Integrated Marketing and Online Development in Kansas City
Unsolicited notes, links and advice from an online development firm in Kansas City.
There’s not much I like more than a good info graphic. I’m of the school that thinks design should primarily be used to convey information in a way that’s fast and pleases the eye. With words like “billions” & “trillions” crowding the headlines lately, I thought it was time to whip one up.
Pie charts are to scale. Click for full-size image.
Numbers pulled from this BoingBoing article.
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There are 58 Comments Leave A Comment
Excellent graphic, in a frightening way. I also note that the total bailout figure you note is roughly 1/2 what Bloomberg reports as the total amount committed to the bailout – $7.67 Trillion. See this for more http://blog.scientificleader.com/2008/11/25/77-trillion-increases-probability-of-inflation-skills-required-for-enterprise-risk-management/
Absolutely insane, I am so concerned for our children.
Misleading (though still scary).
The population in the past was a fraction of what it is today, so all activities will be proportionately larger, even when adjusted for inflation.
The correct graph would compare the costs, *pro-rated by the population size*.
Very misleading, but great colors.
That decides it. I am not having any kids.
This is very misleading in multiple ways. In addition to those mentioned by others, the government is purchasing assets and/or equity with this money. So, unlike investing in a war, we’re putting the cash AT RISK, not spending it on something disposable. So, it could well be that the Uncle Sam makes a profit on this investment, unlike most of those other stuff.
No way dude that is like way too crazy.
jess
http://www.anonymity.cz.tc
Um… Does this mean to imply that 70+% of our nation’s GDP has been siphoned into the bailout? Very misleading.
Let’s not forget that those receiving from the bailout will be paying high interest rates on what they get for a long time.
@GREG
Yeah Greg, It’s just wonderful that the Government is buying up failed mortgages, securities, hedge funds, and banks. The more involvement they have in our lives, the less rights we retain. We have been teetering on the brink of socialism for the past two decades and this is going to push the country over the fence. And the taxpayer has to foot the bill. Strange that when there is a surplus we don’t earn more money, yet the more debt the government puts us in the less we make. EVERY SINGLE ONE of these institutions deserves to fail. This is one of the base tenets of free market capitalism. We jumped that ship a long time ago.
@Alex
I think it’s international.
Becuse yeah, 70%’s a bit ridiculous, but there’s definitely trillions of dollars going into it worldwide.
to the guy who said “Let’s not forget that those receiving from the bailout will be paying high interest rates on what they get for a long time.”
uhh no. if the assets the government was buying were profitable or cash flow positive and able to pay interest the government wouldn’t be buying them.
also there is no guarantee that any company whose the government invests in through stock is going to last the week much less the year. most of the companies are still tanking and stocks can go down to zero you know.
I agree with Doug. It is just too risky.
I think it’s misleading that we all call this ‘the bailout’.
to go borrow from Wade’s main point:
I’m of the school that thinks [propaganda] should primarily be used to convey information in a way that’s fast, [easily remembered] and [pleasant to the psyche]
It’s not just a bailout, which is what you do when your friend gets arrested: scrap together some coin and he pays you back later.
This is a desperate shot of adrenaline to restart a static heart. Well, it’s a lot of things.
I think your graph is not ‘misleading’ whatsoever. In fact it leads the viewer into a state of shock, also known as reality, also known as the correct psychological response to reconsidered vastness. Keep up the good work.
and to greg, i don’t know where you got the idea that war isn’t profitable.
war is the most ancient investment with the highest possible risk/reward ratio
I hope that person doesn’t put this in their book. Iraq War alone has been estimated to cost in excess of $3 Trillion Dollars. How is World War II not considered? That’s because WWII inflation adjusted is estimated to cost around $5 Trillion Dollars. It would totally ruin all the pretty colors.
Unbelievable.
Wasn’t the Tea Tax what started our whole experiment in Democracy?
You’d think as Americans we’d have the self-respect to NOT TRUST OUR POLITICIANS
They’re all greedy bastards, Democrat and Republican… mostly Republican. After all, Bush was given a budget surplus by Clinton, and this is what happens.
conservative policies and deregulation DO NOT WORK, and if they ever start mouthing off again, there will be hell to pay.
this is not the america i live in.
Oh yes, I say it plain, america never was america to me, and yet i swear this oath – America will be Our of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, the rape and rot of Graft, and stealth and lies, we, the people, must redeem the land, the mines, the plants, the rivers, the mountains and the endless plain – all, all the stretch of these great green states – and make america again.
