Help Building an Index

Economics Economics Questions
1

You will have to excuse me drifting to and from topics. I have never had much attention to details. Anyway, think of this phrase, ‘the poor today live like kings of yesterday’

Let’s prove it and assign a label.

What if you build a king/peasant index in which a peasant is named by a number? For a completely arbitrary example, the poor in the U.S. could be level 400 peasants, meaning they lived like kings of 400 years ago.

The levels would need to be calculated by the ratios of a few variables

F(leisure time, calories consumption, average square feet of shelter…etc.)

Any suggestions?

2

rate of sickness

number of books accessible, music etc

time it takes to correspond with someone (internet vs courrior)

electricity consumption

temperature control (air conditioner, heater)

btw i think u shuld take the log of the ratio so you can display ratios < 1 as negative bars as opposed to just really small ones. This is assuming you’d put things that the kings had better than us on the graph. Would at least make it appear more fair and balanced.

Number of people you can kill without impunity, frequency of dealing with the pope, number of concubines etc.