Why 3d Graphs are usually misleading

Just because you can do it in Excel doesn't mean it's the right way to do it. Below, the author has made a graph of the number of Starbucks over time. The height of the cylindrical columns is increasing, but so is the width, making it seem (visually) as if the increase has been all the more gruesome.

Will and Krugman

Was fun to watch George Will & Paul Krugman bristle while trying not to interrupt the other on ABC this morning. Will was looking down and tapping his fingers nervously at Krugman, then Krugman looked like he was about to rip of his own beard while Will decried the possibility that the Chinese would own our debt. PK's argument was that that's not how they were going to pay for it. The bigger question is, if the Chinese buy US bonds to finance health care, for whom is that worse in the long run? If inflation shoots up and the dollar crashes (like GW himself has predicted) this would clearly ruin the Chinese!