WHERE ARE THE TRUE REVOLUTIONARIES? I would rather die on my feet than live life on my knees.
I would have to agree with PETE. War can be quite profitable and I fully expect it to be an expanding enterprise in the very near future. In fact wasn’t until the late thirties that we showed any real economic recovery from the great depression. The war machine has already been fired up by the Russians and China. It will get serious in two years.
This is the price of inflation and cost of our hubris to think that we can just buy our way out of debt — we’re just perpetuating a cycle that won’t end until the root cause of our inflation, the Federal Reserve Bank, is abolished and the stolen funds recouped …
“Hopefully we get a souvenir keychain out of this or something.”
Here ya go, I made a souvenir keychain
http://www.zazzle.com/2008_financial_bailout_souvenir_keychain_10t-146923465505732664
Or to be on the side of the conservative estimate of the bailout, a $7.5 Trillion Keychain
http://www.zazzle.com/2008_financial_bailout_souvenir_keychain_7_5-146599416302556855
Enjoy
Although it is interesting (and as others have observed misleading in purely economic terms) the worst part of this graphic is that pie charts are a horrible way of making visual comparisons of area. Worse yet, comparing two pie charts compounds the problem. A histogram would be far superior.
Pretty colors! Bah! Pie charts! Hrmph!
Here’s a much better version: http://icanhaz.com/bailoutplan
I also agree with Pete about the profit of war. It is estimated that up to 2/3rds of US growth in the past few years can be attributed to increased military spending and the knock on effects to industry.
Don’t forget after WW2 the US military industrial complex turned into companies like Boeing that we have today.
The WW2 cost for the US was $288 Billion, something like $5 Trillion today dollars. Source: http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/peaceinthepacific/numbers and http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_did_World_War_2_cost
So, the 2008 Bailout Cost == All 20th Century wars together for the US, or something like that. Neat!!
@ everyone:
don’t blame the fascist politicos who view tax money like a sailor on shore leave (no offense intended toward sailors). it’s the people. you want to give your retirement money to the gov’t so that they can use the social in-security to hide their true spending. then you allow feds and all other gov’t peeps to save their retirement in a secure account out of everyone’s reach.
the people want free health care where the gov’t will dictate what you are allowed to receive. gov’t student loans that allow colleges to skyrocket their tuition. corporate welfare, regulations, and protectionism in an anything but free-market society.
then to top it all, you elect the same crowd of red or blue politicians who are nothing but yellow cowards – and the red, blue, and yellow all mingle to give you a brown shirted fascist. the more the promise of change, the more we see those who lead us into the mess putting the same corporate fascists into the position of solving the crises.
spit on the sidewalk: go to jail; spit on the people: get a free lunch
…and you have no one to blame ‘cept yourselves… maybe ya shoulda listened to ron paul, peter schiff, and the real champions of the constitution…
So the government now controls the people, not the other way around, like it should be. What a great mess this country has become. The silent majority need to stand and be heard, NOW.
I have always invested in business that is complimentary to my beliefs and desires, so, since I am dead against this socialist move to buy up all the business by the fed, I will no longer support the federalists. I am not paying another dime in taxes. Sales tax is the only one I cannot yet avoid, yet. I refuse to contribute to this racketeering that is known as a market correction or bailout or whatever the lying thieves and pork bellies will call it. The time for another revolution is upon us and we should stand and fight this ridiculous and unfounded plot that is being thrust upon every man woman and child of this and the coming generations.
Wake up America! What has happened to the freedoms and rights that our forefathers fought AND died for?
People who think this is an investment are very mistaken.
If this was an investment, and not a bailout, private equity firms would be tripping over themselves to invest in it. The problem is, that nobody wants to buy this junk, and that’s why it’s worthless. Unless we have massive WAGE inflation, housing prices are coming down, and that’s the root of the problem. The people that made these bad loans and took them on, need to go bankrupt. That’s how capitalism works, the stupid people aren’t bailed out, they are bankrupted.
Look at it this way folks…
How much is the bailout going to cost? How many people are there in the US?
US population is estimated at 305761717.
Dedicated bailout amount is 3180000000000.
That means that EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the US, including children, are responsible for $10,400 of the bailout!!!
Can you afford to just toss that amount away because some banker doesn’t want to lose his job?
The population in the past was a fraction of what it is today, so all activities will be proportionately larger, even when adjusted for inflation.
