Agree, it's not a very good article but if you're a regular Economist reader you know that they frequently put out charts like this exactly to highlight interesting but potentially misleading correlations.<p>Click on the "Daily Chart" link in the header to see more examples.
The Economist fails at Stats. Quite embarassing, really. You can draw a link between any 2 increasing variables if you'd like, or between an increasing one and a decreasing one.