> It seems like wages are inflation-adjusted, but the Dow is not. It would
> be interesting to rerun the numbers, and I suspect you will get a _much_
> more impressive series if you start in 1974 (bottom of bear market,
> wages peak).
Not only is the Dow not inflation-adjusted, it's composition is changed over time to get rid of "mature", lower-performing stocks and add new, dynamic, higher-performing ones.
The Dow is, in effect, an ideological artefact of everyday life. Wages are depressingly real.
However, I was not interested in using a convenient starting point to make a more impressive splash. I simply used the available series.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"