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Lisa and I are pleased to announce the arrival of the newest member of the Roberts family:
Helen Marguerite Roberts
Mom and baby are doing splendidly.
Deo gratias!
Yesterday, Lisa and I listened to songs from the 30's on XM Radio's It: the History of Pop program. As was often the case during the Great Depression, one of of the songs talked about being a millionaire. Lisa mused about what it meant to be a millionaire in 1931 compared to today.
Well, turns out you can get a fairly easy answer to that question. Wikipedia's entry on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) includes a graph of prices and inflation for the period from 1914 – 2006 (click the "Continue reading" link below to see the graph).
So what's the answer? As you can see from the graph below, the CPI was around 13 in 1931 and today is just above 200. That's a factor of 15 increase. Thus, a millionaire in the early 30's would be about a 15-millionaire today.
Rumor has it that Al Gore's citation awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize reads: "Thank you Al Gore, you're super awesome!"
[warning: language]
Carnac the Magnificent, that is.
Fortune magazine reminds us that ten years ago, at the ITxpo97 conference, Michael Dell said that he would "shut it [Apple] down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
As the stock chart above shows, it's a good thing Steve Jobs didn't take Dell's advice.