The Economy--and its Future--in Four Charts

Substituting debt for earnings while enriching the rich will bear bitter fruit.

Climbing above the craziness of the Normalized Now news flow to view the economy from a quiet, windswept peak helps clear the mind of clutter. The entire economy--and its future--can be distilled down to four charts that tell the underlying story of the U.S. economy over the past 55 years.

Many of the thousands of charts floating around illuminate some a…