28 January 2023

Worst chart ever


A graph distributed by the Federal Reserve, purporting to show China's vast military spending (the red line), compared to the United States (blue line).

Note - if you haven't already - that the scale for the red line is on the left, while the scale for the blue line is on the right.   Here are the same data displayed with just one y-axis:


Was this an "innocent mistake" by a low-level clerk or aide who wanted to compress the data into a smaller graph?  Or was it intentional.  I smell shenanigans.  

4 comments:

  1. In the context of the article the graph was used in, it makes good sense. No optimal, but OK. Out of context, it is indeed is a bad graph.

    https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2023/jan/military-expenditures-how-top-spending-nations-compare

    ReplyDelete
  2. That has to be on purpose. I just don't believe anyone with a high school education could fail to see the foolishness of such chart.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The original article is about the change in level of spending, not the level.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. it remains a bad graph.
      what you would have wanted to graph isn’t different scales of millions of dollars, you would’ve wanted % change from previous year’s budget.

      Delete

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