Comments on: Some people doodle pictures

By: Neil Craig

Neil Craig — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:48:37 +0000

Minor point – a “fine suit” is a very movable target – I would suspect even moderate suits will wear better, fade less, keep out the weather better & clean more easikly than in Shakespeare’s time. A “fine suit” really just means a better looking one than the current competition. The degree to which we are bettter off than in other ages cannot easily be appreciated.

It looks like the computer boost had a major & real effect, it wasn’t all bubble. There are other similarly impressive technological developments close (nanothechnology, GM crops, algal oil, space development, space elevators, & Moore’s law means computer capacity is still doubling every 18 months). It also looks like government parasitism has increased & accounts for the downturn in the last decade. Currently 50% of the economy is government spending & another potential 100% of the economy is destroyed by regulation. All that could change almost instantly.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:10:29 +0000

Yes, I have mapped this to gold too.
It clearly removes the “noise” of money and is a much truer picture.

I recommend any trader or investor measuring their asset values in terms of gold.

By: F0ul

F0ul — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:45:49 +0000

Very nicely put!

I noticed something very similar when the pound didn’t crash a few months ago – when I realised that the Dollar and the Euro are held up by the same silly system.

We are going to have to pay for all this debt somehow – War and destruction is the traditional method – not that I would recommend it!

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:39:07 +0000

Interesting post, but I think this paints a slightly misleading picture.
Your initial premise that an ounce of gold will buy the same amount of something is not necessarily correct – it may apply at the top end of the market but at the lower end of the market living standards have been dramatically improved as a result of cheap imports and mass production.
Why not plot the FTSE in terms of loaves of bread, you could use an average of the major manufacturors to eliminate some bias.
The other point is that gold is traded on the stockmarket, my understanding is that it is sold during booms and bought during busts – surely this would create considerable bias in your graph.