Carter Redo: Obama Economy now worce than Carter Economy

Russ Steele

I do not know about you, but we lived through the Jimmy Carter economy and it was scarry, high interest rates, soaring fuel and energy prices and rapidly declining buying power.  We were starting to think about our Air Force retirement and building a home in Nevada County. We initially designed a highly fuel efficient thermal envelope home, but out contractor talked us out of building it, noting that while we would be snug in winter we would be frying in summer.  I redesigned a compromise that works.  We traded in our Travelall for a more fuel efficient VW Bus that could carry four children and two adults. My point, living through the Carter economy and impacted our quality of life and our future planning.

Can we compare the Carter economy with the Obama economy?  The current economy feels like the Carter economy with food and fuel prices soaring, but the governement claims it is nothing like the Carter Economy. One reason is that the governement does not calculate the inflation and unemplpyment numbers that same way they did in the 1970s.

However John Williams at Shadow Stats compiles economic data for inflation and unemployment the way it used to be calculated pre-1990.

Based on that data, the CPI inflation rate is over 10%, and the unemployment rate is over 15%. The Misery Index is the sum of the current inflation rate and the unemployment rate. If it were to be calculated using the older methods, the Index would now be over 25, a record high. It surpasses the old index high of 21.98, which occurred in June 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president.