I think we have a huge problem here if the figures in the graph are correct or not. The congress, president, secratary etc are risking our money and our childrens futures to cover up and band aid problems they are at the root of. All of this is illegal per the constitution. We need to get rid of these elected officials that pull this stuff. I write to my congress people and the email PR they send back is generally repulsive in the lack of reality and responsibility they take. In a few short months they have somehow become experts on auto bailouts and bank bailouts. None are touting any kind of investigations or trials. They are protecting themeslves and their colleages. CAN WE START A CLASS ACTION SUIT against them? Frankly I feel abused and afraid for myself and my family, this has to STOP. The new welfare class of corporations is going to keep lining up again and again as long as they keep bailing them out. Witness AIG and Citi and the big three so far. Its only been a couple months but it seems like routine standard procedure out there. LAWYERS any thing we can do leagally to stop this?????
Long ago and far away someone once said “the love of money is the root of all evil” and people used to say “no, that is not true, that is too radical thinking” but now look at what the Love of Money has done – otherwise known as greed… that is what this all is from is people in companies – banks Realtor, manufacturers, lawyers and more – saying “We are making a lot of money… how can we make a lot more?? Hey! I have got an idea!! Lets do this and this and if we can get people to fall for it then look how we can much money we can multiply into!!!!” How pathetic that as a society we still have not learned that we need to be fair and honest in how we deal with other people.
I saw this same graph somewhere else, and whenever I see it, I just sigh.
Just a big fat red pie.
To all of you who want to scream that Clinton gave Bush a surplus: READ UP BEFORE MAKING STUPID STATEMENTS.
Clinton might have given Bush a surplus, but he actually inherited that from the American Public. Clinton did NOT create the surplus. In fact, Clinton is the reason we have spiraled into this deficit anyways, and if anything, Bush inherited all of Clinton’s mistakes.
But it’s quite funny really. Every democrat who has “done well” have all inherited a FIXED solution from republicans.
So stop pointing fingers.
Secondly @ George for this comment:
“uhh no. if the assets the government was buying were profitable or cash flow positive and able to pay interest the government wouldn’t be buying them.”
That’s a BOLD statement. What you are saying is that you just assume the government isn’t stupid enough to do something as crazy as buying assets unless they are profitable.
The fact is, they are absolutely that insane. Clinton and gang created this whole mortgage bill that started this great avalanche of issues by trying to buy out the mortgage companies in the first place. And gee, they really did a BANG UP job with that.
Secondly, how do you even think the Great Depression started? It started by the government trying to throw money into an issue to make it “magically disappear”. The only thing it did was create even more inflation and issues. The only thing that brought us out of The Great Depression was letting the markets BOTTOM OUT and companies that were not suposed to be surviving go bankrupt.
Government is not the issue guys/gals. We are the answer. Keep government out of our lives…
@#28 Jon 11/25/08
Took the words out of my mouth basically. Further to your point on the BS ‘surplus’ it was a PROJECTED BUDGET surplus. In English that means they ‘believed’ they would have extra money to pay towards debt THAT ONE YEAR. It never came to fruition as everyone took a jail break and added it on to more BS social programs and pork.
I’m not a huge fan of either party (I vote 3rd party) but everyone who thinks this is a GOP problem that the Dems will swoop in an ‘fix’ by making LESS government involvement in our lives are either lobotomized recently or just being wilfully ignorant. Obama has ALREADY said he thinks the amount of the bailout is HALF of what he would have made it.
If you think we are being taken for a ride now, fasten your seatbelts a bit tighter folks, it’s going to get a lot bumpier once Messiah Barack Obama Christ takes office.
Just a heads up: You’ve been stumbled(StumbleUpon) or rather just your graphic has, at least.
Might want to keep an eye on your bandwidth.
In addition to what others have said…pie charts don’t work that way. You must include the bailout on the same chart with the other events. Any event on its own chart will come as 100% of the pie. Nice try, though.
Bailout 2008, a poem by David Jeffrey
Like a bloodied warrior,
laying broken and torn.
Like a dying soldier, hopeless and forlorn.
But the blood, it be green,
the color of money.
And the soldier is an economy,
and it is anything but funny.
Broken are it’s people and shattered are their dreams.
Thanks to the ultra rich and their full proof schemes.
It is a tragedy with more pain to come.
Finance will be Hell, and their wills will be done.
The total does not add up to the end total. But the graph is still a good example of just how bling the public is. They would sell their lives into slavery and give up all liberty for a slight temporary security. What happens when the debt is too big? Who bails them out then?
Greg,
Are you a shill, or are you an idiot? If the latter, would you like to come over for a friendly game of poker, or perhaps you’d like to buy a fine bridge for Christmas?
