Posted on 05/15/2011 6:47:20 PM PDT by Nachum
John Williams, over at Shadow Stats, compiles economic data for inflation and unemployment the way it used to be calculated pre-1990. Based on that data, the CPI inflation rate is over 10%, and the unemployment rate is over 15% (see charts). The Misery Index is the sum of the current inflation rate and the unemployment rate. If it were to be calculated using the older methods, the Index would now be over 25, a record high. It surpasses the old index high of 21.98, which occurred in June 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president. Most believe the height of the Index along with the Iranian hostage crisis is what caused Carter to lose his re-election bid.
(Excerpt) Read more at rightwire.net ...
I remember Carter made a big deal about the “Misery Index” being way to high under Ford. When the election of 1980 came around it was higher.
Sometimes I think the whole point of the 0bama presidency is to make Cartuh look good by comparison.
That would be better than no available capital at all...
Barefoot. On icy days we had to wrap our feet in barbed wire so we wouldn’t slip...
It’s high time we started our own ‘had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow with no shoes’ anecdotes :)
You could WALK?
Unless we get a candidate who is just too doggone polite to point out the ugly truty. Like the last election.
“Truty”?? Did you mean “truth”?
Why, yes I did. Thanks for pointing that out.
Who wants to bet the major newspaper play down this story - if they cover it at all...
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You’re right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who’d have thought thirty year ago we’d all be sittin’ here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o’ tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o’ cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an’ all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, “Money doesn’t buy you happiness, son”.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, ‘e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, ‘e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin’. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, ‘alf the floor was missing, and we were all ‘uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t’ corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin’ in a corridor! Would ha’ been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say ‘house’ it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our ‘ole in the ground; we ‘ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t’ shoebox in t’ middle o’ road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t’ mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi’ his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o’clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of ‘ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to ‘ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o’clock at night and lick road clean wit’ tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit’ bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won’t believe you.
ALL:
They won’t!
More than 60% of the American workforce pays no federal income tax. It will be difficult to get them to vote for someone who is concerned about those who do.
I think they may vote.But not for him.
This is encouraging.
Even Laura Ingram learned a couple things/
There are dozens of posts just like your suggesting that the GOP should hammer this and similar points home. The problem is, the GOP is either too stupid to think of this, or too gutless.
“It surpasses the old index high of 21.98, which occurred in June 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president.”
Now, if only we could find another Ronald Reagan...
His strongest supporters have little incentive to vote; his supporters who were just voting for a Dem will probably vote Repub. A good number of Dems must have voted for Brown in MA and Christie in NJ.
“Unless we get a candidate who is just too doggone polite to point out the ugly truth.”
I understand the concern, but it probably won’t matter now. In 2008 Obama was an “unknown”; now he is a very widely known failure. Like Obama in 2008, his opponent can be completely vague and non-committal, and go on to win.
Good point. “Hope and Change, Part II”?
lol!
I hope no last-minute smoke & mirrors save this clown; unfortunately bringing 3 years and 9 months of misery, with one good week before the election, might get him back in.
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