WEBVTT - What's the misery index? 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.880 Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:12.280 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.479 Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. The W 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:22.640 stands for Wayne Dr Wayne Coyne. It gets you every time. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.600 I know, it's funny to be forty five years old 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.240 and named after Wayne Coyne because he's like forty eight. Right, No, 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:32.600 he's in the fifties too, But it would be weird. 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:34.960 I would have been named after a very uh like 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:39.360 kindergarten age Wayne coin A. Right. You know, maybe your 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.440 parents were friends with his parents and they really thought 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:43.720 a lot about him. Play he's a real achiever, right 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:48.840 that Wayne Coyn going places? Okay, Uh, that's a weird 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:51.080 side track. It was already out of the gate. Man. 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:54.480 How are you feeling. I'm good. I got a lot 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.960 on your plate, got a lot going on. Oh you 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:02.880 know what today is? What? Dude? Today is the day 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:06.760 that I leave this office and I go to a 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.280 shop in Edmond Park and pick up four brand new 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.600 last chance garage hats. Oh wow, it's a big day, 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.000 very big day. So I have a couple of people 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.320 would like to thank It's a bigger deal than it 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:21.600 should be for a grown man in a hat. But 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:26.920 we all understand, first of all, Katie, my custom patchmaker, 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:29.640 this is really where it all came together. The patches 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.319 isn't right, the hat's not right. Katie killed it. It 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.160 looks identical and you can find her work at tulip 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.400 cake dot com c U L I P. Cake. And 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.000 I said, you know people might ask you to make 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.720 you to make them last chance garage patches. Did you 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:49.720 have her destroy the mold? And I said, I don't 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.560 you know. It's on you. It's up to you legally. 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.960 I'm just saying you might get requests. You should have 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.320 been like Ivan the Terrible who blinded his architect, except 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:02.520 that they built his pal Now, I don't care people. 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.320 I'd love to see these things around and la mood 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.600 big hats l A m o O d uh for 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.560 big heads because part of the problem was finding uh 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.120 big and tall hat. Yeah, man, like, uh the problem 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:18.680 I have with hats these days. I don't look like 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.359 I have a huge head, but they just fit so 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.400 snugly and they don't go far down enough on my head. 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:27.480 So I finally looked up oversized hats and found La 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.720 mood hats and dude, they're exactly like the old hat 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.799 except it doesn't stink. Oh yeah, like these are great. 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:37.680 I got four brands, an improvement for sure. So are 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:41.080 you gonna put one in like the seed Vault in Norway? Uh? 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:43.520 Probably one there. Uh, there will be one in the 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:49.520 nuclear suitcase, and um, I'll wear the other two at 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.639 the same time at the same that's right. Anyway, I'm 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:55.840 super excited. So it's pretty cool. Thank you to Katie 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.400 and the mood Hats for allowing me to spend too 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.200 much money getting four hats remade. And speaking of while 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.520 we're thanking people, we we owe a long overdue thank 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:09.360 you to a guy who um made us a really 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.079 cool sign. Um. Oh you mean the sign this guy 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.080 made for us like seven years ago. Yeah. His name's 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.359 Matt Street. He's at fat Bison dot com. And it 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:19.960 made a really cool woodcarved sign. It was in our 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.040 TV show. It was like like the production company got 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.080 clearance rights for it and all this stuff, and we 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.440 love the sign, but we just forgot to ever thank Matt. 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:29.800 So Matt, thank you so much for the sign. We 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.320 love it. We have it hanging here in the studio. 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:34.600 It is a work of art and we appreciate it. 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:38.280 We're sorry for the oversight. Um. Is that all the 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.920 thank you? So let's talk about the misery index high. Yeah. 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.880 What a great transition, have you? Um? Had you heard 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.440 of it before you came across this article? Yeah? I 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.800 didn't know a lot about it though, And um, apparently 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:51.520 it's going a little bit out of fashion lately from 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.920 what I understand. Yeah, I think so, because well, well 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.240 let's get into it. Okay. It turns out economics as 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.880 a whole is in danger of going out of fashion. 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.840 I've read this really interesting article on a on, which 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.080 is maybe the greatest website on the planet a e 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.720 O N dot It might be dot CEO because British 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:12.880 about a lot of websites. I think I said about 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.280 a on a lot and and it just seems like 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.240 I'm talking about different ones. But there's this article by 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.919 Allen J. Levinovitz and it's called the New Astrology, and 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:27.520 he basically makes a parallel between economics and economists and 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:31.760 economic theory when you take economics and try to apply 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:36.640 it to future forecasting and the um the b CE 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:42.719 Chinese astrologers that basically directed the way that the economy 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.120 or the government was going to move based on the 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.280 movements of the stars, you might as well just do that. 