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US "Misery" At Fresh 28 Year High
It was just three months ago that we posted that the US Misery Index (inflation plus unemployment) hit a 28 year high. Today we boldy recycle that headline, and pretty much the entire post, as the US Misery Index just hit a fresh post 1983 high. Really nothing to add here: #WinningTheFuture.
Chart: Reuters
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Are Central Bankers included in this survey?
No, they were too busy monkeyhammering gold this morning.
Misery?
This is why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=xOAgT8L_BqQ&feature=player_embedded
Misery? Ferrari just sold out of all inventory. High end diamond brokers best retail numbers.
Eat the rich, bitchez.
I've asked this before, but what company is the largest producer of guillotines?
I don't usually like equities, but that's a company I could get behind.
Zero Hedge should start manufacturing guillotines. They'd be premium-grade guillotines...sort of...you might need to drop the blade once, or twice, or thrice to cut off a fatcat's head...but does it matter?
Personally, I'd prefer Vlad's method--or even just locking them up in cages and leaving them to starve to death. They don't deserve a quick death.
Vlad, yes... Impalement would be a wonderful way to decorate the sidewalks of Wall St.
The guillotine blades must be dull. Sharpening them would be considered a capital offense. I think the blade should also be powered not by gravity, but from a slow hydraulic piston.
Wait. Wait. How about rats, impalement and a guillotine all wrapped up in a Rube Goldberg contraption that dispensed Pirate's Booty and Sour Cream and Onion potato chips to the angry mob?
Dude, it's Wall St. A Brazen Bull would be the most appropriate form of execution.
Starving rats in cast iron pots tied to kleptocrat's bellies...new reality TV show. Please submit possible show titles.
"Of Rats and Pigs." I think a nod to the depression era novella is appropriate.
welcome to "WHAT'S EATING YOU!!!" Today's contestant needs no introduction, lets all welcome Lloyd Blankfein.
All right Lloyd, spin the wheel and lets see how many hungry rats you get in your iron cage. By the way today's episode is brought to you by Purina Rat Chow, which is perfect for feeding your favorite rodents, when you don't have a fatcat banker handy to munch on.
Great job Lloyd, looks like your've spun a 3. Now lets wax your belly and apply a nice coat of honey and ants to get things warmed up.
So "What's Eating You" would be my best game show name. People will get bored with just rats, so with a nice vague name, you can use any carnivore in the animal kingdom. I think it should run on CNBC and Bloomberg. Charlie Rose would make a great host since Richard Dawson isn't available due to other commitments.
"I killed the banks!" said Andrew Jackson on his deathbed. He didn't boast in killing bankers.
That should be our goal too; but some collateral damage is inevitable.
Agreed, but we can still fantasize...
I like the rat in a cast iron pot idea. Leaves too much to the imagination for the viewing audience though. Would need a "rat cam" to document the slow escape.
Of course it's metaphorical; the guillotine, lynching...comfy chairs. "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAn7baRbhx4
Oh and the rat cam...splendid idea. I suppose today it would could be glass or plastic and see through...could have an internal cam too I've seen the commercials.
Track that to the price of gas at the pump.
I think you'll see an almost 100% correlation. Happiness in the US is a cheap tank of gas, so you get to nowhere faster and cheaper and spend money you don't have on things you don't need.
Such is how it looks to me. Anyone?
ORI
Curse of free Energy
Correlation is not causation.
My problem is the gas in my "tanks" takes my to my earnings, pumps shuts off @100 with a 1/4 to go... so for me happyness IS a full tank @100
My sympathies Europe... really
ORI, the link you provide is one perspective. Yes it is a meaningful part of the problem but the overall trend and issues are far more complicated than the curse of so-called 'free energy'. The present world system continues to be run by the Elites and it is warped, twisted, broken, FUBAR. We were promised Hope and Change but we only got more of the same and worse. Is some other event coming down the pike that leads to more promises to change the present system? I believe so but it will more of the same and perhaps a much worse system.
