What would $39,000 in assets in 1918 be worth in today's dollars?

Dear 929huck-ga;

Thank you for allowing me to answer your interesting question.

According to the calculators on the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of
Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index Homepage, $39,000.00 dollars in
1918 would have the same buying power in 2005 as $492,536.42

Consumer Price Index Homepage
http://www.bls.gov/cpi/

I hope you find that my research exceeds your expectations. If you
have any questions about my research please post a clarification
request prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating
and your final comments and I look forward to working with you again
in the near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher



INFORMATION SOURCES

Defined above


SEARCH STRATEGY


SEARCH ENGINE USED:

Google ://www.google.com


SEARCH TERMS USED:

Inflation

Calculator

Consumer price index

And $39,000 invested at 10.5% (the approximate market average since
that time) would have accumulated to about $300,000,000... yep, that's
$300Million!

Paying taxes would be a bear, but keeping somewhere around
$180,000,000 isn't a bad deal.

I read somewhere that Amerricans are 10 times richer (in constant
dollars) than they were 100 years ago, and 24 times richer than 200
years ago.

George Washington died ~200 years ago.  

I wonder if we today are 24 times more happy than him...

Indeed a good question/thought Nronronronro.

In my experience it seems that people in the US today who are poor
(well below the average wealth/income of their area) seem to be
unhappier than those who are average to wealthy.  But at the same time
I've noticed that around the world (mostly 3rd world contries) there
are whole villages and towns where everyone is much poorer than even
the poor people in the US yet they are all much happier.
I think the lust for wealth (that covetting nature we have desiring to
have all that we see) drives us to unhappiness.  The people in those
poor villages/towns around the world never see wealth.  They don't see
people with cable, cell phones, fancy cars...  and so they don't feel
the need to have these things.

All this to say, people 100-200 years ago in the US didn't see alot of
fancy things they wanted.  Perhaps some nicer clothes or a bigger
carriage, but compared to what even poor people have today it was
nothing.  So I bet they were much happier dispite being poorer back in
George Washington's day.

You could also plunk your data into the Inflation Calculator at:

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/