The Dow History from 1976 to today -

[cyberpj]

just because I find it so informative when thinking about

- when the different Presidents were in office
- when the wind down of pensions and wind up of 401ks began
- when unions began to die out and corporations became more and more powerful
- when outsourcing started and as it grew


What do YOU see here?

[PETRUS]

1. I see capitalism eating everything and spewing waste. nt

[enough]

2. Well said. (nt)

[xchrom]

3. +2

[cyberpj]

6. But we were a system of capitalism for 200 years before 1976, so its not just capitalism -its greed

right?

It's Gordon Gekko and the complete unleashing of the Financial Services Industry

right?

[PETRUS]

8. I assume that's an honest question.

In which case, no - the Dow has followed a mathematically predictable upward curve (smoothing out short term gains and losses). It's just the way it works.

Financial deregulation did, however, allow that industry to charge us all higher "rents" (and deprive other industries of talent and resources). And I would agree that there have been fewer restraints on US capitalism's domestic activities in the last 30 years than there were from the '40s through the '70s.

[TheFarseer]

4. yeah, pensions switching to 401k's

When you force millions of people to put money in the stock market it will go up?!?! surely not!

[Brickbat]

5. I see the tyranny of corporate boards dedicated only to short-term profits.

[cyberpj]

7. Just had this conversation the other day - until the 80's I worked for a major corp and from

time to time we had a bad quarter and nobody died, was fired, or got beaten for it.

Those who never worked before the 80's probably had no idea that it wasn't a death sentence to have a goddamn bad quarter in business!

[Odin2005]

9. Looks like a giant Head-and-Shoulders patterm. Big crash comming?

[GliderGuider]

10. Good noticing! Yes, a hard rain's gonna fall. n/t

[cyberpj]

11. Experts I've read say so - but we'll see what tricks the financial industry comes up with this time

to keep the boat afloat. Or not.

[slackmaster]

12. I see a graph of a roughly exponentially increasing function, which would look about the same...

...at any cutoff point if you adjusted the vertical scale so that it fits in a box of the same dimensions.

[n2doc]

14. up to 1999. Not so afterwards n/t

[slackmaster]

15. If the graph ended in 1993, you would say the same thing about 1989

I predict that 10 years out the dip that you and some others are focusing on will look much less significant.

This is not to say the recent recession is anything but deep and severe and not over yet, but you are being seduced by a Gee Whiz Graph.

[n2doc]

16. And it was flat/down through the 1970's as well.

My point is that it is not exponential. Good luck with your financial predictions, very few people are good at it.

[slackmaster]

17. Just for reference, here is a bigger picture of the DJIA. Looks like a hockey stick to me.

Of course it's not actually exponential because it isn't the result of an unchanging, definable function. But it does roughly approximate exponential growth of (name your favorite figure) percent per year over the long haul.



My "prediction" is only of a general long-term trend.

[cyberpj]

18. thanks. Much better reference showing long term change. nt

[LynneSin]

13. Bush Jr sucks

:D