I’m John Kerry, and I’m Miserable.
And John Kerry eats another shoe store. John Kerry today announced his new “Misery Index”™. You remember this, right?
Inflation + Unemployment = Misery
Simple enough to understand, right? Carter used it against Ford, and then it backfired, and things got MORE miserable during Carter’s tenure.
So, Mr. Kerry has come up with a new way to make people feel miserable. Here’s what he puts in it:
- median family incomes
- college tuition
- health costs
- gasoline prices
- personal bankruptcies
- home ownership rates
- private-sector job growth
This consitutes the new middle class misery. And he says, with a straight face (although I’m not sure he can make any other kind) that things are worse now than when Carter was president.
I remember Jimmy Carter, and George Bush is no Jimmy Carter.
If gasoline prices are causing such misery, I can’t see it. I haven’t seen the lines around the block for gas. I haven’t seen the return of even/odd gas days. In fact, adjusted for inflation, gas is cheaper now than in 1976.
Home ownership rates have been increasing since 2000, so Kerry loses some ground there. Given the recession, the terrorist attacks, the war, and the massive productivity increases, the fact that there HAS been wage growth is quite remarkable. And the government can’t really do much to influence private-sector job growth except to get out of the way and let the market do its job.
So, what do I make of this new index? To quote another famous Democrat: “Miserable Failure.”