An analog is not an argument. These charts show resemblance and refuse to draw the lesson — what was different each time belongs in Field Notes, never here.

Era A

Modern primary (1948+): official, fully instrumented

Era B

Mid-century and interwar (1913-1947): official or near-official, annual resolution in places

Era C

Deep history (pre-1913): scholarly reconstruction — real, usable, a different confidence class

Line weight

Opacity is proportional to each segment's Data Reliability Score — reconstructed eras literally look fainter. A crank draws one confident line to 1790; this is the honest version.

Anachronism floors

The Cost-to-Exist ratio and the Sentiment Gap have no place on this page before the mid-century: employer health coverage and the Social Security replacement framing did not exist, so the coefficients are not rendered earlier than their floors — an honest blank, not an interpolation.

▶ play through history ½×1×

Misery Index: 8.3 points (unemployment % + CPI %) Real wage growth: -0.3 % YoY Sentiment Gap: -37.9 points vs. fundamentals

Apr 2026 Aug 2025 — BLS commissioner removed after routine revisions (see integrity events)

Starts January 1965: inside the modern primary era, where the hourly-wage record begins and every input is official monthly data. The Sentiment Gap begins in 1978 with the continuous Michigan survey — the years before are honest blanks, not estimates. The flags are dated facts; what each one meant is a question for Field Notes.