as productivity and economies of scale Keep purchasing power increasing..
The only real inflation has been asset inflation..
As to the concept of measuring The Dow in ounces of gold... That is a useful concept in general
and not used enough...
That is if you like the concept on comparative relative strength
Dow Vs Gold Tls Vs Lei Rio VS WPL TLS VS WPL
people will look for a accumulation basing and trending
Too myopically on the security Vs $$
Which $$
LOOK at a chart of TLS VS WPL
What is that trend Is there a basing and signs of accumulation
Why Not use the strongest performer on a stock market as the measure or the strongest sector
Then trends that really matter might be visible and ...
"Dow Jones at 11,750 and gold at $280 per ounce, the Dow was worth about 42 ounces of gold. Today, with the Dow at 11,000 and gold over $550 per ounce, the Dow is only worth less then 20 ounces of gold. In other words, measured in terms of gold, the Dow has actually declined in value by over 50%. To make a real new high, given the current price of gold, the Dow would have to rise above 23,000."
This really shows the power of this approach
stolwyk
I saw a web site recently that measured the Dow Vs different measures of money supply..
With the most severe.. The Dow looked like it had almost never gone up for ages...
Do not get too excited if your stock is going up against everything else It might really be going DOWN