Just a quick one since I was on Fred. Here is Federal Nondefense Investment plus State and Local Investment plus Private Investment in Structures. Basically total public and private investment in our built environment.
This is levels
This is growth rates
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Saturday ~ September 10th, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Zac Gochenour
Growth rates: interesting. Levels: misleading due to the chart scale.
Saturday ~ September 10th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Karl Smith
Unless you read the scale
Sunday ~ September 11th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
hawks5999
Agreed. Misleading to the illiterate or lazy. I would be interested in seeing this chart overlaid with the excessive Republican Keynesian stimulus… er, I mean “Defense” spending.
Saturday ~ September 10th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
David
Agreed, this chart is almost a textbook example of ways people manipulate the scale of the chart in order to mislead uninformed readers
Tuesday ~ September 13th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Guillermo Lachey-Dodd
This chart is nowhere near a textbook example of misleading anyone.
The zero point for the inversion is clearly defined. The fact that it isn’t centered is of little consequence to those who read all of the elements of the graph before proclaiming confusion.
The span of the time dimension is sufficient to show an adequate near-term history.
To suffer fools gladly is an effort in which no reasonable person should engage.
Saturday ~ September 10th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
Alastair
I’m an amateur at all of this. How does it explain why america can’t have nice things? All I see is that in a recession – spending on infrastructure plummets…?
Sunday ~ September 11th, 2011 at 10:10 am
ed sanders
the important thing about moving the baseline is to make it clear that the chart doesn’t start at 0. CR does it right.
Sunday ~ September 11th, 2011 at 11:24 am
Bill Rich
Need more history to judge.
Sunday ~ September 11th, 2011 at 11:40 am
tim
One possible explanation is that it was a massive construction bubble, and we’re an overbuilt nation. Too bad much of the building was housing developments on exurban farmland.