charts and graphs that should finally make it clear

[jfb]

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) issued a study on who Bush's dividend tax cut will benefit. If you don't want to read the nine-page PDF file, this chart (seen on Atrios) pretty much sums it up.

Of course, as noted in January, 19% of Americans believe they are among the richest 1%, so this is good news for them.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, the wonderful two-bar bar chart. You could use the exact same chart with relabeled axes to compare the number of popular votes obtained by Bush and Gore in the 2000 election.

Not that his point isn't valid, but charts like these are just silly.

--Doug

[chrismwage.livejournal.com]

They do seem rather silly -- or superfluous, really.

Here are two numbers: 10,000 and 1.43. Here's a graph of them side by side in case you're too STUPID to visualize the difference.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Visualizations are a useful tool. As a rule, we're better with pictures than with numbers.

And to use that chart for the 2000 election, you'd have to resort to the obvious chicanery of moving zero.

But my point isn't that the chart proves anything. It's that it's funny.

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I'm more horrified than amused. But that's typical of me.

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

Is this a Doug we know, or just a random Doug?

[artname.livejournal.com]

Woo hoo! $11.5k!

Thank heavens that I'm in the 18% of Americans who believe that of the 19% of Americans who think they're in the top 1% of Americans, I'm right!