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.880 He drew some pretty pretty interesting parallels between the two 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.320 that that economics in and of itself is not necessarily flawed, 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:58.839 but when it's used to forecast the future, then it 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.360 becomes inherently flaw odd. Yeah, this this article really kind 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:06.000 of kind yeah, a little bit. Yeah, to an extent. 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.640 I mean, the misery index is a legitimate economic tool, 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.800 and it's hit or miss in a lot of ways. Yeah. 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:14.400 I think one thing that hit home to me with 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:19.200 researching this is it just seems impossible to say that 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:23.880 there's one correct way of doing things right or that 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.479 is absolute, and you're like, you know, if you do 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.239 things this way, then there will be nothing but growth 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.720 in jobs and the GDP s and g m P 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.040 and uh, it just it just doesn't seem to work 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.040 that way, right. I think the problem is is that 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.160 if you listen to economists, they like to act like 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.479 they do have a handle on that kind of thing. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.840 But if you really look into economics, it's very politicized. 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.479 There's liberal economics and there's conservative economics, and the fact 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.320 that each one saying it's right kind of makes you 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.279 think that maybe no one is, you know, but the 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.159 misery index actually is is it started out from a 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.640 guy who was pretty good at walking the line between 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:08.039 conservative and liberal economics. UM, a guy uh what was 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:12.400 his name Okin? Yeah, Arthur Oakin, and he uh he 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:16.680 worked on Kennedy's staffs, Council of Economic Advisors, John F. 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.279 Kennedy that is, and he was, UM, I get the feeling, 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:24.360 one of the main influences and talking Kennedy, who initially 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.600 did not necessarily agree, but talking Kennedy into kind of 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:34.400 trying to enact both conservative and liberal economic policies simultaneously. 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.560 Right they were. The US was intercession when Kennedy took 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.719 office in nine one, UM, and they talked him into 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:47.039 not only increasing government spending like welfare programs. They raised 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:51.839 the UM, the minimum wade and UM some other stuff 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.320 like that, but they also cut taxes, which is, you 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.560 do one or the other. You cut taxes and hope 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.360 everything goes for the best because businesses will start investing 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.960 and spending, or you start you start investing in welfare 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.719 programs to help your ailing UM lower in middle classes. Right, 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.160 you don't do both, and Kennedy did both and it 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:15.360 was successful. Yeah. He well he at first he said, 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:18.880 I don't know about this. I don't know about this author. 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:22.360 Mike Kennedy sounds like a robot. My kinda did too. 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:28.040 Actually this is fine, but Arthur mr Okun Okon, I 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:33.120 think it's a weird name. Okay, you in uh. He 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:37.520 talked him into it and said trust me, and things 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.840 worked out in that case. Yeah. Well, and a lot 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:45.400 of guys, including Oaken's names, were made by this advice 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.840 that panned out like the US Center to Boom and 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.720 um Okin ended up as being the head of the 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:56.559 Council of Economic Advisors for Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson. Right, yeah, 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.240 and um one thing that economic economists economists love to 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.120 do is um I mean, he loved the forecasts and 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.200 all that stuff. But it's all about data, man. They 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.520 love to pour over data, like stuff that makes the 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:16.160 average person their mind bleed from boredom. They just find 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.320 it fascinating. That's what they do on Friday nights. Friday nights, 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.160 they pour over data, historical data, trying to find you know, 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.200 it's like the big puzzle and they're all trying to 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.120 solve it, so they pour over this data. Oakland did, 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.160 and um he said, you know what, I noticed something 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:38.120 here between when we started recording some some decent unemployment rates, 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:40.560 which I didn't know. I didn't know we started that. 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:43.120 It seems like it would have gone back before then. 