True ZA, but I think it is a pivotal one, yes?
ORI
I just moved right outside DC. What a cluster-f***.
You should see these yups in A4 converts. complete frat broboys; just suck suck sucking away.
Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
Jeez, and we have this till 2016, how bad is it gonna get?
The answer to this question lies with you, no1 forces you to put up with this, just pack your bags and go
Yes, but misery is transitory see, its the S&P that counts.
If this was posted anywhere but here, I would assume you were being serious and an epic idiot. It's good to know your audience.
I'm quoting Tim and Ben. Otherwise known as Benothy.
Haha!
Why not Bim?
100 days till Christmas.......
Fuckers on cnbs expect a great season.
Funny, stores aren't even hiring seasonally. All Christmas is money to Chinese shit we don't need, and debt we can't afford.
I don't do Christmas myself......traditionally hamburgers on the grill. No presents.
Holidays are only corporate backed events: they've long since lost any of the original meaning they were supposed to hold; I quickly learned of the real meaning of "holidays" when I used to work retail.
That actually sounds like a really nice Christmas.
I was a child of the 50's and 60's and a young adult of the 70's. Based upon that chart I now understand why I was so miserable.
Now I will soon be a retiree of the 10's, 20's and 30's. God help me, but here comes more misery.
And thats saying something , you were born in pretty much the golden age. If a plebian born in the 50s couldnt find happiness then thats really saying something about plebs.I now see why the Aristochracy act like they do. Whats the alternative? Being a miserable git basically.
-nothing personal CD , just an observation.
Nothing personal taken.
The Golden age? Really? That observation all depends upon what you value as opposed to what the machine society tells you to value. We all know that the machine has been lying to us for centuries. So the Golden age is all about relative perception. It all depends upon the measuring stick the machine tells us is the only one to use. For every positive you bring out I can bring out a corresponding negative.
Welcome to the machine.
Although a tad bit younger than the participants in this conversation, I was, nonetheless, quite familiar with a certain "machine" in my youthful days...wore the "tires" flat -- being plastic, quite literally...
http://www.collecttoys.net/1970s-Toys/images/Big-Wheel.jpg
Big Wheel racing is not just for little kids anymore. There are now Bring Your Own Big Wheel (BYOBW) racing meets across the country. One can view this as going full retard or reliving the good old days. So is/was the Golden age Big Wheeling at 5 years of age or 45?
Don, is that you up front leaving some fingertip skin on the pavement? Looks like you have an understeer issue there big boy. :>)
"full retard/reliving the old days..."
Ha -- I'd have to say, in response to your thought, clearly the former...that said, however, these guys are rubes. Man up, people -- no kid worth his Pop Rocks and Bub's Daddy grape gum stick ever wore a helmet on a Big Wheel. That's cheating. It simply wasn't done. I recall my old model had the hand brake for easy spin-outs -- facilitating equally easy sidewalk pile-ups.
Ah yes, the green machine...
They are wearing helmets to race Big Wheels?
WTF?
We are doomed.
I suspect they are 'racing' on city property. Thus it's helmets......or kindly leave and take your Big Wheel with you.
What about the poor folks who can't afford Big Wheels?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnsO-VF7i2c&feature=player_embedded
The machine has been lying to us from year dot.
But yes , the mid 20th century was a golden age for mere schleps like us. And you know it. Unless you felt you were somebody important in a former life youd be bending over for the machine even more than you have to now.
Maybe that's why we are so cynical :It's all downhill from here and that index will goto the moon before a system reset changes society for the better. But the period of change will be very very ....challenging.
CD
most people do not know what Misery really looks like but we both know they soon will! May Faith have mercy but it still won't help! AM "only" 46 now, still "young" but I ve seen things, Jesus, knowing it will happen here too makes me angry and sad!
i live in boca raton, fl-still off-season, best restaurants full, best shops full-only trash sitting at the curb
They better live it up while they still can. Geesh, you can't possibly think that is an economic indicator, right?
