Posted on 06/21/2011 10:16:33 PM PDT by AJFavish
The “misery index” is calculated by adding together the unemployment rate and the annual inflation rate. During Jimmy Carter’s presidency (1977-1981), the “misery index” hit a high of 21.98 in late 1980. See http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/1217_misery_index_nessen.aspx. The misery index was often mentioned at that time and helped Ronald Reagan defeat Carter in 1980.
When today’s inflation is measured using the same method as was was used in 1980, the rate is about 11%. See http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts. When today’s unemployment is measured using the same method as was used in 1980, the rate is about 22%. See http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts. Therefore, when measured using the same method as was used in 1980, today’s “misery index” is 33%, easily surpassing Jimmy Carter’s 22%.
I’ve been pretty miserable since Nov. 2008.
I do not know if you are wrong. I shall tell you this. My ‘personal’ “misery index” is much more than 33% just seeing an image of Obama. If I fail to mute the TV and chance to hear his voice my personal “misery index” increases exponentially.
Other factors must be considered in presidential election projections:
The Misery Index may be offset by voters by the Stupidity Index, the Free Entitlements Index and the I’m Not Racist Index.
You are in the right ballpark. I posted this last week which has a comparison of the index to today and the past. There are other economic factors though that you cannot compare Carter to Obama. The debt is one.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2736294/posts
Personally, I don’t remember so many people in genuine despair in the 70’s as they are today. I am fairly gloomy anymore just thinking about it.
You’re spot-on.
My retirement isn't much fun now and I'm likely to die before Obama's mess is cleaned up.
Those miserable Carter years were a cakewalk compared to the horse**** we’re having to endure under the Kenyan regime.
Despite the peanut brain, my life in the 70s 80s were my best years.
While I have now been out of the US since 2004, the general malaise and problems that I see online is worse then I could ever imagine.
Carter was just a short term joke, and RR brought us out of the dark.
With Obozo, just the sight or sound of him makes me want to puke, and I feel that the USA, now USSA, is in the throws of death.
Just for comparison we need the DJIA measured against the same companies as in ‘76-’80.
I was a teen in the 70’s and I remember my parents being pretty miserable and working their butts off to get Reagan nominated and elected.
Now I have teens and I know exactly how my folks felt. Like their future is being sucked away.
Damn! Pelosi is decomposing before our eyes like a rotting corpse. (Yes, Obama, this time it is corpse.)
Bring back the Misery Index and report on it EVERY week, as the Labor Dept. does for the unemployed numbers. Make certain it gets into your local papers by writing letters and gets aired on talk shows by calling and reporting the latest number on the Misery Index. Our mission should be that every voter will know what that index number is on election day.
Dude, I lived through those days. In NYC, the summer of Son of Sam, etc. It was bad, it was really bad. I tell my kid, you are going to see movies about NY in the 1970s, you are going to think they are exaggerated, they are not, it was really that bad.
But now, right now, is worse, a lot worse.
Back in Carter’s day we had runaway inflation, but we had jobs, there was activity.
Now we are in the doldrums.
Barack Obama:HE MADE IT WORSE
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