[Ayoob]

About three or four years ago, I made a bet with someone that the DJIA would never break 14,000 in 2002 dollars. I said the number might change and be higher than 14,000, but not in 2002 dollars. I thought at that time that inflation would increase fairly sharply.

Here we are with the DJIA breaking that barrier a couple of times recently. I don't know what numbers to look at for inflation. At the moment, I think that the usual sources I would look at, like an article on Bloomberg or something of that nature, are unreliable. I just don't like those sources right now.

Is there a site that has information on a basket of goods and services I can add to a list and have a historical price trend? Let's say I picked a pound of beef, a gallon of milk, a gallon of gas, a haircut, an average monthly phone bill, car insurance, all that stuff. Is there a way to put that list together?

What would be really great would be to plot that against the raises that people received along that same time line. If I put a Fed Ex driver, a teacher, a carpenter, a grocery clerk, a family practice MD, and a plumbing supply salesman... how did their average incomes vary over that period?

Can you think of any resources for this?

Or, is the price of gold a good proxy for all those things put together? That would be interesting, too.

Thanks for any help.

[ColossalContrarian]

This website might be helpful for you -> Shadowstats