The Dow Industrials have risen on 18 of the last 20 trading days ' not too shabby, especially if you've been on the right side of the move. You'd have to be an old-timer to remember the last time that happened, since it was in�1929. Of course, we've seen many a comparison to 1929 fall by the wayside as shares have risen, and continued to rise, in recent years. We think any comparison to the 1920s is pretty farfetched, since, economically speaking, things were in far, far better shape back then, before the country was thrown into depression. For one, the dollar had not been completely hollowed out by inflation and was fundamentally sound. For two, the country produced actual real goods rather than, mainly, 'financial products.' And three, job specialization had not reached the point where a worker could carve out a fabulously lucrative niche trading in something so arcane and inscrutable as, say, Brazilian reverse floaters. In fact, about a third of the U.S. economy was tied to agriculture, and it would therefore be no exaggeration to say that we were living off the land. One could also say that we live off the land now as much as then, since inflated property values have been a crucial source of economic growth in recent years. Not only that, we're living better than ever, even if all those folks who inhabit 1950s photo albums seem to be having a pretty good time. Hard to believe anyone would have thought life worth living when there were only three television channels to watch. The first time I ever saw a color television was in the late 1950s, in the home of a friend whose father eventually would become a TV executive. There were almost no shows broadcast in color at the
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