Year in graphics 2023

As 2023 winds to a close, this post will highlight some graphics about the world we left behind during the year. The New York Times, Bloomberg, FT, The Economist, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Visual Capitalist, and World Bank have excellent graphics sections that cover the year in visuals and graphics. 

1. Arguably, the biggest event of the year should be the terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel and the latter’s genocidal bombings of Gaza Strip. The fatalities from the events already make it the deadliest in the region's bloody history, with the vast majority of victims being Palestinians. The global indifference, including within the Arab world, to a genocide of this scale is stunning.

2. On the other big conflict going on in Ukraine, the global opinion has expectedly got more fragmented as the war rages on. After the whole-hearted initial support to Ukraine, many countries outside of Europe no longer see the war as a major threat or concern to them and have positioned themselves as neutral bystanders.

3. Anther big story of the year was the coming of age of large language models in particular and artificial intelligence in general. Sample this

One study found that workers equipped with ChatGPT became 37 percent faster at basic writing and research tasks. The A.I. revolution showed no sign of slowing, either. The first version of GPT, developed in 2018, had 117 million parameters; 2020’s GPT-3 had 175 billion. GPT-4, released this year, has a trillion, according to a report by Semafor.

4. On the climate change side, in keeping with the trend of increasing temperatures and climate volatility, 2023 was the hottest year on record.

1. 

5. It was another year where economists got all forecasts wrong. The Times has an excellent graphic which show how they got it so badly wrong.

6. It’s also in line with how even central banks have got inflation forecasts so badly wrong in recent years (though the Fed did a good job with its 2023 predictions). 

This is a good inflation tracker in the FT.

7. On equity markets, Japan was the standout while China was the laggard.

8. The S&P 500 is up 23% this year, yet 71% of stocks are underperforming the index, underlining the vastly disproportionate reliance on a few technology stocks.

9. Amidst all the turmoil and uncertainties, the year was great for the financial markets.

10. In 2023, inflation started to rapidly trend downwards and is now well within the acceptable range.

11. Accordingly, the US interest rates may have peaked.

12. This represents the dot-plot forward guidance of US FOMC members in their last meeting on December 13, 2023.

13. And bond yields are trending downwards, with 10 year bond yields dropping across the developed countries.

14. Finally, some long-view graphics from Goldman Sachs. If we take the long-view, the global geo-political risk index is not as elevated as is being made out. In fact, even if a take a 20 year perspective, it’s far lower than the peaks.

15. Japanese 10 year bond yields have started to inch up definitively for the first time since perhaps 2006!

16. Amidst all talk of high interest rates, US Treasuries remain below their historical average and look set to decline further in 2024.

17. Finally, the Goldman Sachs folks have an excellent primer on AI.