WEBVTT - Selects: What's the misery index? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:06.640 Hi, everybody, it's Chuck here. I guess it's time to 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:11.760 introduce another Saturday Select. I'm pretty miserable, so maybe I 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.560 should just do this one on the Misery Index. It's 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:24.640 called What's the Misery Index? And it's from June. I 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:26.759 hope you'd like it. It was a lot of fun 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:33.800 recording it. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:42.280 of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:46.360 I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant. The 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:52.280 W stands for Wayne Dr Wayne Coyne. That gets you 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.400 every time. I know, it's funny to be forty five 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:59.440 years old and named after Wayne Coyne because he's like, right, no, 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.880 he's his fifties too. But it would be weird. I 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.400 would have been named after a very uh like kindergarten 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:10.080 age Wayne con Right. You know, maybe your parents were 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:11.840 friends with his parents and they really thought a lot 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.680 about him. Play he's a real achiever, right that, Wayne? 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:19.520 Coins are going places? Okay, Uh, that was a weird sidetrack. 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:22.160 It was already out of the gate. Man, how are 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.160 you feeling. I'm good. I got a lot on your plate, 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.880 got a lot going on? Oh, you know what today is? 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:34.959 What dude? Today is the day that I leave this 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:38.360 office and I go to a shop in Edmond Park 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.759 and pick up four brand new last chance garage hats. 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.119 Oh wow, it's a big day, very big day. So 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:47.920 I have a couple of people would like to thank. 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:50.160 It's a bigger deal than it should be for a 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.800 grown man in a hat. But we all understand. First 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:58.240 of all, Katie, my custom patchmaker, this is really where 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.720 it all came together. It's a patch, isn't right? The 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:05.360 hat's not right. Katie killed it. It looks identical and 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.920 you can find her work at tulip cake dot com. 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.200 T U l I P Cake. And I said, you know, 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.720 people might ask you to make you to make them 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.040 last chance garage patches. Did you have her destroy the mold? 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:20.760 And I said, I don't you know. It's on you. 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:25.240 It's up to you legally. Uh. I'm just saying you 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.040 might get requests. You should have been like Ivan the 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.880 Terrible who blinded his architects after they've built his pal Now, 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:33.919 I don't care people, I'd love to see these things 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.600 around and la mood big hats l A m o 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.840 O d uh for big heads. Because part of the 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:47.360 problem was finding Uh yeah, man, like, uh, the problem 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:48.880 I have with hats these days. I don't look like 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.520 I have a huge chat, but they just fit so 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.600 snugly and they don't go far down enough on my head. 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:57.680 So I finally looked up oversized hats and found La 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.920 mood Hats and dude, their exactly like the old hat 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.000 except it doesn't stink. Oh yeah, like, these are great. 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:07.880 I got four brands, an improvement for sure. So are 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.959 you gonna put one in like the seed Vault in Norway? Uh? 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:13.720 Probably one there? Uh, there will be one in the 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:19.720 nuclear suitcase and um, I'll wear the other two at 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.520 the same time at the same from back. That's right. Anyway, 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:25.679 I'm super excited. So that's pretty cool. Thank you to 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:29.600 Katie and lemod Hats for allowing me to spend too 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.399 much money getting four hats remade. And speaking of while 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.720 we're thanking people, we we owe a long overdue thank 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.560 you to a guy who um made us a really 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:43.280 cool sign. Um. Oh you mean the sign this guy 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.200 made for us like seven years ago. Yeah, his name 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.480 is Matt Street. He's at fat Bison dot com. And 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:49.920 it made a really cool wood carved sign. It was 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:52.600 in our TV show. It was like like the production 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.120 company got clearance rights for it and all this stuff, 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:56.840 and we love the sign, but we just forgot to 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.320 ever thank Matt. So, Matt, thank you so much for 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:01.560 the sign. We love it. We have it hanging here 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.160 in the studio. It is a work of art and 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.120 we appreciate it. We're sorry for the oversight. Okay, is 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.640 that all? But thank you? So let's talk about the 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.360 Misery Index. Huh. Yeah, what a great transition have you? Um? 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.479 Had you heard of it before you came across this article? Yeah, 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:19.479 I didn't know a lot about it though, and um, 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:21.560 apparently it's going a little bit out of fashion lately 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.479 from what I understand. Yeah, I think so, because well, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.240 well let's get into it. Okay. It turns out economics 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.080 as a whole is in danger of going out of fashion. 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.120 I read this, I've read this really interesting article on 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.640 a on which is maybe the greatest website on the 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.200 planet a E O N dot It might be dot 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:41.960 CEO because you said that British about a lot of websites. 