Brushfire of Freedom
Ram Rants
Let’s take a trip down memory lane to the fabulous 1970’s. It was all about bell bottoms, free love, and tie die. The women’s movement was big, and we were all concerned that the next ice age was coming because of the pollution of man. Yes, the dreaded global cooling was going to kill us all. Ah, those were the days.
No, this is not about climate change. We could go there, but what’s the point? The UN has lifted it’s deadline for saving the planet, “scientists” are now admitting that they “fudged” the numbers, and Copenhagen is just a place where Nancy goes to spend your money.
This is another look at the Misery Index, but before we look at our current levels of misery, it would be good to take a look back at some preceding peaks of pain. The ’70’s were a time when the Misery Index was a nightly feature because it was so darn high. For those of you not familiar, the index is a combination of unemployment and inflation. The concept is pretty simple; the more people out of work combined with a higher cost of living means there are more miserable people, and thus more general misery.
The index goes back before the ’70’s, but it became a fixture of The Nightly News during the Carter administration. You remember Jimmy, right? Double digit interest rates, exploding gas prices and gas lines, and of course the whole Iranian Hostage crisis. Back in Jimmy’s day, the Misery Index climbed as high as 21.98, and averaged 16.26 during his four year term. Those incredibly high levels were do in part to double digit inflation, where prices were climbing at a rate of about 14%. A bit of quick math (longer for those of you who went to Berkley) would show you that unemployment was around 7%. The index climbed 7 points during the Carter administration.
For reference, during the administration of George W. Bush, the average index was 8.10, with a peak of 11.47 that occurred after the Dem Congress took over in 2007. Overall, the index declined 0.64 points during the Bush administration. So, fairly stable, for the most part. These lower levels would be attributed to the low unemployment rates (running around 4-5%) and the fairly steady economic growth, reflected in the stable inflation rate around 3-4% during his eight year term. So, without too much effort, based on this index, you can see that we were far less miserable under Bush than we were under Carter. Those of you who remember both administrations can attest to the fact that this seems to be fairly accurate. Those of you who are too young to remember Carter, trust us, it was not a happy time.
So, now that we have a couple of reference points, let’s take a look at the first year of the Obama administration.
When Obama took office in January of 2009, the index sat at 7.63, a combination of 7.6% unemployment and 0.03% inflation for that month. His first full month in office, the index moved up to 8.34, with unemployment climbing to 8.1% and inflation up to 0.24%. But then, the index started to drop. Could it be that the promise of Obama kicked in around March and things were getting better?
Eh, not so much. You see, unemployment continued to climb, as it has done throughout Obama’s first year, despite all the job creation, saving, stimulus, and other shenanigans of Harry, Barry, and Nancy. The reason the index dropped? Well, the economy was contracting, also known as a “recession”. You see, throughout the Bush administration, the media tried to convince us that we were in a recession. But, with consistent economic growth month to month, we were actually in a growth period. The recession does not really materialize until 2009, and inflation dropped to -0.38% in March of that year. This, combined with a climbing unemployment rate resulted in a decline in the Misery Index to 8.12. In fact, for the next several months of Obama’s rule, the index hovered right around 8.
Until October. In October, we saw a resurgence in some portions of the economy (mostly government) and inflation began to reverse. Inflation in October rose to -0.18, combined with an unemployment rate of 10.2% in that month, resulting in an index of 10.02. So, a growing economy is actually making us more miserable. Why? A lot of people are still unemployed, with more people losing their jobs every week. But the economy, as it tends to do all of the time, is in a cycle moving upward, meaning prices are beginning to climb.
So, where are we now? With unemployment at 10% in December, and inflation at 2.72% for the same month, we have a Misery Index of 12.72. That’s higher than at any time during the Bush administration, including after the Liberal take over of Congress in 2007. In fact, inflation has shifted almost 3% in the past two months, creating a rather alarming spike in the index. You see, once the inflation rate shifted to the positive side of the scale, it no longer offset the climbing unemployment rate. The current trend would put us at Carter levels of misery by the end of 2010. In other words, if Obama continues with his current plan, and the economy continues to shed jobs and raise prices as it has for the past couple of months, you will be as miserable as your parents.
Ok, that’s a bit of a leap. Assuming a trend will continue on a straight line based on a short two-month historical view is really bad science. But hey, it worked for the global warming guys.
The reality is that the current Obama policies are doing nothing to stimulate the economy and create new employment opportunities for Americans. His efforts at the beginning of 2009 produced results that surprised even him, in that they failed to stop the economy from bleeding jobs. If we continue down this path, what little spark we’ve seen from the economy will be snuffed out, and we will return to the good ol‘ days of Jimmy Carter. The misery of our past will become our newest, latest misery.
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