Americans are feeling a lot more economic pain than the government's official statistics would lead you to believe, according to a growing number of experts.

They argue that figures on unemployment and inflation are being understated by the government.

Unemployment and inflation are typically added together to come up with a so-called "Misery Index."

The "Misery Index" was often cited during periods of high unemployment and inflation, such as the mid 1970s and late 1970s to early 1980s.Click here

Economics aside, (because who needs real facts?? ) IMHO for quite some time, the powers that be have denied what I and I'm sure others feel is the true economic situation. Some areas of the country being worse than others. I think they needed to open their eyes a bit to what the everyday folks were/are dealing with. Your thoughts?

Jim/Dean, if this ends up in politics, I understand and still you both.

 

The government continuously understates inflation and overinflates the GDP.. the formulas for calculating both have changed countless times, and oddly enough, inflation always goes down, and the GDP always goes up! Must be magic..

 

Lainey is absolutely correct about the regional aspect to this.

The northeast will be hurt far worse by high fuel oil prices than those in non or low heating areas.

for a long time we have seen regional boom bust cycles.
New england in the late 70's/mid 80's had the minicomputer boom, followed closely by the crash as PC's hit the market.
The 6 year crash was replaced by the networking boom of the late 90's.
Houston saw it's roller coaster ride on oil.

There have been some areas which have been more immune to this but that probably means they never got the boom cycle and have been left by the side of the proverbial road.

 

And to that end, the home heating oil I bought for $3.78/gallon the other day is now over $4.00/gallon.

I sure hope that article I read the other day in which some smart guy/economy guy/ stated that oil would be back to $100.00 by the fall, was correct. Funny how $100.00/barrel is sounding like a good thing.

If not, winter is going to be very very difficult for many here in the north east.

 

Alot of that is going to depend on what the dollar does. If it increases in value then oil should trend down. Supply is still tight, any little thing will
continue to casue oil to spike, a strike, somebody blows up a pipeline
ect. Just hope we dont get a major hurricane in the Gulf.