This is a chart I don't like to see. We've got a line graph comparing the Great Depression and the current recession. It looks like ours is going a little bit worse. This is the kind of chart that terrifies me and makes me think of hobo jungles and how seriously unprepared I am for the collapsed civilization lifestyle. How will we take care of the cats, for instance? And I really can't go without a shower for more than a few days. And my chronic dehydration requires a lot of water every day. Stuff like this. So though this chart could be yacht production over time or personal servant employment over time, it doesn't matter. When I see those comparison lines I start to hyperventilate a little. Because for a little while there we had these graphs with a line for our current situation and then a line for the 1991 recession and the 1981 recession and that was kind of interesting but not particularly scary because we've had recessions like that plenty of times. Here's an example: 

 

 

What I'm trying to say in the middle of all this cute talk about apocalypse is that these graphs have power on their own - regardless of what they depict. So the graph I used to start this post is global production. Now I guess common sense tells me that global production is a good indicator of economic health, but I really have no idea what it means because I'm not an economist and am totally incapable of interpreting the value of economic data. It could be an entirely useless indicator. But when I go to Paul Krugman's blog and instead of us in the middle of similar events  it's just us and the Great Depression, well, that makes an impression. It's a particular way of framing economic knowledge that is shorthand for "the only relevant information here is that we are out of the league of your everyday recession and have now entered the apples on the street zone." Here are a couple more examples:

 

I don't have the education to understand whether the economic indicators these charts depict are significant. all I know is that according to the charts, our current economic collapse is going a little better than the Great Depression - but the Great Depression is the only thing that it's useful to compare our current situation to. The econobloggers (DeLong, Krugman, Roubini, the calculated risk folks, the curious capitalists, etc.) know that laypeople make up the majority of their readers and even if we don't fully understand the significance of the indicator, the chart offers a simple and terrifying take-home message. I'm not trying to argue that the Krugmans etc. are trying to scare us (who knows, maybe they are), but the subtle shift in chart design is its own message. Stripped of their context and taken at face value, the bracketed reality that the charts present has emotional and political implications. The charts can prompt you to start worrying about your job, or start thinking about what kind of political action is necessary when the Great Depression seems to loom so close. But I suppose that you are not me and in the end it's up to the reader to decide what feelings she wants to have in response to these charts and the political implications that she takes home from the charts. Just remember, the charts aren't value neutral - they make a worldview. And as for me, I'll stock up on cat food.

 

UPDATE: an illustration of the dynamic at work here.