Perspective - Jeff Jacoby delivers in today's Boston Globe: "Voices of reason keep trying to point out that conditions are not nearly as bad as they were the last time consumers were this despondent. That was in May 1980, during the final year of the Carter administration, when the "misery index" - the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates - hit an excruciating 21.9. Inflation was then at 14.4 percent; unemployment was 7.5 percent. The numbers today are 5 and 5.5 respectively." This explains the absence of Okies heading west to pick oranges.