In chapter 1 of Alberto Cairo’s book, The Functional Art, he presents this chart by the Wall Street Journal as an example of non-figurative graphics.

I was struck at first by the use of a red/green color palette (so many people use this to represent positive and negative situations).  Then I realized that it need a bit more to really make it useful.  I wanted to be able to:

1. Understand the magnitudes of the rates
2. Compare years
3. Fix the color scheme
4. Make the chart wider

Here’s what I created using the Tableau 8 (all of this can be done in 7).  Does it answer my questions?

The July 1st ChartPorn daily blog post linked to an interesting interactive graphic for economic indicators from the Wall Street Journal, which the author calls "Danger Signs."

The first graph that appears is called Summer Chills. There are two graphs, one for consumer confidence and one for yield on the 10-yr treasury. When I first looked at this, my impression was that the two charts were related. If you carefully read the caption, you can see that they aren't.



I see some issues between the graphs:

1. The time frames are now consistent; they start at January 2007 and go through June 2010. They also are by month only.
2. The scale on the 10-yr treasury yield graph is now zero-based.
3. The reference bands have been muted and I've started them at the 2nd range, not at the bottom.
4. The line for each measure is a different coloring, triggering you to notice they are distinct.
5. Finally, I added a dual-axis line chart that shows the relationship between the measures.

Before you judge my political views, let me first say that I think ALL politicians are frauds and that few of them represent anyone except the special interest groups that support their campaigns.

I received the following message from Congressman Tom Price on Monday (10/5/09): "Last week we received more bad news in the job market. 263,000 jobs were lost during the month of September and the unemployment rate is now at 9.8%. The verdict is in and the economic policies of President Obama and Democrats in Congress have become a massive failure."

I understand Congressman Price's position, but it bothers me that he has taken the lead of talk show hosts to use scare tactics to spread his message. I would, for once, like to hear his opinion. His entire rant can be found here.

In addition, my friend Dan Murray posted a link to a Wall Street Journal article on his Facebook page that essentially said the "Cash For Clunkers" program failed.

I wanted to see if I could draw any sort of correlation, or at least possibly provide the specific details.

Here is my visualization:

First, to Congressman Price's accusations. The rise in unemployment started around January 2007. Obviously President Obama was not yet in office. So what happened that could have sparked the sudden rise? This is precisely when President Bush announced the surge in troops for the Iraq War during his State of the Union address. I can't say that was the exact cause, but I do find the timing neatly coincidental.

Now, onto the WSJ's claims that Cash for Clunkers failed to help the economy. Yes, there was a huge decline in new car sales in September, but this is not unprecedented if you look at historical sales.

Back in October 2001, the "0% interest" programs were introduced by the Big 3. This program was a HUGE boost to sales (35% over prior month), but it resulted in a decline of 18% in November and 25% over the following two months.

The Big 3 introduced the "Employee Pricing" programs in July 2005. This program was another HUGE "success" (sales increased 15% over prior month and 22% over May), but it resulted in a decline of 18% in August, 20% through September, and 28% through October.

The Cash For Clunkers program (August 2009), resulted in a 4.4M units increase in sales over June or 45%. That increase has never been approached in the last 10 years. The results, however, was a decreased in sales in September of 4.9M units or 35%. If this program follows the behavior of the previous two, we should see a decrease of an additional ~7% over the next 1-2 months at which time sales should stabilize.