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.680 I think I said about a on a lot and 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:46.720 and it just seems like I'm talking about different ones. 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:51.360 But there's this article by Allen J. Levinovitz and it's 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.520 called The New Astrology, and he basically makes a parallel 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:59.880 between economics and economists and economic theory when you take 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:04.200 economics and try to apply it to future forecasting and 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:10.880 the um the BCE Chinese astrologers that basically directed the 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.719 way that the economy or the government was going to 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.719 move based on the movements of the stars. So what 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:19.440 are they saying, It's you might as well just do that. 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.120 He draw some pretty pretty interesting parallels between the two 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.560 that that economics in and of itself is not necessarily flawed, 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.039 but when it's used to forecast the future, then it 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.640 becomes inherently flawed. Yeah, this this article really kind of 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.480 kind yeah a little bit, Yeah, to an extent. I mean, 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:41.159 the Misery index is a legitimate economic tool, and it's 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.080 hit or miss in a lot of ways. Yeah. I 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.279 think one thing that hit home to me with researching 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.760 this is it just seems impossible to say that there's 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:55.000 one correct way of doing things right or that is absolute, 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.520 and you're like, you know, if you do things this way, 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.240 then there will be nothing but growth in job abs 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:04.880 and the GDP and g MP, and uh, it just 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.080 it just doesn't seem to work that way, right. I 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.880 think the problem is is that if you listen to economists, 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.800 they like to act like they do have a handle 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:14.880 on that kind of thing. But if you really look 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.479 into economics, it's very politicized. There's liberal economics and there's 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.480 conservative economics, and the fact that each one saying it's 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.279 right kind of makes you think that maybe no one is, 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.440 you know, But the misery index actually is is it 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.600 started out from a guy who was pretty good at 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:37.640 walking the line between conservative and liberal economics. Um, a guy, uh, 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.880 what was his name? Okin? Yeah, Arthur Oakin, and he 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:46.320 uh he worked on Kennedy's staff as Council of Economic Advisors, 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.880 John F. Kennedy that is, and he was, Um, I 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.760 get the feeling, one of the main influences and talking Kennedy, 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.800 who initially did not necessarily agree, but talking Kennedy into 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.960 kind of trying to an act both conservative and liberal 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.120 economic policies simultaneously. Right. They were. The US was in 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:10.440 a recession when Kennedy took office in nineteen one, um, 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:14.800 and they talked him into not only increasing government spending 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:19.560 like welfare programs. They raised the UM the minimum wage 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.440 and um some other stuff like that. But they also 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.480 cut taxes, which is, you do one or the other. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:28.920 You cut taxes and hope everything goes for the best 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:33.200 because businesses will start investing in spending or you start 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.560 you start investing in welfare programs to help your ailing 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.200 UM lower in middle classes. Right, you don't do both, 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:43.880 And Kennedy did both and it was successful. Yeah. He 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.600 well he at first he said, I don't know about this. 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.120 I don't know about this author. Mike Kennedy sounds like 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.720 a robot. My Gooda did too. Actually this is fine, 0:07:54.720 --> 0:08:01.200 but Arthur, mr okunn, I think, ok it's a weird name. Okay, 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.320 you in? Uh he talked him into it and said 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:10.320 trust me, and things worked out in that case. Yeah. Well, 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.200 and a lot of guys, including Oaken's, names, were made 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.280 by this advice that panned out like the US Center 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:21.240 to Boom. Yeah and um. Oakin ended up as being 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.840 the head of the Council of Economic Advisors for Kennedy's successor, 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.000 Lyndon Johnson. Right, yeah, and um. One thing that economic 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:34.439 economists economists love to do is um. I mean, he 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:36.480 loved to forecast and all that stuff. But it's all 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:40.720 about data. Man. They love to pour over data like 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:45.479 stuff that makes the average person their mind bleed from boredom. 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.040 They just find it fascinating. That's what they do on 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.240 Friday nights. Friday nights, they pour over data, historical data, 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.320 trying to find you know, it's like the big puzzle 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:55.920 and they're all trying to solve it, so they pour 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.199 over this data. Okin did and um he said, you 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:03.840 know what, I noticed something here between when we started 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:09.880 recording some some decent unemployment rates, which I didn't know. 