to income. They also have some of the lowest usage rates. But these countries have several other characteristics in common: low literacy, high rates of corruption, and a high level of inequality. These countries may simply have a limited number of Internet cafes that cater to tourists, corrupt officials and the wealthy locals who are lucky enough to have an education and a job.

Brazil’s usage rates are surprisingly high. Perhaps Brazil’s high inequality can help explain how 14% of Brazilians have regular access to the Internet despite the fact that one hour in an Internet café costs nearly one sixth of average daily wages. Just who are those fortunate 14%?

Sources:
http://internetworldstats.com
WIRED Magazine, May 2006