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.680 But between sixty he said, you know what, I've noticed 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:51.679 that the gross national product rises three for every percentage 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:57.320 point that unemployment falls. With the caveat that unemployment has 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.680 to be between three and seven point five percent, which 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.400 is a pretty like, it's pretty bold statement to say 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.840 I've noticed this is a definite trend. It is, and 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.800 it came to be called Oakland's law because it was 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.280 verified other people poured over the data and like, this 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.000 guy is right, man, he just keeps coming up with hits, 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.640 doesn't he. Um. And the reason you would want to 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:23.320 know some arcane piece of data like that is that 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.560 if you know that that's the case, then you can say, well, 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.360 if we attack unemployment can get it down a couple 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.680 of points. We can you know, raise g d P 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.959 or g MP, you know, by three percent every time 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.400 we drop it. So when we need to bulk g 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:45.120 m P up, we just attack unemployment, right, easy, peasy, 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:50.360 uh yeah, and everyone said, thank you are Yeah. Things 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:51.840 worked out pretty well for a while, but then the 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.760 nineteen seventies came along, and UM, if you what, we're 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:57.800 gonna talk a little bit about stagflation now. But if 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.800 you haven't heard it, we have a two good episode 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:06.680 I think. So it's called what is Stagflation? From February 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:11.000 twenty four, two thousand. Um. Yeah, I think as far 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:15.000 as our economics episodes, it was not bad. I went 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.320 back and listened to a lot of it before I 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:21.920 got bored out. Yeah, the first three minutes were great. Um. 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.680 But yeah, I go back and listen to that. But um, 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.240 like he said, he served as chairman of the c 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.440 e A for Johnson, and then in seventy three, a 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:34.360 very unfortunate thing happened that kind of ended up rocking 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:39.880 the world and the United States in particular with our economy. Um, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:41.760 so we're gonna take a break and we're gonna talk 0:10:42.120 --> 0:11:07.760 when we get back about the Middle East. All right, 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:13.800 what happened in the old I am negative three? The 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.800 arab oil embargo happened. Right, So, at the time, until 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.240 very recently, the US was super dependent on foreign oil 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.000 like like other countries. We wouldn't even sit down at 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.840 the table with we were getting oil from right. Yeah, 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.839 we're doing better now, yeah, with our dependency, But back then, 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.920 very bad, very um. And it was it was a 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:38.880 source of anxiety for a lot of people, and that 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:43.000 anxiety actually panned out. So in Um nineteen seventy three, 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:48.040 Egypt and Syria and a few other Arab nations invaded 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:52.599 the Golden Heights and the Sinai Peninsula to attempt to 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.840 take back land Um from the State of Israel. The 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:01.840 US was found to be supply arms to Israel, So 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.360 as far as the Arab States were concerned, the US 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:06.959 had cast its lot on israel side, and they were 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:11.840 fairly peeved about that. So they literally shut off the 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.120 tap of oil flowing to the United States and other 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.640 countries that were found considered to be on the side 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.360 of Israel in this in this war Um huge deal. 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:27.400 It was an enormous deal. The the this foreign dependency 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:31.000 in the the precarious situation that it placed the United 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.959 States and came to pass, and the price of oil 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.520 rose thirty seven. The long lines at the gas station 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.760 were never seen before or since. Even after the financial 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.439 crisis of two thousand eight. UM, it was just insane. 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.480 There was gas rationing in the United States in nineteen 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.720 because the UM the oil embargo, and after a while 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.480 the taps were turned back on. But that shocked to 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:59.800 the system, screwed the economy up for a decade. Inflation 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.360 went out of control, and UM a very another unfortunately 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:10.000 happened along the same timeline. Unemployment started to creep up. 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.520 And these two things happening at the same time as devastating. Yeah, 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.760 and up to this point, so first of all, the 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.400 US had never had a shock to the system like that. 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.599 That was one thing. It wasn't a gradual thing. It 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.920 was like yeah. But the other thing is when you 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.960 have something that has never happened before, you can look 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.400 at it and say, wow, what what happened, and new 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.640 things that have never happened before come out of that. 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.320 And one of the things was inflation and unemployment going up, 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.320 because up to this point, economists just assumed that the 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:43.319 two were mutually exclusive. If you're if you're UM. If 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.400 inflation was up, prices were high, that meant that companies 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.400 could go out and hire more people, so unemployment of 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:51.520 course would be low. Yeah, it kind of made sense. 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.600 Well not not after the oil embargo. The shock to 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.240 the system led to, like you said, high unemployment rates 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.880 and high inflation, and uh, it was a miserable time. Yeah, 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.040 and that was called stagflation. It also led to skateboarding, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.520 as we all know. Oh yeah, because of the pools, right, yeah, 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:10.880 they could and cal well actually that was the drought. 