True. However stock market returns have averaged about 10-12% a year going all the back to 1830. Furthermore, they've beaten real estate, bonds, gold and every other asset class over any given 15-year period. Even people who bought the day before the great crash in 1929, came out ahead of those who put the same money into real estate... as long as they didn't panic and sell at the bottom as most people did.
Of course we can't expect every decade to be like the 90's, but I think it is a reasonable expectation that the 200-year trend will continue barring a kurzweillian singularity or other freakish phenomena.
Of course we can't expect every decade to be like the 90's, but I think it is a reasonable expectation that the 200-year trend will continue barring a kurzweillian singularity or other freakish phenomena.