Don't think we are going to see roaring 20's 2.0 ...
Damn. Too bad......because I was looking forward to a Flappers revival.
CD, I have seen many, many images of the 'Twenties, but my favorite remains this one. It is the embodiment of the devil may care audacity which was the Jazz Age ( ...with a little help, no doubt, from some garter flasks and bathtub gin ). Here's to better days...
Chicago. December, 1926.
http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfwib7HSpL1qg8r34o1_400.jpg
In high heels no less.
Wait a minute Don, did they have photoshop back then? :>)
Incredible shot, yes...doing the Charleston on the rooftop ledge of the Sherman Hotel. My kind of girls. ;)
Someone knows-how the dynamics of massive destruction of wealth. When we shake an orange tree, do oranges fall from it?
Unless this is sarcasm whose subtlety escapes me, I think it says a lot about the mindset of the people on this site that wallowing in self-created misery gets all up arrows.
So not to you specifically, but to those who really represent that mindset:
JFC, this isn’t the Black Plague, the Holocaust…not even the Spanish Flu of 1918 (or thereabouts). You live infinitely better than 90% of the world, and better than 99.9% of people who have ever walked the Earth. You also have that most rare of human gifts: choice. You can find a small piece of land in the middle of nowhere, grow your own food, do some hunting, watch the sun come up and go down, and ignore the rest of the world. You want happy? Stop going out of your way to look for reasons to be miserable. Happiness isn’t shallow, it isn’t naïve. It’s the way to live life. Misery isn’t deep and it isn’t "aware". It’s a choice, a bad choice, a useless choice.
Out here I was taking care of a young boy who had developed acute myelogenous leukemia. The first hospital we went to had cement floors, nowhere near enough beds, sketchy power, and no medicines on site. (This land has the lowest per capita government spending on health care in the world.) Doctors wrote out prescriptions, and I had to run about town going to pharmacies to get everything from the chemo drugs to needles and cotton swabs. Every day the doctors said he would probably die that night. Every morning he was still alive, though rotting away and in great pain. Edemas and open sores all over his body. Still he'd smile when I'd come in, and ask me to tell him stories about me flying him around in a plane once he got better, or driving a fast red car. For four months he fought. Nobody survives what he had, but on rare occasions they go into a brief period of remission. Thirty other kids came and went while he was in the hospital. Went is dead. After four months, despite weighing about forty pounds, he walked out of the hospital. The doctors all cried. He put on weight over the next half year, and spent his time going back to school and playing soccer with his buddies. The leukemia returned. Chemo didn't help. The hospital sent him home to be with his parents and siblings. His teeth fell out and he smelled putrid. One morning he pointed to a picture on the wall of him when he was healthy. Though he could barely speak he said, "Remember him, not me." That was it.
He was twelve when it took him. Despite the pain, the fear, and real misery, he did not complain or whine about anything. He didn't care about some index, he cared about getting as much as he could out of whatever was handed him and whatever time he could squeeze out. He dealt with it.
Whose life do you think you are living?
Chindit13,,
Misery +1000 You do good work my friend...Thanks for sharing WOW!
Chindit13 You have a knack for writing to say the least.
Thank you for that, putting things into perspective can hurt sometimes.
Looks like a breakout to me. Barry the Magificent is toast.
Worse than toast when folks look at all the dollars flowing to Europe to make those strangers happy!
the bernank doesn't care about cat food eating grandmas, jamie needs a new yacht!
I will gladly sell him mine.
Does that use the real numbers as have been historically used and provided at shadowstats.com or does it use the gov't manipulated and forged numbers? If it uses the gov't provided numbers, then the misery index would be substantially higher.
You beat me to the question.
What would it be using consistent formulas for both those numbers?
30.
Using ShadowStats numbers, we are at freaking 30.
That's interesting to me, because I remember 1983 -- and this year definitely feels worse to me than 1983. The ShadowStats numbers feel right. In addition to having the advantage of being honest.
