With varying debts across the countries after global recession, people have been questioning its implications. To answer this question, blogger Simon Kuestenmacher created the Snowball of Debt. The visualisation measures the amount of debt for a country divided by its population, indicating the amount every individual owes to his country’s national debt.
From the figure, we can see that Simon has cleverly combined colours and visual aids to illustrate varying data. The maps of the countries have been carefully placed around the centre based on the amount its individuals owe to the country. Since, the people of Japan owe the highest debt, this country has been placed in the centre. Similarly, with the lowest debt owed by its people, Liberia occupies a position in the far end of the circle.
The countries have been given different colours based on public debt as a percentage of GDP. This also helps to categorize each country based on their economy and an individual’s capacity of payback. The trend in the chart is pretty clear: Wealthier nations have higher debts with its people owning more to their country. the countries with lowest debt owned per person are relatively poor. The reason for this could be the lack of opportunity for these nations to take national debt due to the unwillingness of investors to offer them loans.
A lot of conclusions can be drawn and a lot of information can be retrieved from this figure. The user has aptly applied the principles of aesthetics to his idiom by keeping the visualisation attractive and equally informative.
Reference: http://www.freshplaza.us/article/7756/The-snowball-of-debt.