The mandate of the Federal Reserve calls for stable prices and maximum employment. One way to assess these conditions is to look at the consumer price index inflation rate and the unemployment rate, respectively. It has even become somewhat popular to look at the sum of these two measures, the so-called “misery index,” shown here. Now, you may not consider the “misery” of inflation to be entirely equivalent to the “misery” of unemployment. So, if you believe that a multiplier should apply to one of these two measures, you can use a custom formula to transform the series in the FRED graph. How this graph was created: ... (full story)