Six-Chart Sunday – Unbalanced
6 Infographics + 1 Video (Buzzer Beaters)
The world of 2025 is unbalanced. The economic, geopolitical and cultural tensions animating so much of our political and policy conversations these days are largely the result of these imbalances. Most are decades in the making... All preceded the second Trump administration which began 10 weeks ago... But many help explain President Trump's reelection & why incumbent parties around the world lost ground in 2024. New reports this week confirmed these imbalances persist and grow.
Hyper-Partisanship. The gap between approval of U.S. presidents by their own party vs approval by members of the other party has been growing for decades. New Gallup data this week make clear this trend persists, with 91% of Republicans approving Trump's job performance vs 4% of Democrats.
Economic Inequality. One of the strongest drivers of global populism is the perception that the system is rigged in favor of the rich / establishment / elite. New Federal Reserve data out this week shows that wealth, income & spending inequality gaps persist & are growing.
Soaring Debt. New Congressional Budget Office projections out this week find “debt held by the public reaches 107% of GDP in 2029, exceeding the historical peak reached just after World War II, and its growth continues through 2055. Deficits average 6.3% of GDP over the 30-year period, which is 2.5% points more than they averaged over the past 50 years.” CBO’s projections are based on current law (i.e. assuming TCJA tax cuts are not extended), and Axios’ smart chart shows it may go higher if they are.
China's Extreme Trade Surpluses. China is attempting to export its way to economic growth in the face of anemic domestic demand (due to their housing crisis). The Trump Administration's tariff agenda in part responds to China's trade-distortive policies which led China to a record $992 billion global trade surplus in 2024, per Bloomberg, with imbalances with every region.
American De-Industrialization. "In 1975, the US shipbuilding industry was ranked number one in terms of global capacity, with more than 70 commercial ships on order for production domestically. Nearly 50 years later, the US now produces less than 1% of the world’s commercial vessels, falling to 19th place globally." CSIS analysts offer this extraordinary chart & report on our current anemic capacities.
Schools’ Administrators-to-Students-&-Teachers Ratio. Administrative staff has grown 11 times faster than students or teachers in U.S. public schools this century (chart). It’s part of a longer trend catalogued by AEI’s Mark Perry: “Despite the significant increase between 1970 and 2017 in the number of public school teachers (57%) and non-teaching staff (151%) relative to the 10.4% increase in students, the significant 30% decrease in the pupil-to-teacher ratio in public schools and the significant 154% increase in inflation-adjusted spending per pupil attending public schools over that period, there was basically no change in academic achievement.”
UPCOMING live discussion (4/4 at 2pm ET) with CHUCK TODD, register HERE
VIDEO
I love March Madness, especially when tight games end with last second heroics, aka buzzer beaters. Fox Sports reports that “46 buzzer-beaters have taken place in the men's NCAA Tournament dating back to 1944. That's about 0.58 buzzer-beaters per Tournament.” (Note Fox defines them very narrowly as “the buzzer goes off as the ball is in the air or going through the hoop, and the opposing team does not have another possession,” with many more games won on shots in the last few seconds).
Thank you for attempting to make sense of the data in your second chart. It didn’t make sense to me.
Your first chart is very important. People of good will see very different things going on. Are we all getting different information? There has been significant explanation from Doge Thursday and Friday. Also Saturday night Susie Wiles was interviewed. Does anyone who doesn’t watch Fox know anything about it?
I didn’t really understand the third chart. Is debt held by the public just government debt?
Your 5th chart is a big danger. China is undercutting everyone on ship building and refurbishing. The Jones act requires Us ships and crews go between US ports. We don’t build them anymore so they are older than non US ships. We refurbish them by sending them to China. I’ll bet they use that to spy on us. I wonder if they put explosives in them as part of their offensive plans.
Depressing.