UK Misery Index suggests more unrest to come

 

This chart shows the UK "Misery Index" (Inflation rate plus unemployment rate percentages) since the 1970s. I've overlaid the major incidents of civil unrest (of which there have been a steady stream) along the way. Click on the image to see it full size so you can read the labels; (I've used black and white on the labels to break them up visually, but the two colours don't signify anything other than a crowded chart).

The dotted horizontal line plots our current point on the chart, 13.3,  so we can compare past with present. Looking at the trend above and below this line, it seems that we are possibly at an inflection point. We spent much of the 1970s and '80s above this point and I count 10 riots between 1975 and 1985. Contrast that with the last 15 years, which have been below our current point on the chart. Although we've had demonstrations against the Iraq and Afghan wars and other political protests in that time, I only count 3 riots on the chart; excluding the most recent ones in November 2010 and August 2011, both of which happened soon after the misery index took a huge leap towards the line of reckoning.

In short it seems that below, say, 13, on the misery index, people are inclined to protest against governments but once we go over that level, the tendency to start rioting instead of marching with banners increases rapidly. Given that the economic forecast for the near future indicates no growth on GDP in the coming quarter and unemployment is set to rise next year as government cuts take effect, it seems reasonable to expect that more rioting, on a larger scale than those we saw in August, is an inevitability (and possibly a regularity) in 2012.

Worringly, the graph seems to be currently trending in a similar pattern to that  of the early 1970s, just before the 3 day week was enforced on the back of an oil crisis. Let's hope it doesn't get that severe this time round. But with Europe looking set to implode any day now, a crumbling USA and unrest building all over the world, the next year doesn't seem to offer many rays of hope.

Sit tight, be right.