What the Bailout is Really Costing Us

Posted by: Zach Frechette
on June 18, 2009 at 7:01 pm

To add some perspective to the current bank bailout situation, this infographic shows how our one-time crisis expenditures of the past year compare to large, one-time expenditures of the past (like the moon landing, or the Louisianna Purchase). Yikes. And yes, this is adjusted for inflation.

Via BoingBoing.

Filed under: Blog : GOOD Blog
Categories: Design , Politics

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DISCUSSION: 3 Comments

- Posted by: Will Etling
- on June 18, 2009 at 7:33 pm
At least “Term Securities Lending Facility” stirs up a sense of wonder and imminent achievement. “Race to the Moon” is so 1960.
- Posted by: Tim
- on June 18, 2009 at 11:09 pm
While I agree that this is a huge eye-opener, the label that says “Occurred over 206 years” is a little mis-leading. It makes it sound almost as if *every* expenditure during that time period is included (where’s WWII, for instance?)….whereas it’s really just a few hand-picked expenditures that happen to have taken placed between now and 206 years ago.There’s really no added value for including that label, as it doesn’t offer anything else except an opportunity to mislead the viewer.
- Posted by: rwolcheski
- on June 19, 2009 at 10:45 am
Agreed with Tim that the “Occurred over 206 years” is a very misleading label. The selected data are more or less “Randomly selected expenditures that occurred over the last 206 years.” Reminds me of one of my favorite books by Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics.