Analytica

Thoughts on 'The Lost Decade'

I agree with huangthomas, visual information is too easily and too often "adjusted" for emphasis. An honest graphic would show a single, unbroken 1929 to 2007 time span.

And there are several more egregious visual deceptions at work here.

1- The title is "Lost Decades" but none of the time spans are 10 years wide nor do they each span the same number of years. The time periods shown are 13, 16, and 8 years respectively yet the graphs are of equal width.

2- When the width of a year is held constant over the three graphs, 1999-2008 graphic would be only one-half the width of the 1966-1982 graphic. So what? Think about it. If you squeeze the 1999-2008 graph to its honest width, you would see another dimension of the story. You would see that the speed of surge and decline is much faster these days compared with times past.