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.280 But I think the drought was also tied into the economics. Sure, 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.080 but they couldn't fill up swimm pools that they started 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.120 skating in swimming pools. Well, yeah, if you have a drought, 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:21.040 then you lose your crops. And if you lose your crops, 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.960 you lose money, a significant sector of money exactly. So 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:30.040 good news. We have half pipes now and quarter pipes 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:35.720 and peralta they're still around, right, I think bad news 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.520 is like you said, it had a devastating effect for many, 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.560 many years on the United States. So Oakin starts to 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:43.640 look around. He said, you know what, things are pretty 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.320 bad here. One might even say miserable. I haven't gotten 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.040 any acclaim for a while. Yeah, nothing's been named after 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.640 me in a while. So let me create this new 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:55.960 uh list, new method for looking at the economy. And 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.320 it turns out to not be like a look over 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.240 a period of time or anything, but just sort of 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.960 like a polaroid of that day and not just that 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.720 day for like the country as a whole, or um 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.520 for the FED or anything like that. But what he 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:17.080 did that was different was he looked into what the 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.960 what it was like that day or that year for 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:24.400 the average American in their daily life. And he called 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:29.280 it the misery Index. Yeah, and it was very rudimentary 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.240 at the time. It was just simple calculation of the 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.440 yearly rate of inflation plus the unemployment rate. Yeah. So 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:41.040 if you have like five percent inflation and two percent unemployment, 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.320 you have a seven percent misery index. It's as simple 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.440 as that. I don't know why it got so much, 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.320 you know what. It was hailed as a big deal 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.560 because I think Oakin had a a a knack for 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.840 noticing things that seemed obvious in retrospect, but at the 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.400 time no one had ever noticed before. I'll buy it. 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.800 Thank why not? Alright, So now he has this index, 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:04.920 and not only can he look at a snapshot of 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.880 that day, he can go back because he was a 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:12.000 a data walk sure he could look at data throughout history. Well, 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.560 at least in nine, Yeah, which is when we started 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.160 recording unemployment, like we said, which must have been frustrating 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:22.000 for him because our um our inflation rates data goes 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.880 back to nineteen fourteen. But that's only part of the equation. Well, 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:28.240 it must have been like, oh, sure, and to be 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:29.920 able to look at the Great Depression, you could have 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.680 learned a lot, you know. Uh. So he went and 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.400 he looked back, and he says, here is what we've noticed, 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:39.280 and this is so obvious to me, uh, that that 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.920 presidents and political parties are brought in and out of 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.520 office largely depending on how the economy is doing. Yeah, 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.200 but they kind of proved it, but not even just 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.320 how the economy is doing. Like he he was saying, 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.680 like the misery index you can use to predict whether 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.560 the the presidency's going to change hands politically. Yeah. So 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:03.040 nineteen fifty six, Uh, misery index is six point five three, 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:08.760 which is great. That's during like, yeah, very low, Mr Eisenhower, 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.320 President Eisenhower, and he got reelected because things were pretty good, 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.680 right as far as the misery index goes. Yeah, Yeah, 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.000 everybody was pretty happy, even though they didn't really know 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.280 what the misery index was because it wasn't invented yet. 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.640 They just had a general sense. Well, yeah, they didn't 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.199 call it that at a time. No, They're just like, 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.080 seems fine to me. You're miserable. We like, no, I'm 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:35.760 not miserable, are you. So in Johnson came to the 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.320 end of his term and the misery index was up 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:40.240 to eight point one three, and then he had his 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:44.760 Democratic successor, Hubert Humphrey in line, and because the thing 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.600 had crept up, people a little more miserable and they said, no, 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.479 get out of here, I want Mr Nixon in office, right, 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.679 And I guess I'm not. I'm not sure about this. 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:58.160 So I don't understand why Johnson was replaced by Humphrey 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.760 by the Democrats and in this article, and it seems 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.120 to be because of this misery index that it would 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:11.439 have predicted that. But he was the incumbent president, so 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:15.280 let's see, so he was he would have should know this. No, 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:17.680 he yeah, he was a one term or technically one 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.320 in a third or one in a quarter because he 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.520 took over after Kennedy's assassination. But if his term was 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:25.199 up in sixty eight, then he would have won the 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:29.560 sixty four election. So he technically I think would have 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.359 been able to have been president. Again, I'm not sure 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:34.479 we could have found this out too sure, but I'll 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.600 bet there's somebody out there who can explain it to us, 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.760 and so email us, will you? Uh? At any rate, 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.719 Nixon gets elected and um, the misery index shot up 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.720 to eleven point six seven during the first term, but 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:50.200 then started to this decline enough that he did get 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:54.680 re elected. Um. But then uh in n with Watergate, 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.400 the misery index leapt all the way up to seventeen 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.119 point oh one. That's not good. Now, that's that is 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.840 the all time high at the time from what I understand. UM, 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:08.240 and that happened around nineteen seventy four, which meant that 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.920 when Watergate broke, some people who really subscribed to the 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.000 misery index say Watergate might not have been quite as 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.960 big a deal. If um, the misery index have been 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.280 low at the time, he might have been able to 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.399 squeak by without resigning or being forced out of office. 