In an infinite growth economy, the one thing taxpayers cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.
http://xkcd.com/980
The graphic is very large and it will take some time for it to load on slower connections.
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/19348/money-a-chart-of-almost-all-of-it-where-it-is-and-what-it-can-do/
Money: A Chart of (Almost) All of It, Where it Is, and What It Can Do
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The link is bad.
Correct: http://www.xkcd.com/980/
I spent the last fifteen minutes looking at that and mentally salivating. Of course, I follow XKCD, so I found it there first.
It’s caption is “There, I showed you it.”
If you want your own copy, you can buy it at http://store.xkcd.com/xkcd/#MoneyPoster
Have fun finding the typo(s)!
e.g. at Typical household income the chart correctly displays 822 tan-colored $1000-denominated units for the top 1%, yet repeats the $201,000 label for income of the top 10% at left,
Scroll down and to the left for a depressing fact about government action: we could find each household served by the US Rural Utilities Service broadband program, cut them checks for $300,000 each, and come out way ahead relative to the cost of the program.
and again at Billionaires associated with Fashion where the chart is incorrect or the labels or both, without a fact check. can’t be sure which fortune needs hedging short or long!
e.g. Lilliane Bettencourt’s 31 olive-colored $1billion-denominated tally in the chart is labeled “$23,500,000,000″ i.e. short $6.5 billion, Ralph Lauren’s 30 olive-colored $1billion-denominated tally in the chart is labeled “$5,800,000,000″ i.e. short $24.2 billion and Ronald Laudner’s 27 olive-colored $1billion-denominated tally in the chart is labeled “$3,100,000,000″ i.e. short $23.9 billion
And the chart’s creator was a little uncharitable with The Donald (rounding should have earned him 3 olive-colored $1billion-denominated tally units but he’s only credited with 2).
and Trade books is not some new-fangled creative-accounting tax writeoff credited as charitable giving, its a duplicate label that wandered up from the Publishing category below!
and brand equity in two significantly profitable firms appears to be inconsequential, overwritten by the brand name Exxon Mobil, not once but twice!
the 317 solid olive-colored tally for total spending minus teacher salaries got cut-n-pasted and left adrift label-less in the economic vortex, so much for leave no-child behind!
total US Healthcare spending tally of 2106 solid olive-colored $1billlion units is mislabeled with the tally from the partial private sector tally (discounting the cost to taxpayers of the public sector portion, a serious oversight!)
and trickiest so far Mining (other than oil and gas) is off by a factor of greater than 10 (the 248 solid olive-colored $1billlion units for the Mining category correspond to the tally of the three subcategories however their sum less the two corresponding correct labels produces c. $50 billion NOT $528 billion (a glitch in the arithmetic or data possible)…
Saudi Aram</b<co (formerly arabian american oil company, a 25% minority share converted to 100% nationalized /sovereign-wealth funded in the 80s but brand equity/ name stayed)
oops poetic irony, hang around contagion long enough and it spreads, here’s how that last correction should have read:
Saudi Aramco (formerly arabian american oil company, a 25% minority share converted to 100% nationalized /sovereign-wealth funded in the 80s but brand equity/ name stayed)
and here’s another for good measure – chart’s subtitleAnnual defecit should read deficit (the former refers to voiding dregs, the latter to failure in creative potential)
This is a really fascinating image! It’s going to take me a while to pore over it. I love that the last thing on there is the “estimated total economic productivity of the human race (so far).”
Oh man, this is a cool graphic. In the trillions zone, there are some remarkable observations:
debt by nation definitely shows who is doing ok in the current state of affairs. I would be curious how those numbers breakdown on a per capita basis.
The size of the derivatives markets is staggering. I’m wondering how those numbers are assembled, as in were net longs added to net shorts, or is this a total of leveraged debt of some kind. If this is total leveraged debt, we should all be pointing to this picture and saying here is where the fire is burning down the world economy. There is no way this amount of debt sloshing around looking for a position is going to hold together.
I’m willing to say from this picture that if the derivatives trade is not lassoed in by regulation or taxation, the world economy is doomed to stagger around like a drunk batting at a vampire bat.
I love it how Donald Trump has his own category. Though he would disagree with the figure.
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