Indexing Misery
Any Hee-Haw fans? Remember this?
"gloom, despair, and agony on me"
Well......
Did you know there exists something called "The Misery Index"?
No, it's not that smiley face 1-10 rating scale that they show you at the E.R.
It's this.......
The misery index is an economic indicator found by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. It is assumed that both a higher rate of unemployment and a worsening of inflation create economic and social costs for a country.
So, high employment + little inflation = teensy-weensy misery.
(see, I could have just said "low" there, but I wanted this MattChat post to come off as highly economic)
And, high unemployment + high inflation = bad, bad misery
(SPECIAL NOTE: high unemployment + high inflation + Monday = off the charts misery)
So how did I hear about the Misery Index?
I came across an article on NPR:
Thought-provoking words:
And yet no matter what the plunging misery index may suggest, a lot of people don't feel happiness rising. In fact in February, Conference Board's consumer confidence index showed that Americans had a darkening view of the coming six months. Why so glum?
Misery.
HA.
We Americans have no inkling of what misery is. We are too spoiled to be able to fathom it.
Out for now......
Matt
