[sudonim]

What makes you think that there's anything more "real" about 1999 IPOs relative to 2011 valuations? They are both numbers based on hypothetical best case scenarios that some pool of idiots have imagined (a much larger pool of idiots in the case of stock markets).

One big difference is that today money is almost free. 1 year treasuries in 1999 were between 4 and 6 percent. Today, they are 0.30%. This has a huge influence on the availability of capital for investment... i.e. if you're a big bank, you can get money cheaply and it's much harder to lose. Does that sound "real"?