Comments on: Scary Info Graphic

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:03:32 +0000

Tom -

There are probably a lot of huge expenditures I could add to the chart. My purpose in creating the bar charts was to try to improve on the scary double pie chart.

Presumably spending on the two World Wars would be greater than Korea and probably Vietnam (though we were involved in Vietnam for a long time). And some of the numbers should be vetter more carefully, since we now know the bar for the Louisiana purchase should be no thicker than the line used to draw the axis.

I welcome anyone who is inclined to improve on these charts by incorporating better data.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:52:10 +0000

Lester -

Good catch. I changed the bars, but the labels were still in the same positions as in the previous chart. Took less time to fix the chart than to upload the new image to the server.

By: TokyoTom

TokyoTom — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:31:59 +0000

Jon, your bar charts are very telling (especially those you posted on Dec. 2).

But how about adding in WWI and WWII?

By: Lester Hunt

Lester Hunt — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:54:02 +0000

Jon, Isn’t that last amount for the moon race, of $698B, a misprint? The other graphs have it as $237B, which makes more sense.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:02:10 +0000

Droo - I got the numbers from Barry Ritholtz in Big Bailouts, Bigger Bucks. I don't know how he computed the figure in the chart. According to MeasuringWorth, based on the Consumer Price Index the Louisiana purchase price of $15M would now be worth $278M, a fraction of one percent of the value Ritholtz calculated.

By: Droo

Droo — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:49:16 +0000

Where do you get 217 Billion for the Lousiana Purchase?

1800 15M, or 15million OZ of Silver
2008, current spot of silver 11.42

Total=173 Million (give or take)

By: John Mitchell

John Mitchell — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:50:12 +0000

Perhaps one more statistic might be included here – the estimated cost of WW2. The figures that I have seen put the total expenditure at about $5 trillion in current dollars (a moving target, I know).

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:29:14 +0000

Sjoerd – I saw some of those links, and they all just seem to be pulling numbers out of a hat.

Doug – Someone else had trouble with the “banned” screen. I added a plugin that blocks IPs from which I’ve gotten comment spam. Neither of you are coming from a banned IP. If it happens one more time, that plugin is history. Better deal with a little spam than keep out legitimate visitors.

Bob G – the numbers are supposedly converted to 2008 dollars, but I agree that fraction of GDP would make more sense.

Robert – Thanks for trying to clear this up. The numbers are so vast, though, that I think we need one of those powers of ten videos to help.

By: Robert Williams

Robert Williams — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:19:04 +0000

I can’t reconcile $4 trillion, but I can add a little clarity. First, $700 billion refers to the congressional bailout package that was much-discussed in the media. $800 billion is the amount of liquidity the Federal Reserve announced it was injecting from its reserves last week. The rest is a combination of various specific bailouts – Lehman, Citi etc. that seem, back-of-envelope, more like $3 trillion to me. I suspect to get to $4.6t they’re including other proposed/discussed/imagined potential bailouts with, shall we say, very imprecise cost estimates.

I think the point about the bailout’s scale is valid, but it is being argued unconvincingly by people who don’t have a great grasp of the quantitative measures they’re using. That pie chart looks like a poster for a UFO convention! Thanks for posting, I’ve enjoyed this.

By: Bob Gannon

Bob Gannon — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:46:38 +0000

If this chart is supposed compare the relative cost impact on the economy shouldn’t the metric be percent of US GDP for comparable period of expenditures?