Snapshot of real inflation old price to present price, numbers dont lie.
September 11 – Ten Years Later (Selected Statistics) « Across the Street
to be revised higher next week
I am reporting this posting to Attack Watch.
http://youtu.be/-XYKRokgX00
+1
Why bother? I assume everyone who posts here or is registered here was reported in advance before the thing went public.
it pays to spoof your ip through a proxy...
hmmm, sounds like a business opportunity, setup a server in a bunker in Switzerland to run proxy for all ZH'ers for a measly oz of silver each?
Fuck 'em. I'm on the "teerrrrist" watch list already, which is why I HATE flying.
Next time, I'll wear a depends and eat onions rings and dark beer for 6 hours, shit myself on purpoose, hehehehe
But I'm a mean old man, should be great fun gassing them out.
:)
I like your style :-)
Next time I fly I'll go a different route if I get a patdown. Limpwristed flamboyent theatrics with a heavy lisp. I'll act very excited for the procedure and tell the TSA agent how enchanting his eyes are. Then I will attempt the loudest fake orgasm possible.
this will be bullish for stocks
Banks not really selling off that much
I fart in your general direction!
where is Jamie, I must have a word with that spoilt brat....my grandma needs her catfood!!!
ASAP
Looks like Obama has his work cut out for him if he is going to catch Carter. On the other hand. I wonder how relevant this index is based on how many shenanigans the politicians have played with when recording the CPI, PPI, etc. It seems to me we are far worse off now than we were during the Carter years.
Bullish for anti depressants. Think i'll buy some pharma stocks.
Wonderful World we live in.
Standing Headline bitchez!
Someone assumes that this worthless index uses the same.components.rd of wallet share and that budget is the same as are components of the economy representing GDP. Pathetic example. associates@pamria.com
And you're a less-than-worthless fiat stock advisor trying to drum up business on this site. Hey fucktard - how did your BAC recommendation work out for you? Book value and all, huh? Put all of your hapless clients into that one?
Shawn Anthony Mesaros
601 Union Street, Suite #4200
Seattle , WA 98101
206-933-1600
FUCK YOU.
Somebody needs a hug...
IF only I could short UNICREDIT
Just remember boys and girls, misery loves company. So lets all huddle under the table and love our misery.
It might be helpful to employ a little cognitive reframing and for everyone to embrace their inner masochist.
I prefer to be more productive - clean weapons, check dates on supplies, rotate stacks and check guillotine operation.
With core CPI at 2% YoY, it will be hard for Ben to justify more QE.
P.S. I am assuming he is sane; please do not comment on my sanity.
@pamriallc Go pimp your business elsewhere troll
cathy bates sez hi!
annie wilkes: [Right after smashing Paul's ankles with a sledgehammer] God I love you.
You ain't seen nothing yet, wait 'till next month!
The avatar alone earns a rec.
Will we get yelled at for being cynical?
NO. You're supposed to follow Warren Buffets "value" investing strategy. Where you buy stock in a company with a market cap of 4 billion dollars that can't make 4 billion dollars in you're fucking lifetime. Because it's a value or something.
While the companies lose massive amounts of real money and claim massive profits on ponzi money.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/29/microsoft-internet-bloodbath/
http://www.libertylobby.org/articles/2000/20000327microsoft.html
And since all the companies are ponzi fuck ups waiting to happen we are supposed to believe that mergers are going to work. And people actually get mad at Ponzi fuck up Yahoo for not selling to bigger ponzi fuck up microsoft. Because there's no way ponzi fuck up yahoo can earn enough to pay off it's ponzi.
The recent data released by the Census does not bode well for the U.S. housing market but especially for the California housing market. We’ll go into the data later in this article but suffice it to say that household incomes continue to fall while poverty continues to increase.
from The Doctor of Housing Bubbles:
http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/
Gold and Silver Miners and Metals itself collapsing.
What an absurd. Everything is fixed overnight.
