Unemployment Rate World Map

Below is the link to the Unemployment Rate world map at IndexMundi.

http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?v=74

Money

Awesome XKCD map of all money. :)

http://xkcd.com/980/

Geography of the Top 1%

In line with the "we're the 99%" movement, here is an interesting article with maps from the IRS, on geography of the "top 1%" of income earners in the US. 

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2011/10/where-one-percent-live/393/

Rich-o-meter

Rate yourself on rich-o-meter and see in which percentile of the world population you fall into:

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/02/01/rich-o-meter-20/

Quicken 2012 Manual Updates

Since Quicken 2012 has been available for a while, here is the link for manual download of updates:

http://quicken.intuit.com/support/help/patching/quicken-2012-manual-updates/GEN83594.html

Metric Mash

At Metric Mash, you can access various public data sources and create your own charts.

http://www.metricmash.com/

S&P Downgrades United States

(Reuters) - The United States lost its top-tier AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday, a move that will affect the country's borrowing costs and investor opinion of U.S. assets. Here is a Q+A on what the downgrade means for investors, consumers and to the country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/07/us-usa-rating-sp-idUSTRE7760I520110807

Show One Amount Column in Quicken

Quicken (2011) will, by default, display incoming and outgoing transaction amounts in separate columns. This might be convenient for accountant-types but sometimes the screen realestate is not plentiful and we might just want to see one amount column with sign '-' for negative numbers. And preferrably different color.

Fortunately, the new Quicken column options offer this possibility. 

There are columns for Deposit and Payment, but also Amount. Simply untick the Deposit and Payment columns and tick the Amount column. The column names are different for different types of accounts but they can be easily located by checking what the actual column titles are in the register.

The drawback here is that values cannot be typed directly into the Amount column. Fortunately, this is where quick switch between 1- and 2-column layout comes in handy. CTRL+2 is the shortcut key for switching to 2-column display, which can have separate Payment and Deposit columns for entering transactions. Then, pressing the hotkey again will switch to 1-column display that could have only the Amount field and more transactions listed, which provides a great overview of the recent account activity.

Currency Effect on International Investing

A great overview of relation between currency exchange rates and investment performance in international arena. This is noteworthy, considering current performance of Australian Dollar.

Read more:

http://internationalinvest.about.com/od/gettingstarted/a/currencyeffect.htm

Taxation and Investment in Australia 2011

Deloitte's publication on taxation and investment in Australia in 2011:

http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Global/Local%20Assets/Documents/Tax/Intl%20Tax%20and%20Business%20Guides/2011/dtt_tax_guide_2011_Australia.pdf