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:26.720 I think everyone has more leeway if things are great, 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:31.760 you know. But he his his his his currency had 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:35.040 been spent. Man. I watched all the president's men a 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:39.240 few weeks ago. Again, you ever seen that great, great movie. Yeah, 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:42.480 I've always meant to really really good and just sort 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:44.000 of like, they don't make a lot of movies like 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:49.520 that anymore. Spotlight reminded me of all it's good. It's 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.400 just I call it movies for adults. You know. There's 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:55.720 no chase scenes or anything remarkable. It's just good dramatic 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.520 movie making. Yeah, good stuff anyway. Wait, what's wrong with 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.200 the chasing? Uh? What's wrong with chase? No, there's nothing 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.960 inherently wrong with this, but I know what you mean, 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:07.800 just for the sake of a chasing, which we see 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:09.440 a lot of these days, you know what I mean, 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:11.840 Like Mark Ruffalo is chasing a priest in a car 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:19.360 and spotlight. Yeah, um, where were we? Okay, we're with Nixon. Um, well, 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:21.440 not with Nixon, you know what I mean. Ford comes 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:25.359 in office for a short time, and he actually managed 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.200 to get the misery indext year down. Well. I think 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:30.080 just the fact that Nixon was out. I think that 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:35.200 probably helped um you know and inspire like consumer confidence 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.680 in the like. So it crept back down to twelve 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.439 point six six, but not enough to keep um, the 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:44.560 Democrats and Jimmy Carter from coming into office and Carter 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.000 actually cited the misery Index. It was relatively new at 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:49.800 the time. He talked too much about it, but it 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:51.760 was it was a g whiz thing that you could 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:53.800 really just point to, like this post this, This is 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.960 the misery index. Can you can you hear me? That's 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.919 my car? But that was his amous quote, can you 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.560 hear me? It came back to haunt him though, to 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:05.879 say the least, because he talked a lot about the 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:10.920 misery Index, and then in his term the it reached 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.639 an all time high of twenty one. Yeah, which, man, 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.159 I really think that shock to the system under the 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:23.080 oil embargo, um and plenty of other stuff. This stuff 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.159 gets laid at Carter's feet, I think unfairly in a 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:30.280 lot of respects. Well, I mean, I would love for 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:33.040 someone to really that really knows their stuff to explain 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:38.040 to me exactly how much a president's influence has on 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.760 the economy and how long it takes for that to 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.640 bear fruit. Yeah, I would love to know that too. 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:48.440 I think though, Uh, the guy who came after Carter, Reagan, 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:54.000 is a pretty sterling, unassailable example of an impact a 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:56.879 president can have on the economy, whether you agree with 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.720 his politics or his economic policies are not. He most 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.879 decidedly had an effect on the economy. Yeah. I just 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.720 remember hearing one time. I need to look this up, 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.960 but somebody told me once that that the economic impact 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:13.359 of the presidential a four year term is felt the 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:15.960 most like eight years later or something. Yeah, that makes 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.480 sense to me. Economies don't move on a dime. Yeah, 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.000 I just I don't know if that's talking lumbering things. 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.439 They aren't fully understood by anybody. Yeah, it's interesting to 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.520 me now more than ever before though, because remember economics 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:31.040 used to I know, I was really really surprised when 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:35.840 you suggested this one. It's slightly more interesting to me. Oh, 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.280 just wondering things like that, and during an election season, 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.439 like are the decisions we make now gonna affect us 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:47.359 in one year or two years? Eight years? Uh? Yeah, Well, 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:50.040 if there's any economists who are still listening after that 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:54.240 initial remark about the new astrology, we'd love to to 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.560 get a primer on how long it takes for a 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:59.640 president to impact an economy, if they do at all. 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.040 I'm sure it's a arrange, you know, it's not like 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:05.840 starting it eight years and really, honestly was Carter that 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:10.320 band or was he a victim of cross stars. Yeah. 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:12.680 I mean you can make a case where a lot 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.600 of bills of presidencies not being directly at their feet. 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:21.080 But you remember that, uh Simpsons where they unveil a 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:24.320 statue of Jimmy Carter in Springfield and on the pedestal 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:28.080