Between 2009 and 2021, Alibaba Singles Day sales and the US national debt both grew with the kind of determination that suggests neither Chinese consumers nor the US Treasury have discovered the concept of restraint. The correlation of 0.9632 across thirteen years implies a transatlantic fiscal relationship that economists have somehow overlooked: for every billion China spends on Singles Day, America borrows a proportional amount. This is not how sovereign debt works, but the chart makes it look like it is, which is the entire problem with correlations.
Singles Day sales grew from roughly $7 million in 2009 to $85 billion by 2021, driven by Alibaba's platform economics and Chinese consumer spending growth. US national debt grew from $12 trillion to $29 trillion, driven by stimulus spending, tax cuts, and entitlement growth. Both are exponential-adjacent growth curves across 13 years, one measuring private commerce and the other public debt, with no shared mechanism.
Two exponentially growing numbers across 13 years will produce a strong correlation regardless of domain. The shopping holiday and the national debt share a growth shape, not a fiscal relationship.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “US national debt” vs “Alibaba Singles Day sales” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
