Moody’s, the credit-ratings agency, has a new “misery index.”

The old misery index from the 1970s added together the inflation rate and the unemployment rate. The higher the number, the more miserable you were.

The new misery index fits our times well. It adds a nation’s fiscal deficit, as a percentage of the economy, to its unemployment rate.

Where is the U.S.?

We’re #8, nestled between Iceland and Jamaica. (Moody’s chart is reproduced here.)

And we’re above France, Germany, and Italy. (Remember, being at the top isn’t a good thing.)

A financial industry that was immune to market discipline for 25 years — and still is — has exacted a high price from our economy.

That price has included massive government intervention, a big cause of our huge fiscal deficit.

If Washington had properly restrained finance – consistently limiting borrowing against speculative assets like houses and credit-default swaps — in, say, 2003, it would not have faced the pressure — or opportunity — to enact a $787 billion fiscal stimulus package in 2009.

If we don’t learn our lesson this time, we won’t have to worry about economic stimulus next time. We won’t even be able to afford it, just like Iceland couldn’t this time.

— Nicole Gelinas, contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, is author of the forthcoming After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street — and Washington.