Despite the rise in unemployment and inflation the rise in misery has flattened out in Guido’s Misery Index, the reality-based antidote to Dave’s blue-sky happiness index. Given the budget deficit is still the biggest economic challenge the country faces today, the GMI adds on the government’s deficit divided by the GDP taken from the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Retail Prices Index + Unemployment rate + ( Public Sector Net Cash Requirement / GDP ) = Misery Index
Plugging in the latest available figures for January 2010 gives you:
4.8% + 7.9% + (20.7 / 331.2 x 100) = 17.77
After a brief suggestion that things were getting better, Britain seems stuck back in the blues…