Yep both metals getting slammed all week. Long term outlook still looking good. 2012 $60 Silver ought to happen.
The 'misery' of the late 70's early 80's is nothing like the misery that will sweep america now like the Black Plague.
Americans do not know what real misery is. Wait until war on our soil begins, and then they will begin to understand.
Govts and banks move to restrict personal gold purchases.
Banks, Governments Move To Restrict Personal Gold Bullion Purchases
That story has been well refuted here:
http://www.thedailybell.com/2934/EU-Banks-Limiting-Bullion-Buying
look for the comments of Abu Aardavark.
ORI
If you think personal trading of gold will remain free fair and unhindered, youre crazy.
SDO - agreed
It will be as restricted as our access to illicit drugs and raw milk
And just as succesful - all it does is magnify the black market and increase profits for risk.
In other news the foreclosure machine has been re-worked and is up and running again. The banks all want to be first into America's revitalized property management sector (aka down through the ages as landlording). Sorry squatters, time to start paying again, sorry Apple and ANF mall spending will begin to reflect reality again.
15 to 20 is more accurate perhaps. John Williams at Shadaow States shows the inflation at somewhere between 6-10%. Since the unemployment rate is 9% that means the Misery Index is up there at 15 to 20.
GL!
in 2008 Americans voted for change, in 2012 they will be begging for it on street corners
and by 2016, they will be "doing it" for change (i.e., nickels)
and by 2020 the constitution will change to Mandarin
Unexpectedly low numbers.
Trying to imagine the results if there had been an NFL lockout.
There may have been riots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzrpqkoF3rU&feature=feedu
New Clarke n Dawe
Explaining the sovereign debt crisis
Bullish for misery.
This is THE growth industry of the decade. Misery - we need a magazine so we can target our demographic and sell goods and services to this growing market segment.
Misery - Misery loves company and companies love misery.
articles for the premier issue:
Top ten most miserable cities in the U.S.
Top ten most miserable careers in the U.S.
Top ten most miserable investments.
Misery and Missouri - how to tell the difference.
Misery and multilevel marketing - get in at the bottom
The mystery of misery, how did it get so bad so fast?
Lose 20 lbs by Christmas with the Misery Diet.
Enter now to win tickets for our Marvellous Magical Misery Tour
7 expense paid days in Khandahar and a bonus week in some
shit hole in Southeast Asia - pack your Pepto Bismol now.
I'm looking for investors to get in on this fantastic publishing
opportuninty. 10k gets you a byline, 25k and you're on the masthead.
250k and over - vice president and a gold plated taser. Act Fast!!!!!
What's up with the 80's...? oh yeah, that's right, "DISCO". Yap pretty miserable.
80's was new wave. Big hair, yuppies, say no to drugs, ron & nancy.
Disco was 70's - though it never really died, just morphed into house,techno,trance,dance, etc.
70's was androgny, hippies, rock, heavy metal, folk, top 40, punk, Sid & Nancy.
Tell me that's not your bio, your just helping me out with my timeline...
Me? I'm just a flyspeck on the windshield of life, but I've seen movies...
The Grateful Dead's disco album was released in 1980, so it certainly wasn't "over" by then. :)
I'm not gonna try to defend an intangible line of demarcation, but 3 quick points.
1. If the Grateful Dead was doing Disco, one could argue the pendulum had swung as far as it could possibly go at precisely that moment as an indicator.
2. some people have said Jerry Garcia and Donna Summers are the same person. I've never seen them together in the same room at the same time. I don't know if its true, I'm just repeating what I read somewhere.
3. Disco was likely a manifestation of the widespread cocaine use, all that excess energy had to be expressed somehow and funky dancing was the most socially acceptable manner at the time. Though dancing in those clunky shoes and wearing all that shiny polyester had to increase the personal misery index by a good bit.
Lets talk about pop musik. Was Falco a genius or was I just high on glue?
Falco? Glue.
http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2007/06/16/
You draw nicely.
