Some times people use words to fool us. (Gasp!!) I know, I know, old news right. How about this one: Sometimes people use true statements to lie to us. One form of this is making a comparison between two things that are on a vastly different scale, to imply that they are on the same scale. Like saying Bill gates is the richest guy since John D Rockefeller who was the richest person EVER! It might be technically true, but old John D. could buy Bill Gates about 6 or 7 times over. In fact to equal the inflation adjust fortune of John D. Rockefeller, you’d have to add together the fortunes of the 13 richest people in
You see the statement is technically true, but it doesn’t really convey the proper scale. The form of this linguistic abuse that’s been bothering me most it the constant refrain by politicians and talking heads that “it hasn't been this bad since the great depression." By many measures it’s a true statement, but it conveys a lie. Our current economic situation is not even in the same league as the great depression. Have you seen any breadlines?
The graph below is courtesy of Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture. It’s a great blog that every now and again features a graph that really lives up to its namesake.
I won’t even comment on the graph. It speaks for itself. Next time you hear this statement, ask yourself what they are really trying to convince you of.
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Its really orders of magnitude different! The problem could be that people don't even know what this means. Not only was the unemployment percent higher then - but look how fast it dropped! And consider this: the unemployment rate has actually crossed 7.6% SEVERAL times after the great depression (for more on this and a not-really-a-pageturner summary of the differences between now and then check out: "this is not another great depression " at the freakanomics blog .
ReplyDeleteYou can misrepresent honest data in other ways, even without comparisons. For example, I can start a news network and every day report on 5 true, bad things that happened in the city. I'll give an impression of a terrible city full of unfortunate events because I'm not balancing my presentation with any existing good news (in the proportion in which it actually exists).
ReplyDeleteWow! I had no idea it was that different. I wonder if the "worst since great depression" can still hold though, since that is just comparing events. It would be great to look at a graph like this but which includes curves for other recession times.
ReplyDeleteMish has a good commentary on Ritholtz's graph.
ReplyDeletehttp://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/09/depression-debate-is-this-depression.html