COMMENTARY
This is a great series of charts ... but it starts with a bad idea. You say 'We asked economists, economic policymakers and investors for their favorite charts of 2011. Here’s what they gave us'. With that as a starting point you you got what you got, and it is all pretty depressing.

I like to think of the progress science and technology has made in the 50 years since I graduated college. Maybe technology is a million times more effective than when I completed my education ... and we can see little glimmerings of what technology can do. The problem is that most of the improved productivity has been commandeered by the investor class and rather little left for the common person.

Adam Smith got a lot right for his time ... but the way the modern capitalist market economy works is unsatisfactory. In my view the purpose of economic activity is to satisfy needs. Society needs to have 'needs' satisfied, and many needs are not 'profitable' so the prevailing capitalist market economy ignores these needs. I argue for a value market economy where the goal is valueadd as well as profit.

The good news is that others are heading in the same direction, and deliver a very much more productive global society than what we now have ... especially by using the power of modern technology to do things that are really worth doing.
Peter Burgess

The series of charts may be seen here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/economists-explain-2011-in-charts/2011/12/21/gIQAT3lg9O_gallery.html#photo=1