2012: The Year in Graphs
Posted by The Wonkblog Team on December 27, 2012 at 11:12 am
As 2012 draws to a close, Wonkblog asked our favorite professional wonks — economists, political scientist, politicians and more — to see what graphs and charts they felt did the best job explaining the past year. Here are their nominees.
Sheila Bair — former chairperson, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC)
“There has been much discussion about income inequality, but not enough focus on its corollary: debt inequality. As real wages for the masses decline, they try to sustain consumption through borrowing from the wealthy. This economic model is, of course, unsustainable, and eventually collapses, as we discovered in 1929 and again in 2007. Unfortunately, our tepid recovery continues to rely primarily on asset inflation and cheap credit to support economic growth, even as real income for most people erodes, likely setting us up for another bust down the road.”