Our annual Tax Misery Index, meanwhile, shows a similarly enduring drawback for China (and Japan).
At 143% (based on tax rates in effect this year) Germany's Misery Index isn't Europe's highest.
The Carter years expanded our economic lexicon with the concepts of Stagflation and the Misery Index.
The Misery Index was cut in half and the team would be in power for twelve years.
FORBES: How Does The Current Republican Ticket Compare To Reagan/Bush?
Taken together, the reforms promise to knock Germany's Misery Index figure from 143% to under 124% --a huge competitive boost.
For now the tax picture, as was reflected in our annual Misery Index of combined top marginal rates, has darkened.
The sum of their coordinates maps the "misery index, " unemployment plus inflation.
Economist Arthur Okun developed the original Misery Index in the 1960s.
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That explains why unemployment correlates almost perfectly with the Misery Index.
Top ten states ranked by the housing misery index are shown.
FORBES: By Jed Kolko ( @JedKolko), Trulia��s Chief Economist
That honor goes to France at 193% --seven points higher than when FORBES GLOBAL last published these figures ("The Misery Index, " FORBES GLOBAL, Dec. 28, 1998).
Jimmy Carter, running for president in 1976, summarized the state of the economy by emphasizing the "misery index" the inflation rate plus the unemployment rate.
What does the housing misery index mean for the election?
FORBES: By Jed Kolko ( @JedKolko), Trulia��s Chief Economist
One test will be the political urge to soak the rich with higher levies--Australia's top personal income tax is already in the upper reaches of our annual Misery Index.
When you show them murders in drug cultivating areas are more than double the national rate, they quickly calculate their personal misery index, including alcoholism, prostitution and spousal abuse.
Any housing speeches for Super Tuesday (March 6) should be given on the trail in Idaho or Georgia, which have the highest housing misery index of the many states voting that day.
FORBES: Misery Loves Campaigning: The Housing Misery Index and the 2012 Election
With that in mind, I asked one of our summer interns, Seth Miran, to come up with a Misery Index of common levies on travel (such as airport rental car excises) in a dozen major U.S. destinations.
He cut the misery index in half.
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By that measure, the Everyday Price Index shows inflation galloping ahead at an 8.1 percent annual rate, a reading that would put the current Misery Index at a Carter-like 16.4 percent not a good recipe for re-election.
By that estimate, the Obama Misery Index comes in at 13.9 percent, higher than that of any president up for re-election since Carter in 1980, but not too far above the 12.4 percent misery reading when Ronald Reagan ran in 1984.
However, some states have delinquency and foreclosure rates that are out of line with price declines: Florida, New Jersey, New York, Illinois and other states where foreclosures must go through the courts have more homes stuck in foreclosure than states with similar price drops, boosting their misery index scores.
FORBES: By Jed Kolko ( @JedKolko), Trulia��s Chief Economist
Search for "Miran and Misery" at www.forbes.com to see how this index was compiled.
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