[Cowperson]

For amusement . . . . .

If gold peaked at about $730 an ounce in 1979 and you adjusted for inflation, it would be about $2,196 right now instead of roughly $1,370 that it is.

So, the price of gold, in USA dollars, has to rise about 60% to match inflation from 1979.

The S&P 500 was about 108 as an index in 1979. Inflation would have put it at about 325. Right now its 1,207.

I have an October, 1979 Newsweek in my office, bought at the time, with the cover "All That Glitters . . . . " talking about the phenomenal rise in the price of gold at the time . . . . and it was "only" about $370 an ounce at that moment with two recessions yet to come in the following few years.

Using the $370 number, inflation adjusted the price of gold would be the equivalent of $1,113 . . . . . just a little under the current value and certainly no where near the inflation adjusted performance of the S&P500 through that period.

Nice comeback by gold in the last decade - and helped by the S&P being inflation-adjusted negative for the decade - but generally gold was kind of a dud from the later 1970's.

Cowperson