A long term inflation picture

The charts are fairly self explanatory, and simply show the actual prices plus show two additional lines; one for the price corrected by CPI and the other corrected by CPI + lies.

Thanks to John Williams of Shadow Stats for his excellent work on the CPI lies, but also note that we are not using his full adjustments (as of 1/2007, his "CPI" level was around 500 where ours was around 340... and the pre Clinton methodology CPI was about 275... and the actual BLS CPI-U was 202). This page updated on an irregular basis, approximately monthly.

As of August 2007, we changed the basis to the year 2000 on all charts to avoid issues of clarity due to having had two scales.

Per the CPI (alone and without 'lies' factored in), inflation has averaged 4.5% per year since 1963 and 4.7% since 1970 as of 2006 - for reference. That's a total of about 600% and 500%, respectively.

See the same charts and data, but log scaled on this page.

Dow

U.S. household net worth

U.S. individual net worth

Hourly earnings

Minimum wage

U.S. housing

Corn

Wheat

Gold

Silver

CRB commodity index

Copper

Oil

Retail sales

Non durable goods

US gov't receipts

US gov't spending

PCE

CRB livestock

CRB foodstuff

Sugar

Dow, total return

Employment cost index

Federal, state & local debt

Median family income

Cotton

Cocoa

Dow stock index Almost 90% of the Dow's gain since 1963 is inflation. Same, but going back to 1900 Over 80% of the Dow's gain since 1900 is inflation. Click here for a similar picture since 1963 for the S&P 500 Dow stock index, total return including dividends The average compounded total return per year 1900 through 2009 is about 6.1%. When corrected by CPI, it's about 2.9%... and with full with CPI+lies corrections included, its about 2.0%. In other words, over 66% or 2/3 of the total return is inflation only... and that's before fees, commissions and taxes. U.S. median new home prices U.S. median new home prices, Western region only Corn Wheat Gold Silver Copper US Federal government spending US Federal government receipts (taxes) Personal consumption & expenditures (PCE) Expenditures only Total U.S. Household net worth Source: Z1 publication U.S. individual net worth Derived from above chart by dividing by average individuals per household. CRB commodity index Source: CRB Oil U.S. retail sales Source U.S. non durable goods Source CRB Livestock Index Source CRB Foodstuff Index Source Sugar Source Cattle Source Employment cost index Source Hourly earnings Source Minimum wage Source Cotton Federal, state & local debt Median & mean family income Cocoa Source Coffee Source