First we have a couple of samples from a Businessweek feature on the ease of using charts and data to say whatever you want.
Just because some numbers line up doesn’t make it meaningful. Yet to look at it, say skimming this page and only looking at the charts, you might wonder why Facebook has to be such a bully. Who knows what drives the yield on government bonds in the first place? Oil, debt, Facebook, it’s usually one of the three.
In the case of the mountain though, perhaps it would be best to leave this one alone.
That, of course, leaves us with the unfunny. Lines that moved together until one slipped and the other failed to notice…
Sadly, this last chart tells us something. Namely, that the economy doesn’t really care about 6.6 million of us no longer having jobs.
Have a great weekend!
[Final chart via The Atlantic‘s Most Important Graphs of 2011]