-jcr
Whether the charts are numerically accurate I don’t know but they do get the point across. This “bailout” is insanity. A recent article (I think it was on the Reason site) talked about how Japan in the 80s tried to do the same thing (increase liquidity, buy up bad business models) and all it did was prolong the pain.
These politicians are beyond clueless about the economy and only care about buying votes.
If anybody belives that the taxpayer will ever see any of this money back… Well I have a bridge for sale…
Welcome to the greatest handout of cash in the history of the world. Step right up folks, its free and no strings attached. Oh, its just for large companies to be paid by folks…..
Isn’t ‘Moonshot’ contained within ‘Nasa All-Time Budget’?
This information is off. Where did you get 4 trillion? And why is the term “bailout” so vague? Bank bailout? Auto Bailout? Seriously…
And who the hell writes “I’m so afraid for my children.” News flash: The government has been doing this to our fathers and grandfaters…
this is the worst graphic i have ever seen, why on earth would you use a pie chart for these kinds of numbers? pie charts are used to compare percentages of a whole and i don’t think there is honestly any way you can compare two pie charts whose total values are not the same… all in all, nice try, but next time try a bar chart, which would have been more appropriate here, or just go back to elementary school, where they taught you these things, and then try to write a blog!
Bailout 2008, a poem by David Jeffrey
Like a bloodied warrior,
laying broken and torn.
Like a dying soldier, hopeless and forlorn.
But the blood, it be green,
the color of money.
And the soldier is an economy,
and it is anything but funny.
Broken are it’s people and shattered are their dreams.
Thanks to the ultra rich and their full proof schemes.
It is a tragedy with more pain to come.
Finance will be Hell, and their wills will be done.
Ooops. This is huge numbers :) i think the mortgage projects are so necessary.
I also agree with Pete about the profit of war. It is estimated that up to 2/3rds of US growth in the past few years can be attributed to increased military spending and the knock on effects to industry.estetik
This information is off. Where did you get 4 trillion? And why is the term “bailout” so vague? Bank bailout? Auto Bailout? Seriously…
on is off. Where did you get 4 trillion? And why is the term “bailout” so vague? Bank bailout? Auto Bailout?
very nice blogs thanks admin
Great 10x
awesome man..
This is very misleading in multiple ways. In addition to those mentioned by others, the government is purchasing assets and/or equity with this money. So, unlike investing in a war, we’re putting the cash AT RISK, not spending it on something disposable. So, it could well be that the Uncle Sam makes a profit on this investment, unlike most of those other stuff.
This information is off. Where did you get 4 trillion? And why is the term “bailout” so vague? Bank bailout? Auto Bailout? Seriously…
this is the worst graphic i have ever seen, why on earth would you use a pie chart for these kinds of numbers? pie charts are used to compare percentages of a whole and i don’t think there is honestly any way you can compare two pie charts whose total values are not the same… all in all, nice try, but next time try a bar chart, which would have been more appropriate here, or just go back to elementary school, where they taught you these things, and then try to write a blog!
This information is off. Where did you get 4 trillion? And why is the term “bailout” so vague? Bank bailout? Auto Bailout? Seriously…
What the pie chart above is actually telling us though we hate to admit it to ourselves is that we do not live in a capitalist democracy. We live in a two-party, security state kleptocracy. It’s apparently a traditional American condition through history to greater or lesser degrees.
Now the corruption of democratic ideals by the moneyed and corporate classes is less hidden because it is obvious the average citizen can do nothing about it if they wanted to, which it certainly appears they do not.
Hopefully, nobody still believes the fairy tale notion that capitalism is the same thing as a free market. There hasn’t been a “free market” in this country in my lifetime and probably most of the nations history. Furthermore, it is a quaint notion that capitalism is the road to prosperity can be laid to rest by accepting the reality that the world’s largest capitalist country is being kept from total collapse by the world’s largest communist dictatorship.
America will be continue it’s path into second world nation status, as wages fall, unemployment grows and the ever poorer population connot sustain an economy that depends on consumerism. As for revolution, the only way we have is another Constitutional Convention. Other than that we should all know by now sheep do not revolt.
If anybody belives that the taxpayer will ever see any of this money back… Well I have a bridge for sale…
Welcome to the greatest handout of cash in the history of the world. Step right up folks, its free and no strings attached. Oh, its just for large companies to be paid by folks…..
I saw this same graph somewhere else, and whenever I see it, I just sigh.
Just a big fat red pie.
Very misleading, but great colors.