Remember the Misery Index? Misery Index is just unemployment rate + inflation rate. Ronald Reagan campaigned on it when it hit an “outrageous 21%” in 1979. Since then the govt has just been making ever more elaborate lies about what the numbers are. See this good article –
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-15/our-phantom-economy
, and the first comment:
real unemployment rate is between 20% and 40%
Every statistic about the US economy is now a lie as David Stockman looks at 5.5% unemployment:
At the present time, there are 210 million adult Americans between the ages of 16 and 68—to take a plausible measure of the potential work force. That amounts to 420 billion potential labor hours, if we accept the convention that all adults are at least theoretically capable of holding a full-time job (2,000 hours/year) and pulling their share of society’s need for production and work effort.
By contrast, during 2014 only 240 billion hours were actually supplied to the US economy, according to the BLS estimates. Technically, therefore, there were 180 billion unemployed labor hours, meaning that the real unemployment rate was 42.9%, not 5.5%!
Yes, we have to allow for non-working wives, students, the disabled, early retirees and coupon clippers. We also have drifters, grifters, welfare cheats, bums and people between jobs, enrolled in training programs, on sabbaticals and much else.
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-warren-buffett-economy-why-its…
Inflation in the land of the free is not so phantom though – Chapwood Index shows real inflation in US. In 2014, it was 9.7% – 1212% of official US inflation (0.8%)
The Chapwood Index shows the actual price inflation for the 500 items people buy most often. It has been 9-10% every year in Dallas for the past 4 years. So something less than 43% unemployment and 10% inflation and the misery index is pushing 50%!
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