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.120 I didn't know we started that. Yeah, it seems like 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.680 it would have gone back before then. But between sixty 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:17.960 he said, you know what, I've noticed that the gross 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:24.360 national product rises three for every percentage point that unemployment falls, 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.800 with a caveat that unemployment has to be between three 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:32.240 and seven point five, which is a pretty like it's 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:34.720 a pretty bold statement to say I've noticed this is 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:37.800 a definite trend. It is, and it came to be 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.520 called Oakland's law because it was verified other people poured 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.040 over the data. Like this guy's right, man, he just 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.599 keeps coming up with hits, doesn't he Um and The 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.800 reason you would want to know some arcane piece of 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.240 data like that is that if you know that that's 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:59.160 the case, then you can say, well, if we attack unemployment, 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.160 can get it down a couple of points. We can 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.840 you know, raise g d P or g MP you know, 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.520 by three percent every time we drop it. So when 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.160 we need to but bulk g m P up, we 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:18.280 just attack unemployment, right, easy peasy. Uh yeah, And everyone said, 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.400 thank you are Yeah. Things worked out pretty well for 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.199 a while, but then the nineteen seventies came along, and um, 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.760 if you we're gonna talk a little bit about stagflation now. 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.360 But if you haven't heard it, we have a pretty 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.960 good episode. What's good? I think? So it's called what 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:40.640 is Stagflation? From February twenty four, two thousand eleven. Um, yeah, 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.080 I think as far as our economics episodes that it 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.160 was not bad. I went back and listened to a 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.280 lot of it before I got bored, so it checks out. Yeah, 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.560 the first three minutes were great. Um, but yeah, I 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.400 go back and listen to that. But um, like he said, 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:56.920 he served as chairman of the c e A for 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:03.000 Johnson and then in seventy three a very unfortunate thing 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.560 happened that kind of ended up rocking the world and 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:10.200 the United States in particular with our economy. Um. So 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.520 we're gonna take a break and we're gonna talk when 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:38.440 we get back about the Middle East. All right, what 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:43.959 happened in the I'm two years old, I am negative three, Okay, 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.640 The Arab oil embargo happened, right, that's right. So at 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.040 the time, until very recently, the US was super dependent 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.000 on for in oil, like like other countries, we wouldn't 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.640 even sit down at the table with we were getting 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.600 oil from right. Yeah, we're doing and better now, yeah, 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.160 with our dependency, But back then, very bad, very um. 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.480 And it was a it was a source of anxiety 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.040 for a lot of people. And that anxiety actually panned out. 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:15.360 So in UM nineteen seventy three, Egypt and Syria and 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:20.480 a few other Arab nations invaded the Golden Heights and 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:25.160 the Sinai Peninsula to attempt to take back land um 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:29.800 from the State of Israel. The us UH was found 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.240 to be supplying arms to Israel, So as far as 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:35.600 the Arab states were concerned, the US had cast its 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.760 lot on israel side, and they were fairly peeved about that, 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:45.200 so they literally shut off the tap of oil flowing 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.840 to the United States and other countries that were found 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.040 considered to be on the side of Israel in this 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:55.000 in this war, UM huge deal. It was an enormous deal. 0:12:55.320 --> 0:13:00.480 The the this foreign dependency in the the precarious situation 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.720 that it places the United States and came to pass 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.840 and the price of oil rose thirty seven. The long 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.240 lines at the gas station were never seen before or since, 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.800 even after the financial crisis of two thousand eight. UM, 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.880 it was just insane. There was gas rationing in the 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.679 United States in nineteen because the UM the oil embargoing. 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.240 After a while, the tips were turned back on. But 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.760 that shocked to the system, screwed the economy up for 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.679 a decade. Yeah, inflation went out of control and UM 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:38.679 a very another unfortunately happened along the same timeline. Unemployment 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.400 started to creep up. And these two things happening at 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.560 the same time as devastating. Yeah, and up to this point. 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.559 So first of all, the US had never had a 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:50.679 shock to the system like that. That was one thing. 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.920 It wasn't a gradual thing it was. But the other 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:57.520 thing is when you have something that has never happened before. 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.680 You can look at it and say, wow, what happened, 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.080 and new things that have never happened before come out 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.720 of that. And one of the things was inflation and 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.200 unemployment going up, because up to this point, economists just 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.800 assumed that the two were mutually exclusive. If you're if 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:16.040 you're um. If inflation was up, prices were high, that 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.520 meant that companies could go out and hire more people, 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.560 so unemployment of course would be low. Yeah, it kind 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.520 of made sense. Well not not. After the oil embargo. 