Tesla vehicles delivered

Here we have two graphs that move together like dance partners who have never met, one tracking the number of electric vehicles delivered by a company named after a scientist, the other tracking the number of Americans who have decided that mathematics works backwards. Between 2015 and 2023, as Tesla owners collected their cars, lottery players collected their tickets, both groups apparently responding to some invisible conductor waving a baton at the American economy. The universe is not mocking us, but it is certainly taking notes.

The real explanation, if one exists, probably lives in plain sight: both behaviours track upward with general economic confidence and disposable income. As American wages grew (unevenly, but grew), as unemployment fell and rose and fell again, as unemployment fell from around 5 percent in 2015 to 3.5 percent by 2023, people had more money in their pockets. Some of them spent it on lottery tickets as a harmless flutter against fate, while others spent it on Teslas as a tangible bet on the future. Both are purchases made by people who believe next month will be slightly better than this month, which is perhaps the most American economic indicator of all. Population growth might have added another layer—more people means more tickets, more customers, more of everything.

This correlation teaches us something unhelpful but true: that humans will find meaning in any two lines that move upward together, which is either a feature of our pattern-recognition abilities or a serious design flaw. Both Tesla deliveries and lottery ticket sales are economic whispers that someone, somewhere, believes in a better tomorrow. Whether they are right is a question neither graph can answer, which is perhaps why we keep buying tickets and cars anyway.