... was nice to meet you ... Prankster, Dog ... I enjoyed our little chat.
WTF? Misery Index.
Tell that to the guy who has;
1/ Lost his job and his savings
2/ Lost his car
3/ Lost his house
4/Lost his family
5/ Now has lost his visitation rights to the kids
6/ And is now standing on the corner in the rain, with a gun in his pocket - thinking.....
Maybe, that sign I made that said "will work for bullets!!" wasn't such a good idea after all?
I think gold's support is at $1775. Now we will see.....
1775...Ah, that extraordinary year. If they mean to break gold, let it begin here...
Today we have another big guy calling for more centralization of powers to stem the deteriorating forces hitting the Western world. Globalist George Soros wants a "European Treasury" to be created with the authority to tax the citizens. Mad people are trying to use the crisis to gain even more power. Should we really trust the same kind of people who got us here in the first place? Centralization has proven to be a failure over and over again in the past. Maybe we should give freedom a real chance instead?
http://www.economicfreefall.com/2011/09/soros-is-mad-and-gold-is-strong....
this must be one of those surveys that they DON'T conduct in the Hamptons.
Gordon Gekko: If you're not inside, you're *outside*!
Fuck the "Misery." You know what? Ferrai and Golfstream can't simply keep up with the demand. Where is the misery?
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-14/ferrari-proves-recession-proof-as-ultra-luxury-sells-out-cars.html
Ferrari and GulfStream.
If you can't spell Ferrari, you can't have a Ferrari.
with apologies to the Greaseman who said to his German Shepard, "if you can't say chihuahua, you can't have a chihuahua."
Actually, those who are rich enough to own a Ferrari don't have to spell anything right. They have executive assistants for that.
Wow look at those number 28k. The size of a pimple on a nats ass.
Unfortunately shadowstats.com doesn't track the Misery Index separately...at least on the free portion.
Just look at his alternate unemployment and inflation measures and you'll discover that your suspicions are correct.
solvency problem or a liquidity problem ?
If I am running out of cash to pay for my bills - i got a liquidity problem.
If I can't sell my assets to raise cash to pay for my bills - I got a solvency problem.
If the value of my assets is lower than the amount I owe on my bills - I am broke...
unless I am a government bank...
I would prefer a "This Sucks Index" it would include a response to main stream media bullshit and bungling government ineptness at everything.
The Dyson index.
It could be measured in bowling balls.
ie my life sucks so bad you couldn't clean it up with a 4 bowling ball rated Dyson Indoor/Outdoor Suckamatic 10 Thousand, with drapery attachments. Might need tweaking, it tends to get a bit wordy.
It's so pathetic how the central planners are really setting up their non-event type statements and actions by manipulating prices around most vulernable market days (quad witching-- although now it seems to be most days since there is no real market anymore) to help accentuate the proclamation that all is solved and being worked on. It's the most obvious form of psy-op manipulation there is thereby (like all their policies in the end) making it really inconsequential and if anything more problematic for the future as all trust and credibility (and ability) is thrown out the window everytime these moronic assholes open their ignorant mouths-- perhaps insane mouths.
Doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result-- that's what we're building our future upon: insanity.
So as the headlines continue to spout the same shit about standing united even though it will hurt more than it helps or someone bailing out someone else somewhere else act as good enough reasons for these genocidal maniacs to continue to impose their will upon the masses we continue to allow it to happen.
Winning!
"Winning the Future"
Obama has it right; the future has already been won! The problem is that today is a total clusterfuck.
The real numbers for inflation plus unemployment:
12% + 29% = 41%
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
http://cwcs.ysu.edu/resources/cwcs-projects/defacto
41 is more like it, but obviously you didn't receive the memo about reality and truth being outlawed.
we need a miracle like mr adoboli
It would be a LOT higher if you calculated inflation and unemployment the same way they did in the 1970's....... but clearly, things are pretty bad even with the fudged statistics provided by government