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:26.560 The shock to the system led to, like you said, 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.000 high unemployment rates and high inflation, and uh, it was 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:34.440 a miserable time. Yeah, and that was called stagflation. It 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.920 also led to skateboarding, as we all know. Oh yeah, 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.080 because of the pools, right, yeah, they could and cal 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.720 well actually that was the drought, but I think the 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:46.080 drought was also tied into the economics. Sure, but they 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.040 couldn't fill up swimming pools, so they started skating in 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:49.920 swimming pools. Well, yeah, if you have a drought, then 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:51.720 you lose your crops, and if you lose your crops, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.240 you lose money, a significant sector of the of money exactly. 0:14:55.400 --> 0:15:02.400 So good news. We have half pipes now quarter pipe 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:06.040 and peralta. There they're still around, right. I think bad 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.440 news is like you said, it had a devastating effect 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.800 for many, many years on the United States. So Oakland 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:13.840 starts to look around. He said, you know what, things 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.480 are pretty bad here. One might even say miserable. I 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.160 haven't gotten any acclaim for a while. Yeah, nothing's been 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.640 named after me in a while. So let me create 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:26.360 this new, uh, this new method for looking at the economy. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.400 And it turns out to not be like a a 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:31.520 look over a period of time or anything, but just 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:36.000 sort of like a polaroid of that day and not 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.680 just that day for like the country as a whole, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:43.480 or um for the FED or anything like that. But 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.560 what he did that was different was he looked into 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.840 what the what it was like that day or that 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:54.520 year for the average American in their daily life. And 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.680 he called it the misery index. Yeah, and it was 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:02.520 very rudimentary. Uh at the time. It was just simple 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:06.920 calculation of the yearly rate of inflation plus the unemployment rate. Yeah. 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.520 So if you have like five percent inflation and two 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.520 percent unemployment, you have a seven percent misery index. It's 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:15.280 as simple as that. I don't know why it got 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:17.440 so much, you know what. It was hailed as a 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:21.520 big deal because I think Oakin had a a a 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:25.560 knack for noticing things that seemed obvious in retrospect, but 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.720 at the time no one had ever noticed before. I'll 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:32.600 buy it, thank you. Why not? Alright, So now he 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:34.720 has this index, and not only can he look at 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.480 a snapshot of that day, he can go back because 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.600 he was a a data walk and he could look 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.520 at data throughout history, well at least to yeah, which 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:46.480 is just when we started recording unemployment, like we said, 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.160 which must have been frustrating for him because our um 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:54.600 our inflation rates data goes back to nineteen But that's 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.200 only part of the equation. Well, it must have been like, 0:16:57.320 --> 0:16:59.400 oh man, sure, and to be able to look at 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.040 the great depress and you could have learned a lot, 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.800 you know. Uh. So he went and he looked back 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.560 and he says, here is what we've noticed, and this 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.800 is so obvious to me, uh, that that presidents and 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.560 political parties are brought in and out of office largely 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.080 depending on how the economy is doing. Yeah, but they 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.080 kind of proved it, but not even just how the 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.280 economy is doing like he he was saying, like, the 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.920 misery index you can use to predict whether the the 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:32.439 presidency's going to change hands politically. So, uh, misery index 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:37.280 is six point five three, which is great. That's during like, yeah, 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:42.320 very low. Mr Eisenhower, President Eisenhower, and he got reelected 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.600 because things were pretty good, right as far as the 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.640 misery index goes. Yeah, yeah, everybody was pretty happy, even 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:51.639 though they didn't really know what the misery index was 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.959 because it wasn't invented yet. They just had a general sense. 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.199 Well yeah, they didn't call it that at a time. No, 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.800 They're just like, seems fine to me. You're miserable. We 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:05.040 I No, I'm not miserable, are you? So night Johnson 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.359 came to the end of his term and the misery 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.200 index was up to eight point one three, And then 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.440 he had his Democratic successor, Hubert Humphrey in line, and 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.360 because the thing had crept up, people a little more 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.000 miserable and they said, now get out of here. I 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:23.000 want Mr Nixon in office, right, And I guess I'm not. 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.760 I'm not sure about this, So I don't understand why 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.879 Johnson was replaced by Humphrey by the Democrats and in 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.760 this article, and it seems to be because of this 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.840 misery index that it would have predicted that. But he 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:43.679 was the incumbent president, so let's see, so he was 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:46.719 he would have should know this, No, he Yeah, he 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.359 was a one term or technically one in a third 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.600 or one in a quarter because he took over after 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.040 Kennedy's assassination. But if his term was up in sixty eight, 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:57.880 then he would have won the sixty four election, so 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.320 he technically, I think, would have been able to have 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.680 been president. Again, I'm not sure we could have found 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.000 this out too sure, but I'll bet there's somebody out 