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But developing, exporting, and deploying military personnel and weaponry costs nations hundreds of billions every year. In 2021, global military spending reached $2.1 trillion, rising for its seventh year in a row. Using data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), this visualization shows which countries spent the most on their military in 2021, along with their overall share of global military spending. Which Countries Spend the Most on Military?...

Not only are they all world-class cities that still serve as global hubs of commerce, but these cities also share a relatively rare and important historical designation. At specific points in history, each of these cities outranked all others on the planet in terms of population, granting them the exclusive title as the single most populated city globally. Ranking the World’s Most Populous Cities Today’s animation comes to us from John Burn-Murdoch with the Financial Times, and it visualizes cities ranked by population in a bar chart race over the course of a 500-year timeframe....

Copyright Funders and Founders. Step by Step: How Elon Musk Built His Empire “The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.” – Peter Thiel in “Zero to One” In the book Zero to One, prominent entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shares his vision on what it takes to create an extraordinary company....

In the case of Tesla and their rapid ascent to the top of the global automobile business, this might be true. After all, the electric vehicle company somehow manages to spend $0 on advertising year after year, despite the fact that marketing is typically a significant expense line item for most other auto manufacturers. On the flip side, Tesla is spending an average of $2,984 per car sold on research and development (R&D)—often triple the amount of other traditional automakers....

As it turns out, the hottest real estate market may be one we can’t see. Everything from space exploration signals to HAM radios are vying for room on the radio spectrum, in which frequencies range from 3Hz to 3,000GHz. This spectrum acts as the “transportation system” for all wireless communication, and blocks of it are divvied up for specific uses. The map above, from the U.S. Department of Commerce, vividly illustrates the complexity of this allocation system....

The ECB’s Big Bazookas (TLTRO & QE) The Eurozone is on the rocks again. In November, business activity fell to its lowest point in 16 months as the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) dropped to 51.1. The Euro is at a 27 month low against the dollar. Unemployment is stuck at 11.5%. Making matters worse, deflation is also knocking on the door. In November, prices rose just 0.3% from the previous year, which is far below the 2% target....

In a short amount of time, technological innovations such as wireless internet and social networking have become a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives, quietly transforming the way we live, work, and communicate. Other promising technologies have their moment in the sun, only to fade into obscurity. Gartner’s Hype Cycle charts the roller coaster ride of emerging tech, from the first stirrings of public awareness to the point of wider adoption and economic viability....

Silver has had double digit gains in 7 of the last 10 years. In this infographic, we look at the investment properties of silver as well as its chief differences with gold. Highlights include a study on silver correlation, volatility, performance against the US Dollar and money supply, and portfolio diversification. on Did you know that nearly one-fifth of all the gold ever mined is held by central banks? Besides investors and jewelry consumers, central banks are a major source of gold demand....

Because of this demand, U.S. employers are willing to pay for the right talent—on average, tech workers in the U.S. earn about 61% more than the average salary. But some tech workers make more than others, depending on where they live. This graphic by business.org uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to highlight the average annual tech salaries in each state, compared to the average salary of other occupations....

Back in the 1960s, global population growth peaked at a 2.1% annual rate, but since then it has been on a historic downtrend. In fact, according to the most commonly cited United Nations projection, which is based on a medium fertility rate scenario, it’s expected that annual population growth could drop all the way to 0.1% by the end of the 21st century. Visualizing a Demographic Transition Today’s powerful charts come from Our World in Data by economist Max Roser, and they show how global demographics will shift over the next 80 years....

But with rising inflation, a higher cost of living in cities, and changing perceptions around wealth, the six zero milestone doesn’t mean as much anymore. Heck, there are over 16 million millionaires globally, and 4.3 million in the United States alone. Therefore, to really get a sense of the makeup of the world’s ultra-wealthy population, we need a more exclusive and finely-tuned indicator. The $50 million Benchmark Today’s infographic comes to us from the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2018, which you should absolutely check out if global wealth is a topic of interest to you....

That’s a pretty extreme example of population density – but here’s one that is even more impressive. It’s quite simple actually: it compares parts of the most expansive regions (Canada, Russia, non-coastal USA, Greenland, Australia, and others) with a tiny chunk of land that holds close to 400 million people. An Extreme Comparison of Population Density The following image comes to us from Metrocosm, the website of data visualization expert Max Galka....

Trading Places: Chinese Flee Stocks for Offshore Property [Chart] Canadian and Australian housing sales set new monthly records in June The Chart of the Week is a weekly feature in Visual Capitalist on Fridays. Every transitioning economy has its growing pains. This turns out to be especially true when that economy is an unusual Jekyll-Hyde type of hybrid: it’s run by a communist government that favours control, but at the same time wants to harness the growth of free market dynamics....

Solar use is growing at exponential rates, and countries like the U.K., France, and India are planning to ban gas-powered vehicles in the coming years. Even the world’s largest auto market in China is under duress from mounting pollution, and the country has ambitious plans to build up world-class renewable capacity while ditching gas-powered vehicles. The Energy Storage Question As the world shifts to renewables, one question remains up in the air: how will we store all this energy?...

The Titanic’s impressive size attracted many of the world’s wealthiest individuals, and on April 10, 1912, it set out on its maiden voyage. Just five days later, the ship sank after hitting an iceberg, resulting in more than 1,500 deaths. It’s been over 100 years since the Titanic’s demise, so how have passenger ships evolved? To find out, we’ve visualized it beside Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas, currently the world’s largest cruise ship....

While China’s economy has had a much rockier start this year due to zero-tolerance COVID-19 lockdowns and supply chain issues, our visualization covers a full year of data for 2021⁠—a year in which most economies recovered after the initial chaos of the pandemic. In 2021, China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reached ¥114 trillion ($18 trillion in USD), according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The country’s economy outperformed government targets of 6% growth, with the overall economy growing by 8....

This new dawn comes from a global awareness of the environmental impacts of the current energy mix, which relies heavily on fossil fuels and their associated greenhouse gas emissions. Technologies such as wind, solar, and batteries offer renewable and clean alternatives and are leading the way for the transition to clean energy. However, as with every energy transition, there are not only new technologies, but also new material demands....

For many people, their life story plays out exactly like this – but people actually do it at very different speeds, or people end up hitting these milestones in different orders. Meanwhile, some Americans deviate from the typical path altogether, forging their own unique stories. Charting Life Events Interestingly, all of these landmark life events can be viewed through the lens of demographics, and today’s charts from Overflow Data help to tell this tale....

The U.S. aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 as part of its commitment to tackling climate change, but might be lacking the critical minerals needed to achieve its goals. The American green economy will rely on renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, along with the electrification of transportation. However, local production of the raw materials necessary to produce these technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, is lacking....

Fluctuations in its price, which is typically quoted in USD/1,000 board feet (bd ft), can significantly affect the housing industry and in turn, influence the broader U.S. economy. To understand the impact that lumber prices can have, we’ve visualized the number of homes that can be built with $50,000 worth of lumber, one year apart. A Story of Supply and Demand Before discussing the infographic above, it’s important to understand the market’s current environment....