Saturday, December 6, 2008

Depression Coming? How about some Campbell's Soup.

This is a Campbell's Soup magazine advertisement from December of 1929. Although the crash of 1929 was in October the full blown depression era was just beginning and would last through most of the 1930's. Interestingly the cost for a can of Campbell's Soup in 1929 was a whopping .12 Although that might not sound like much compared to today's cost of about 1.25 per can it is important to note that if you'd put that .12 in average DOW listed blue chip stocks at the time it would have become by now approximately $4.40
DOW 200 vs current DOW 8400 = 42x increase. So be thankful that Campbell's soup remains ... a bargain even in these troubled times.


Miami History: Essex House Hotel


Essex House Hotel
Originally uploaded by Photog*Phillip
The Miami area has a history going back over 1000 years to the native Tequesta Indians. The Tequesta were displaced by the Spanish who built a Mission in Miami in 1567. However Miami's rise to global prominence as a key center of US culture and commerce is a a fairly recent phenomenon, fueled in part by a large influx of Cubans after Fidel Castro overthrew Batista in Cuba in 1959 and hundreds of thousands of Cubans left the Island, many to settle in the USA.