True Annotations


  • ♿ (Parody)



  • Yes. I'm particularly impressed by the deceptive y-axis origin which makes it look like the 2009 value is eight times the 1990 value, instead of 1.5 times.

    I also wonder why they chose 1990 as a starting point. I'm sure it's completely coincidental that 1990 marked the start of a somewhat anomalous period when spending flattened out for a while. Nobody would cherry-pick the data to suit their own purposes, of course.

    Same data numbers, on a non-deceptive graph and with historical perspective:

    [IMG]http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/7341/spend.png[/IMG]

    Hey look, it's almost as if the 2009 peak was a small blip in a trend that has been pretty steady for the last 60 years!



  • @Scarlet Manuka said:

    Nobody would cherry-pick the data to suit their own purposes, of course.
     

    Absolutely nobody. Obviously.

     

    I didn't read all the comments, just scanned the first few, which were about 0.5% above YAQ* so I stopped. Did anyone call out the OP for the bullshit graph?

     

     

    *) Youtube Average Quality


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Scarlet Manuka said:

    I also wonder why they chose 1990 as a starting point. I'm sure it's completely coincidental that 1990 marked the start of a somewhat anomalous period when spending flattened out for a while. Nobody would cherry-pick the data to suit their own purposes, of course.

    Same data numbers, on a non-deceptive graph and with historical perspective:

    ...

    Hey look, it's almost as if the 2009 peak was a small blip in a trend that has been pretty steady for the last 60 years!

    Oh, sure, now who's cherry picking?



  • @boomzilla said:

    Oh, sure, now who's cherry picking?
     

    my datas, let me show you them



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Scarlet Manuka said:
    I also wonder why they chose 1990 as a starting point. I'm sure it's completely coincidental that 1990 marked the start of a somewhat anomalous period when spending flattened out for a while. Nobody would cherry-pick the data to suit their own purposes, of course.

    Same data numbers, on a non-deceptive graph and with historical perspective:

    ...

    Hey look, it's almost as if the 2009 peak was a small blip in a trend that has been pretty steady for the last 60 years!

    Oh, sure, now who's cherry picking?

    Ok let me get this straight: you guys are all visiting this site to make charts, and nobody has yet said "The Real WTF is usgovernmentspending.com's spastic confusing busy colorful layout?" Or even mentioned that the charts look like boiled ass? (Durrr... what is 'anti-alias'?)

    I feel like I don't even know this forum anymore.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Oh, sure, now who's cherry picking?

    Notice that around 1917 this wierd thing happens, the US debt starts growing faster ... that couldn't be related to anything odd like, I don't know, a change in the way debt was issued by the Government? i.e. Scarlet's cherry pick was an accurate way to view the Debt Ceiling Era (TM).


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @rad131304 said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Oh, sure, now who's cherry picking?

    Notice that around 1917 this wierd thing happens, the US debt starts growing faster ... that couldn't be related to anything odd like, I don't know, a change in the way debt was issued by the Government? i.e. Scarlet's cherry pick was an accurate way to view the Debt Ceiling Era (TM).

    There are legitimate things to point out from any of those points of view, actually. In fact, after 1917, there were other major changes. Obviously the War-Facism of Wilson didn't entirely survive, but that's basically where American Progressivism started increasing the scope of the government. I'd argue that the debt issuance is another effect, not a cause. The chart originally posted is actually interesting in that it shows a rare period (Democratic President, Republican Congress) where there was actually some rollback of the Progressive welfare state (that's not all that was going on, of course, but it was significant).

    Whichever point you start from, it's looking more and more like we're about to run out of other people's money.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @rad131304 said:
    @boomzilla said:
    Oh, sure, now who's cherry picking?

    Notice that around 1917 this wierd thing happens, the US debt starts growing faster ... that couldn't be related to anything odd like, I don't know, a change in the way debt was issued by the Government? i.e. Scarlet's cherry pick was an accurate way to view the Debt Ceiling Era (TM).

    There are legitimate things to point out from any of those points of view, actually. In fact, after 1917, there were other major changes. Obviously the War-Facism of Wilson didn't entirely survive, but that's basically where American Progressivism started increasing the scope of the government. I'd argue that the debt issuance is another effect, not a cause. The chart originally posted is actually interesting in that it shows a rare period (Democratic President, Republican Congress) where there was actually some rollback of the Progressive welfare state (that's not all that was going on, of course, but it was significant).

    Whichever point you start from, it's looking more and more like we're about to run out of other people's money.

    You make it sound like we won't just print more money if that happens - the only reason China buys our debt is to manipulate the currency market so they can keep their product prices artificially low which means they won't stop buying any time soon.

    </oversimplification>

    Also, IIRC, there was some significant reduction in the military industrial complex during the 1990's period, too (I couldn't be bothered to look for any facts on that), but I'm pretty sure it wasn't all anti-gay rainbows and Medicare restructuring parties.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Ok let me get this straight: you guys are all visiting this site to make
    charts, and nobody has yet said "The Real WTF is usgovernmentspending.com's
    spastic confusing busy colorful layout?" Or even mentioned that the charts look
    like boiled ass?

    I can't speak for the others, of course, but given some of the site components (like the highlighted bit in the left sidebar: "1929-1939: a decade that will live. In stupidity usstuckonstupid.com" - note that this doesn't even make sense) I took it for granted that the whole site was pretty retarded. It was a pleasant surprise to see that it used actual data - not only that, actual [b]sourced[/b] data - and I figured asking for a sane design as well would be going too far.

    Also, the point of my post was the data, not the site that generated it; I didn't think it was relevant. But yes, the site is a complete dog's breakfast and the interface for a custom graph in particular is pretty poor. Does that make you feel happier?


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