The Real Misery Index

The inestimable Barry Ritholtz notes that the Hedonically-Adjusted, Well-Spun, Nominal Misery Index, the sum of unemployment and inflation, is really 6 pounds of fertilizer in a 5 pound bag, and that if we used the same standards, because both numbers have been massaged into irrelevancy, and that if you used the metrics in place in 1980 or so, we would be at about the same number:







That's right, we would be looking at 12% inflation and 9% unemployment under some measures.