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.280 there who can explain it to us, and so email us, 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.600 will you? Uh? At any rate, Nixon gets elected and um, 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.920 the misery index shot up to eleven point six seven 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:20.000 during the first term, but then started to decline enough 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:23.600 that he did get re elected. UM. But then uh, 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.840 in nineteen seventy four, with Watergate, the misery index leapt 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.200 all the way up to seventeen point oh one. That's 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.560 not good now, that's that was the all time high 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.600 at the time from what I understand. I UM, and 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:39.280 that happened around nineteen seventy four, which meant that when 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.560 Watergate broke. Some people who have really subscribed to the 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.640 misery index say Watergate might not have been quite as 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.560 big a deal. If, um the misery index have been 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.879 low at the time, he might have been able to 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.040 squeak by without resigning or being forced out of office. 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.320 I think everyone has more leeway if things are great, 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:03.520 you know. But he his his his currency had been spent. Man. 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.560 I watched All the President's Men a few weeks ago. Again, 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.400 have you ever seen that great, great movie? Yeah, I've 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.399 always meant to, really really good and just sort of like, 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:15.080 they don't make a lot of movies like that anymore. 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:19.920 Spotlight reminded me of All the Presidents Men. It's good. 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:21.760 It's just I call it movies for adults. You know. 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.600 There's no chase scenes or anything remarkable. It's just good 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:30.120 dramatic movie making. Yeah, good stuff anyway, Wait, what's wrong 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.600 with chase scenes? Huh? What's wrong with chase? No, there's 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.280 nothing inherently wrong with the chase. But I know what 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:37.920 you mean, just for the sake of a chase scene, 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:39.680 which we see a lot of these days, you know 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:41.960 what I mean, Like Mark Ruffalo is chasing a priest 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:47.879 in a car and spotlight. Yeah, um, where were we? Okay, 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.800 we're with Nixon. Um one that with Nixon, you know 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.560 what I mean. Ford comes in office for a short 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:56.720 time and he actually managed to get the misery and 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.480 next year down. Well, I think just the fact that 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.760 Nixon was out. I think that probably helped um you 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:07.120 know and inspire like consumer confidence in the like. So 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.199 it crept back down to twelve point six six, but 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:13.399 not enough to keep um, the Democrats and Jimmy Carter 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.040 from coming into office. And Carter actually cited the misery index. 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:19.639 It was relatively new at the time. He talked too 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:20.960 much about it, but it was it was a g 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.359 whiz thing that you could really just point to like 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.159 this plus this, this is the misery index. Can you 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:30.320 can you hear me? That's my car? But that was 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.280 his famous quote, can you hear me? It came back 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.720 to haunt him though, to say the least, because he 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:37.679 talked a lot about the misery Index and then in 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:42.760 his term the it reached an all time high of 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:48.680 twenty one. Yeah, which, man, I really think that shock 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.320 to the system. Under the oil embargo, UM and plenty 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.080 of other stuff. This stuff gets laid at Carter's feet, 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.480 I think unfairly in a lot of respects. Well, I mean, 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:02.680 I would love for someone to really that really knows 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:06.080 their stuff to explain to me exactly how much a 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:10.639 president's influence has on the economy and how long it 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:14.600 takes for that to bear fruit. Yeah, I would love 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:17.120 to know that too, I think though, Uh, the guy 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:22.320 who came after Carter Reagan is a pretty sterling, unassailable 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:26.480 example of an impact a president can have on the economy. 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.720 Whether you agree with his politics or his economic policies 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:34.280 or not, he most decidedly had an effect on the economy. Yeah. 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:36.880 I just remember hearing one time. I need to look 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:39.520 this up, but somebody told me once that that the 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:43.679 economic impact of a presidential four year term is felt 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.359 the most like eight years later or something. Yeah, that 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:49.120 makes sense to me. Economies don't move on a dime. Yeah, 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:51.639 I just I don't know if that's holking lumbering things. 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.040 They aren't fully understood by anybody. Yeah, it's interesting to 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:58.080 me now more than ever before. Though, don't remember. Economics 0:22:58.160 --> 0:22:59.920 used to just bore me. I know, I was really 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.959 really surprised when you suggested this one. It's slightly more 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.879 interesting to me, now what changed? Oh? Just wondering things 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:12.080 like that and during an election season, like are the 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:14.560 decisions we make now gonna affect us in one year 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:18.360 or two years? Eight years? Uh? Yeah, Well, if there's 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:21.840 any economists who are still listening after that initial remark 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.240 about the new astrology, we'd love to to get a 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:27.840 primer on how long it takes for a president to 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:30.679